Prague - day 1

I guess that conversations praising the under appreciated benefits of forty years of communist rule are not a popular amongst Prague's chattering classes. However they exist. In fact we are travelling on one right now using the half hourly train service from Prague back to Karlstejn. The train itself is not a product of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic - it's modern, comfortable and well designed. However the rail network itself has been maintained much as it was before 1989 and remains under public ownership. Even more impressive is the way local bus services have been integrated with the train timetable, and within Prague itself the well used tram network reduces traffic in the city, making it one of the more walkable capitals we have visited.

We've spent the last two days walking around Prague, the experience made much more meaningful because we had Kristyna on hand who grew up in the city and could plan an interesting itinerary and explain what we were looking at.

Yesterday we took the train directly into Prague's main station. Like many European cities Prague developed along the banks of a major river, in this case the Vitava, a tributary of the Elbe. We spent most of the day wandering around the east side of the city. It's about a 15 minute walk from the station to Wenceslas Square. 

It's more of a sloping oblong than a square, nevertheless it's an important hub lined by grand fin de siecle, Art Nouveau and Art Deco edifices.

More importantly it is a culturally significant place with a statue of St Wenceslas at the top end of it. This tenth century duke is a foundational figure for Czech people, cementing Latin Christian doctrine to the polity that later became Bohemia. Though neither a saint nor king in his lifetime his influence was such that he was canonised and conferred with regal status soon after his death in 935.

Wenceslas Square is significant in modern Czech history too. During November 1989 persistent anti-government demonstrations, faced down the violence of the riot police and helped topple the communist regime.

 The entire area is being pedestrianised, it will be a great social space when the work is finished, sadly at the moment it's a bit of a mess. 

Wenceslas Square connects the 'new town' (which is quite old) to the 'old town' (which is very old). Some of Prague's most celebrated historical monuments are to be found hereabouts.

We marvelled at the ingenuity of the Old Town Hall's late fifteenth century 'astronomical clock' peeking over the heads of everyone else. 

The area's popularity with organised tour groups is understandable as there is a lot to see.The slightly menacing silhouette of Tyn church's twin spires -

Saint Nicholas's Baroque splendour -

...and my favourite monument in the square - the art nouveau memorial to the proto-Reformatiom martyr, Jan Hus. 

During the early of the fifteenth he openly criticised orthodox Roman Catholic belief and practice. Though widely supported in his native Bohemia he was condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake in 1415. Over the next two decades his supporters waged war - the so called 'Hussite Rebellion', I vaguely remember the name from school history lessons but had forgotten the details. Kristyna reckoned the the reason why Jan Hus's ideas were successfully suppressed

but Luther's prevailed is that the printing press was developed during the intervening century. Hus's supporters depended on word of mouth, Luther and Calvin's ideas spread across northern Europe in a matter of months through printed pamphlets. 

Like most fluvial cities as Prague spread along both banks of the river numerous bridges were built. The oldest and most famous is the Charles Bridge. The bridge itself dates from the fourteenth century and was commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IVth.

The somewhat startling Baroque religious statuary that decorate it are later additions, added piecemeal from the Seventeenth century onwards. They are somewhat ghastly in my view.

The old town hall had been somewhat crowded, Charles Bridge was packed solid, so much so that it was a struggle to take a photo that was not a random snapshot of total strangers, at least this one included Matthew and Krystyna leading the way.

We turned left on the far side of the bridge, the side streets were a little less busy. Time for a caffeine fix, as well as coffee the place also sold Trdelník or 'chimney cakes'. These are tubular cakes filled with creamy concoctions or ice cream.

They are sold as 'traditional' desserts, but Kristina who was born in Prague in the eighties doesn't remember them from her childhood. It seems they are an 'invented' tradition driven by Prague's popularity as budget airline short break hotspot during noughties. Trdelnik may be no more authentic than a 'ploughman's lunch' but they are scrummy.

We headed towards 'Vrch Petřín' a hilly green space southwest of Charles Bridge. It has a funicular up to a radio tower on the top of the hill. It's a bit of a Prague landmark as it resembles a mini Eiffel tower. It's original purpose was a little darker, erected by the Communist regime in the late eighties to block radio transmissions from the West, such as the BBC World Service, the regime collapsed before it could be used.

Our aim was less ambitious, even using the funicular to the top of the hill felt like a step too far. Where we were headed was a play area near the park entrance. Jesse had been in a buggy most of the day and though he hadn't grumped about it a grub about in the sandpit seemed in order. 

He can crawl, pull himself upright but is a couple of months away from walking independently. I think it was his first encounter with sand. He was a bit unsure about the texture to begin with, but at least he didn't try to eat it.

We crossed back over the Vitava downstream from the Charles Bridge, stopping halfway across to take a panoramic shot of the oldest part of the city. It was a couple of kilometres from here to the station. The area we walked through seemed more residential than  touristy bits we'd visited.

Quieter, and looking lovely in the soft light of late afternoon, Prague has to be one of Europe's most attractive capitals. It's compact, has a beautiful river frontage and the residential streets built in the 18th and Nineteenth centuries are graciously proportioned, their stuccoed frontages decorated in pastel shades.

Of course tranquility is not really the city's USP. Ever since the early noughties when budget airlines connected Prague to the UK the city developed a reputation as a party place, associated particularly with hen and stag dos. The streets near Wenceslas Square are full of pubs, clubs and Irish bars. The party was only just getting going when we passed through the area in the late afternoon. Groups of lads hung about awkwardly wearing tee-shirts sporting a variety of overtly misogynistic messages. Maybe the ubiquity of the 'stag do' in an age of increasing gender equality is living proof that Newton's third law - for every 

action there is an equal and opposite reaction - applies to sociology as much as physics.

Our first day in Prague had been great, made extra special from being with Matthew, Kristyna and Jessie. 

However I was glad to reach the station. According to Google Fit we had walked 11.7kms, not an exceptional total for a city visit, but Prague has cobbled streets and that made it particularly hard going.

 

 

Pilsen and Karlstejn

The countryside between Nuremberg and the Czech border is curiously underpopulated. A land of low hills and endless forests. The same landscape continues after you cross the border, but feels even emptier. I wondered if it was ever thus, or if the half century when the iron curtain divided Czechs and Bavarians had resulted in depopulation on either side of the militarised border.

These days the border is barely acknowledged - one small blue sign reads 'Republica Czechia' as you speed past a half constructed service area. This is unfortunate because the machines selling Czech motorway passes are located there. We stopped at the next petrol station in the hope they would be on sale. A very grumpy woman at the checkout pointed at a QR code taped onto the back of the till and barked, "only online, no English". Gill zapped the code and entered our vehicle details but the website froze when she tried to put in our bank card details. Gill found an alternative third party site selling a variety of passes for East European motorways. This one worked but we paid a premium price.

From the border to Autocamp Ostende in Pilsen is less than 80kms. The site is located at a leisure lake on the northern outskirts of the city. Getting there meant negotiating Pilsen's ring road at rush hour. Driving in the urban area of an unfamiliar country is always a tad stressful, traffic management systems, driver behaviour, the rules of the road and traffic signs are all slightly different. Bigger roundabouts were controlled by lights and on the whole the trams were confined to a separate carriageway, so even though it was busy we arrived at the campsite without incident.

I was simply pleased to stop driving. It's 1500kms from Buxton to Pilsen and I'd driven it over six consecutive days. Though the daily distances we covered were modest, driving day after day does take its toll. I needed to stop. 

The campsite site was basic, reminiscent of French municipal sites of yore, but with less challenging loos. 

Pilzen has an ancient city centre, but developed in the nineteenth century as a centre for railway and later automotive engineering - Skoda's main locomotive manufacturing works used to be based in the city. It is also the home of the Pilsner Urquel brewery. I suspect most of our fellow campers were here for the beer tour. 

We didn't budge from the site apart from walking to the Lidl which was about 15 minutes away on foot. The store was in a mixed area of suburban housing and apartments blocks. 

All very neat and tidy, serviceable rather than stylish, it reminded me of the outer suburbs of some of the towns we visited in Sweden - utilitarian but in a good way. 

As were mooching about in Pilsen Matthew, Kristyna and Jesse flew into Prague from Gatwick. They were heading to Karlstejn where Krystyna's mum lives. The plan was for us all to all meet up there. Luckily Karlstejn has a campsite where we can stay with good train links into Prague. Kristyna grew up in the city so can show us the sites from a local's perspective, but first we needed to get there.

Mid-morning, while Gill was at the shower block there was a sudden thundery downpour. A cacophony of hailstones bounced off the van roof, our outside mat became covered in a sleety slime as the hailstones melted. She missed the excitement completely. Clearly it was going to be a day of surprising weather. By the time we exited the campsite it was sunny, sadly this proved to be merely an interlude.

Halfway between Pilsen and Prague the sky grew ever darker. Fork lightning crackled above the forested hills to the north. It drizzled momentarily, then the rain came down in sheets. 

The trucks in front of us slowed to 60kph and switched on their hazards. Another hailstorm hit us like a thunderbolt, visibility shrank to a couple of dozen metres and the traffic slowed to a standstill. I guess the worst of the storm probably lasted less than five minutes but it felt un-nerving. Was this the worst weather we had ever driven the van in, we wondered. Maybe, though the torrential downpour on the autovia north of Milan a few years ago also brought the traffic to a standstill. We have a scratch and small dent on the back of the van as a memento because the force of the downpour snapped an elastic on the bike cover and a bungee hook thwacked into the rear panel. Happily this time the only thing we have to remember the moment are the photos Gill took from the cab. They don't quite capture the storm's ferocity.

All countries have their irritations. We came across one of Czechia's almost straightaway. If a road is in need of resurfacing, rather than fixing one carriageway then the other, and managing traffic through a contraflow, Czech road engineers simply close kilometre long sections and redirect traffic via a diversion. Sadly the nearest junction to Karlstejn from the Prague orbital was closed. 

Google maps redirected through the wooded hills above the valley of the river Berounka, the scenery was lovely, the roads alarmingly narrow, steep and bendy. Still, we only lost our way once and had to perform a tricky three point turn on a goat track.

Reception was closed for lunch when we arrived outside Autokemp Karlštejn. The big castle that overlooks the village is a UNESCO world heritage site. One thing unites such cultural hotspots, you can guarantee they will have an enormous car and coach park, so we rested there and had lunch while we waited for the campsite to reopen..

The site is beautifully positioned running along the northern bank of the mirror-still Berounka. As well as camping pitches there are a dozen or so chalets. 

A nice mix of people too, extended families, groups of young people, couples with and without kids, hikers, bikers and us. The multi-generational group next to us seemed to specialise in dance based party games, the soundtrack provided by a big boombox set on a looping playlist of Slavic Europop's biggest bangers. When they decided to go for a group hike the boombox tagged along. I imagined them trooping through the sylvan trails above the Berounka terrifying the local fauna with a blast of Verona's anthemic 'Náhodou'.

Karlstejn gained UNESCO status because of the big castle that towers on a crag above the village. It was founded in 1348 by King Charles IV, serving as an impregnable place to store the Holy Roman Emperor's Imperial Regalia, the Bohemian crown jewels, holy relics, and other royal treasures. None of these are kept here now. Only the Royal Chapel of the Holy Cross remains much as it was when it was decorated in the latter years of the fourteenth century. The remainder is a mid-Nineteenth century reconstruction as much of the castle was in a semi-ruinous state. 

The only part that I was interested in were the frescos in the chapel, but visiting Karlstejn castle is not that simple. Only guided tours are possible, one lasting 40 minutes taking in the reconstructed state rooms and available in English. A more extensive version that includes the decorated Chapel and takes 100 minutes is available once a day but needs to be booked in advance. I have an innate reluctance to joining in any group activity, one lasting almost two hours would be my idea of hell. Matthew booked the shorter one for the three of us

. 

It was conducted by a slender, serious looking young man with beautifully articulated RP English. He explained carefully the function of each of the rooms, painting a convincing picture of the Bohemian courtly rituals of the late middle ages but skirted around the fact that most of what we were looking at was a Nineteenth century reconstruction.

The eponymous village at the foot of the castle is attractive. Old gabled houses meander down the long mainstreet from clifftop castle to the river. Beyond Prague, Karlstejn is the second most visited place in the Czech Republic. Inevitably the village is full of gift shops and cafés, but it's not entirely ruined by them.

It also meant that we had a good choice of places for lunch. Even better, we had local knowhow on hand to help us pick the best one, Kristina knows the village well because her mother moved here from Prague a few years ago and lives in a small cottage in the woods a kilometres or two north of the village.

The place we chose  had an informal bistro vibe serving a modern take on traditional Czech classics. Beef with dumplings is not something we would normally eat, but it was delicious.

We stayed in Karlstejn four days. On our last evening Kristyna's mum invited us for a BBQ.

 Her garden is in a small clearing deep in the beautiful woods that cover the steep hills of the Berounka valley. We were lucky with the weather - a balmy mid-June evening.

We headed back to the campsite a little after 9.00pm . Matthew accompanied us down to the main road, I think he was concerned for the wellbeing of his septgenarian parents wandering about after dusk. In fact it was beautifully peaceful, no-one about, the air velvet soft,  trees motionless, silhouetted against the deep blue sky. No stars yet, but a bone-white waxing moon peeking through the branches - a Summer night to remember.

 

 

  

A canal in England, a field and forest in France, a river in Germany.

I can't quite remember who first suggested that it might be fun to meet up with Matthew, Kristyna and Jesse in the Czech Republic and visit Kristyna's mum, but it seemed like a good idea and a plan was hatched more or less straightaway. In hindsight we probably should have given ourselves more than 13 days between arriving back from Japan and setting off in the moho for the Czech Republic. 

However, despite being discombobulated by jet-lag we managed to tidy the garden, buy bedding plants and sort the borders and planters, drop-off my bike at a repair shop in Derby and pick it up four days later, drive the van to Leek to fill-up with GPL, then wash and tidy it, top up the oil and check the tyres, before setting off for Newhaven a day earlier than planned because DFDS demanded we check-in two hours before departure to cope with the new enhanced border checks. 

Phew! Now, three days and 740 miles later, parked for the night in a free stellplatz beneath the ancient walls of Kirchberg an Der Jagst, a small village on the border between Baden Württemberg and Bavaria we concluded that all of this was only possible because we are amazing!

In truth I don't feel amazing, Japanese cuisine upset my digestion system and the stress of jetlag followed by rushing about has triggered a clutch of long COVID related post viral symptoms, but I am confident that when we do manage to slow down I will feel much better. 

So, a quick recap. Once we had decided that it would be wise to have an overnight stop between Buxton and Newhaven we needed to find a convenient location somewhere in the Midlands close to MI. I have wasted too many words on the blog fulminating about the bungaloid nature of campsites in England, especially those operated by the Caravan and Motorhome Club. However as well as their somewhat ghastly, over-managed club sites the organisation hosts a network of small informal CL farm based sites in more rural locations. They are more to our taste. We would use them more regularly, however most of them are remote, located down single track roads more suited to quad bikes than motorhomes so we tend to avoid them. 

The Home Farm CL in Northamptonshire seemed more conveniently situated than most, not far off the MI, a couple of miles down a minor road off the A43 next to the Grand Union canal. The whole experience was a throwback to more simple times, open the gate, park up in a lovely field dotted with trees, put £15 in cash into an honesty box and drive off next morning. The facilities were rudimentary but adequate, all good.

Two things made the experience especially memorable. Firstly the location next to the Grand Union canal with a series of locks and a tunnel near Stoke Bruerne is a celebrated example of nineteenth century canal engineering, a magnet for narrow boat owners and 'gongoozlers' alike. 

Secondly people were really friendly, both the locals and the canal boat owners. We had a good chat while assisting a woman operating the lock gates while her partner edged their narrow boat through the lock.

 Next we swapped gardening anecdotes with a local weeding the flower bed in front of her garden. Then we had a rambling, but interesting conversation about this that and the other with a man who lived on a narrow boat in the summer and in his house in Florida during the rest of the year. He had dual citizenship but was planning to sell-up in the US and move back to the UK or somewhere in Europe because Trump's America was becoming intolerable. 

In an hour's stroll down a toll path in Northamptonshire we enjoyed more social interaction than we have had at home in the past year. I tend to put this down introversion, but maybe it's not me, perhaps people in the town we live in are stand-offish. I certainly think the notion that northerners are more inherently friendly than in other areas of England is a myth. Bow in east London always felt unexpectedly welcoming, despite being overrun by tourists. Cornwall comes over as a friendly place, as are the towns and villages along the Suffolk coast that we have visited. Now we can add Northamptonshire to the list.

It was good that we decided to split the journey to Newhaven over two days, because progress on the M25 around Heathrow was even slower than usual. We arrived at the port a few minutes shy of the required check-in time two hours before departure. There were a couple of dozen other vehicles lined-up and the gates were closed. I don't think people take much notice of the guidelines, including the DFDS staff.

The crossing takes four hours, 20 minutes of it taken up by a complicated manoeuvre involving ropes and winches to turn the ferry around in Newhaven's narrow harbour. Departure is overseen by a pilot whose exit from a door in the side of the ferry onto a small launch bobbing about on the choppy waves beyond the the breakwater leaves you speculating that some people choose very peculiar careers.

Once the spectacular procession of white cliffs that end at Beachy Head fade into the distance the longish crossing becomes tedious. Furthermore, the late afternoon departure time means you have little option but to eat on board. We've travelled on many ferry routes and without a doubt in recent years DFDS has consistently served the worst food. This time they excelled themselves. We decided to avoid the cooked meals because they looked alarming, instead we opted for a quiche, it looked suitably flannish but tasted unpleasant with a rubbery mouth feel. We had to sort through the cutlery to find clean knives and forks that were - the whole catering operation is very poor.

Disembarkation was disorganised too, though this was not the fault of DFDS but the result of French passport control's total complete disinterest in adapting to circumstance. We wondered if there was a mandatory 'jobs-worth' development programme for all employees of the French state. 

At Newhaven we could not help but notice a big group of cyclists queuing to get on board. This is quite common, a cycle route called the Avenue Vert connects London and Paris via the Newhaven to Dieppe crossing. There were between thirty or forty of them, unmistakable on the boat by their varied but equally snazzy skintight shorts. Three booths were working at passport control, two for cars, One for trucks, the latter cleared in a matter of minutes because there were far fewer trucks than cars. The car queues took forever because the three dozen cyclists were scattered amongst them. Of course an immigration officer could have redirected the cyclists to the now under utilised truck booth and speed things up. However being helpful or innovative is an anathema to any employee of the French state, doubly so if it is going to assist a foreigner. So it took well over an hour after our arrival before we were parked in the aire at Dieppe docks, close enough to the ferry so we lulled to sleep by the low rhythmic throb of its idling engines.

We aimed to get to Pilsen in the Czech Republic with only three overnight stops. This meant sticking to the motorways - an expensive option in France - and using aires and stellplatz as overnight stops - two in France and one in Germany.

When you are in a hurry the French Campingcar Park chain is great because you can pre-book your space on its app. We've used the one at Ciry-Salonge before, it's well placed on the road to Reims, useful if you are heading east towards Germany or south towards Switzerland and Italy.

Like many of the rurally located Campingcar Parks the one at Ciry-Salonge looks as if it was a former Camping Municipal. It's a pretty spot in a wooded meadow next to a plan d'eau.

Most of the time the app works well, this time the barrier refused to budge when we tried to leave next morning. A quick call to the helpline fixed the problem, the staff speak English and we were soon on our way. It's the third time this has happened, perhaps we've used Campingcar Parks a couple of dozen times - that's a 12.5% failure rate, maybe we've just been unlucky, but that's way too high for an on- line service. You'd be very pissed-off if your contactless bankcard failed 1 in 8 times.

My daily grump over it was an uneventful steady drive long the A4 autoroute from Reims to Metz. Tedious but poignant, the motorway shadows the killing fields of WW1, from the Somme in the west to the Verdun in the east. The landscape changes from featureless plains to undulating forested hills. It's chilling to think that thousands of young men might have have perished attempting to capture any one of these innocuous wooded ridges.

We overnighted in another Campingcar Park a few kilometres shy of the German border at Saint Avild. The aire was next to a lovely forest with woodland walks. 

Sadly the shadow of war darkens Saint Avold too. The Lorraine American Cemetery is the largest site commemorating the US army's losses in WW2. Our journey from England to the Czech Republic take us across territories torn by conflict and division for much of the twentieth century. In essence the European Union is an optimistic, progressive project, whatever its perceived shortcomings the alternative is riskier. A heavy price was paid by our grandparents and parents to create a peaceful, prosperous Europe, yet we seem to be increasingly tempted to dismantle institutions established in the mid-twentieth century to keep the peace.

Our original plan was to make two stops in Germany, but when I calculated the distance between Homburg Haut and Pilsen - 380 miles, we decided to one break would be enough, it was autobahn the whole way, trundling along at 90kph in the right lane with the trucks.

We found a free stellplatz near the halfway point. Kirchberg am der Jagst is an attractive small town with an ancient castle on a cliff overlooking the river Jagst, as the name implies. The stellplatz is in a public car park halfway in-between - basic, but serviceable.

We opted to walk down to the river and admire the old bridge rather than tackle the steep climb up to the castle. Maybe we will give it a go if we come back this way we agreed somewhat halfheartedly.

Next morning, before rejoining the autobahn, we stopped at the Rewe supermarket on the edge of town. We like them, they're a bit more up-market than the ubiquitous Aldis and Lidls, like Waitrose at home or Mercadona in Spain. 

As well as buying a few essentials we chose a couple of interesting looking local white wines. Fifty years ago German and Austrian wine was popular in the UK, now you don't see it so much.

 Tastes have changed from the 1970s love of luscious flowery whites, flinty chardonnays or robust verdejos are the  thing now. Maybe we need to buck the trend. 

Later today - Czechia - a new country for us, our first since we visited Ireland in 2022. This represents serious mission drift from our avowed intent to visit new places.