A glimpse of the Danube, then back the way we came.

While we were in Kutna Hora Matthew asked if we had decided on our route home. Our plan - drive towards Ceske Krumlov then back home through the middle of Bavaria, mainly retracing our steps but with one small detour. I explained that I was hankering to take a look at the Danube, partly out of simple curiosity, but also I had decided I needed to pay my respects to my Yanmaya forebears. 

Civilisation arrived in Europe through a series of migrations from the near east, in the south spreading across the Mediterranean from Anatolia and the fertile crescent and to the north from the Eurasian steppes. The Danube valley was a crucial northern conduit, particularly in the late Neolithic period when metallurgy was introduced into the West during the so-called 'copper age'. The Yanmaya people were critical to this development. We all learned about them in primary school as 'the Beaker People' so called because of their characteristically beaker shaped pottery. 

A few years ago Matthew and Sarah bought me a genetic test as a Christmas present. On the face of it didn't reveal any big surprises. I may be English by birth, but genetically I am pre-ordinately of Scottish and Irish extraction. However there were intriguing details. My paternal profile included relatively rare genetic trace associated with people who lived on the Atlantic fringes of Europe in the pre-Celtic era. My paternal grandmother, Elizabeth McLeod was born in Caithness. However, her father haled from the Isle of Harris, as her surname indicates. She died before I was born and my Dad did not speak about her much, but he did mention she could speak some Gaelic. From this it would be reasonable to regard her as having a Celtic heritage, but that is not quite the whole story. Though she may have spoken a Celtic language what her genes revealed is that her forbears predated the arrival of the Celts. My grandmother's ancestors were  already living in the Western Isles when the first Celtic people migrated there over 2000 years ago.

My maternal line revealed even older roots. My mother carried a gene shared by fewer than 3% of people in Western Europe. However, it is commonplace in northern Iraq, northeastern Turkey and Iran. It reveals a present day link to the westward migration of Yamaya peoples between 3000 - 2000 BCE. As the MP Jo Cox famously asserted, "We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us". What genetics reveals is the notion of  common humanity is not some kind of left-leaning sociological aspiration but rooted in biological fact. So my desire to view the Danube was a nod towards a common Indo-European heritage and a moment to remember my mother who gifted me some steppe people's genes.

Matthew made the point that we  must have crossed the Danube in 2000 when we drove to Croatia via Germany and Austria. I can't fault his logic, but I have no recollection of the river whatsoever. It raises the question can you claim to have experienced something if you can't remember it? 

In truth, faced with plotting a route homewards there were also more practical matters on our mind than the history of human migration in Europe. We were still trapped in the middle of a heatwave with temperatures in the upper thirties across Germany and France. Meteo France hinted at the possibility of slightly cooler conditions on the Channel coast in four days time. In sweltering temperatures the coolest place is in the cab with the Aircon on max. Driving is a lot more comfortable than being parked in a stellplatz without shade. So we planned to get from the southern Bohemia to a campsite near Dieppe with three stops, then stay there for four nights until it was time to catch the ferry home. 

The quickest way from Camping Olsina to the motorway was to head south towards Linz in Austria. That wasn't really an option as it required an Austrian motorway pass. The alternative was more picturesque, northwest on smaller roads through the forested hills that form the old border between Bohemia and Bavaria. 

It looked all a bit Hansel and Gretel with ancient villages nestled in forested valleys and lonely cottages deep in the woods which might we well have once harboured a kindly seeming crone with murderous intent.

As we approached Passau we hit a busier dual carriageway. There are lots of roadworks on German autobahns and sometimes the signage is ambiguous. We missed the Passau bypass and ended up on a road running along the northern bank of the Danube. 

The ancient centre was on the opposite bank, very grand and Baroque looking as befits one of Central Europe's most historic small cities. 

The road followed the Danube for a few kilometres. It definitely looks like a river that fully deserves 'mighty' as a prefix, having served as a major east/west conduit for people and goods for millennia. And it still does, enormous cargo barges and even larger river cruise boats plying its languid waters.

We took the '3' autobahn northwest towards Nuremberg, the road follows the Danube valley but you rarely get a glimpse of it, apart from the couple of times it crosses the river on a tall concrete viaduct. Given the heat we decided that my somewhat romantic notion of finding a stellplatz by the Danube actually made no sense whatsoever and what we really needed to do was to press on as far as possible enabling us to cross southern Germany with just one stop.

The north of Bavaria around Nuremberg used to form a part of the ancient kingdom of Frankonia - a separate Germanic tribe who moved westward during the dark ages settling among other places in the north of France - hence its name. Frankonia still has a distinctive dialect and local culture, but given the lack of Stellplatz in the countryside west of Nuremberg, it doesn't seem to attract many visitors. 

The stellplatz at Wolframs Eschenbach maybe an attempt to attract more people to the area. It is  well designed with a contactless pay point. There is a cycle path connecting the village to some leisure lakes to the south and information boards about birdwatching. All we wanted was somewhere to stay, anyway any desire to sightsee would have been curtailed by the arrival of thundery showers that had been threatening all day.

Next day we drove 350kms from Wolframs- Eschenbach to the Campingcar Park in Saint Avold in France. Each European motorway network presents unique challenges. In Germany, away from conurbations, long stretches remain as dual carriageways.

This, combined with the fact that not all autobahns have an upper speed limit, makes driving on them a peculiar experience. The inner lane is often occupied by an endless convoy of trucks with their satnav's set to 90kph. The second lane is owned by rocket propelled Mercedes. I opted to trundle along with the trucks, it makes for a very tedious drive. It feels safe enough until you hit roadworks with contraflows and there are many. 

Here the lanes are narrower than in the UK and separated by concrete barriers. Usually I'm not phased by being in a right hand drive vehicle in Europe, I drive more miles per annum in Europe than I do at home. Most of the time driving on busy autobahns is much less eventful than navigating the M25 or M1. however the traffic management around roadworks is stressful and unavoidable, some autobahns are almost 90 years old and many are being upgraded.

We made it from the Czech Republic to Haut Normandy with only three overnight stops, using Campingcar Park Aires in France which we booked on-line using their app.

 

We were pleased to reach the campsite near Dieppe where we could chill-out, both literally and figuratively, for the next few days before our ferry.  

Our plan - to find a campsite close to the Avenue Vert cycleway. We have stayed at two previously - Camping Sainte-Claire at Neufchatel-en-Bray and Camping Des 2 Rivières near Arques-la-Bataille. Each has its charms and both have minor irritations. The first has a beautiful garden-like ambiance but is a tad prissy and over-managed, the second is centred on a big fishing lake and surrounded by lovely wooded chalk downs, however the facilities are quite old. We opted for the latter, but ended up on a small, uneven, very shady pitch and spent the next few days grumbling about the site's minor inconveniences.

However it was good to stop. The weather remained very hot, but not intolerably so, and nights were more comfortable with temperatures dropping into the mid-teens. We managed to get out on the Avenue Vert twice, a couple of 20km rides which seemed quite enough in the heat of the afternoon.

The old railway follows the valley of the Bethune. One of the loveliest things about France is its bucolic river valleys, some epic like the Dordogne or Lot, others more modest in scale, like the Bethune, but idyllic all the same.

In the stillness of the first days of July the landscape is hauntingly beautiful. More so because the trail was quiet, it's peacefulness only momentarily broken by the brief appearance of mini-peletons of lycra clad men - the Tour de France had kicked-off that morning. The moment is marked nationally by every male with a road bike in the country cosplaying the event in day-glo solidarity. Mass parallel participation doesn't guarantee national success, the last time a Frenchman won the Tour de France was in 1986.

Otherwise we just mooched about. The campsite has commercial size washing machines, so we laundered our bed linen and towels, saving us a job when we got home.

A nearby food truck on the Via Verde sells crepes and coffee to passing cyclists. We decided to have lunch there. The crepes were by far the worst we have ever eaten.

France still has Sunday trading laws. Shops shut around 1.00pm. So we exited the campsite mid-morning, bought some things in the Auchun on the outskirts of Dieppe, then parked in the aire next to the ferry port to wait for boarding in the mid-afternoon.

Whenever we use a cross channel ferry we send telepathic messages of sympathy to the poor sod who gets randomly checked at customs. This time it was our turn, except it was security, not customs that decided to pounce on us. Ever since Brexit physical checks of the van have ramped up, what was once a desultory glance around checking for migrants has become an in-depth scrutiny of the van's nooks and crannies searching for goodness knows what.

At least the people this time were not carrying machine guns. However they pounced upon the small blue Camping Gaz cylinder in the rear garage which we use with our Cadac BBQ and two ring stove. We were directed to a building to the side where a senior gruppenfuhrer claimed we were unable to board as regulations did not allow the carriage loose LPG cylinders and we must return to Dieppe to dispose of the item safely at an approved Camping Gaz outlet.

Gill is impressive in these circumstances, firstly enquiring how we might do that on a Sunday afternoon, then handing the cylinder to 'Monsieur l' Emploi-Valeur' - pointing out that the cylinder was almost empty anyway and presented little risk. After a bit more ritualised bureaucratic harassment the safety officer relented and said he would allow aboard 'on this occasion'.

We concluded that the French border officials must have a harassment quota to maintain and we just happened to fall victim to it. We have carried Camping Gaz cylinders of all kinds over the Channel for almost half a century, small disposable ones in Karrimore panniers on the back of our touring bikes in the 1980s, bigger ones stashed in the boot the car over two decades 'camping with the kids' and in our motorhome garage since 2013. Nobody has ever questioned it, and in fact when I checked later DFDS regulations specifically state that Motorhomes and Caravans can carry up to three GPL cylinders with to a total weight of 47kg and refillable gas systems such as Alugaz or Gaslow are regarded as 'integral equipment' so are not covered by the limit. In the end I think the experience was simply an example of post-Brexit harassment.

It's a four hour crossing from Dieppe to Newhaven. We departed at 6pm, but the time difference meant it was 9pm. BST when we docked. As usual we headed straight to the car park by the dock gates. It's not particularly big and used as a staff car park by the port workers, but so far we've always managed to find a place to stay overnight. The area is next to the port's lorry park, so it's not the most peaceful place to sleep. This time the potential for a broken night's sleep was ramped up by the fact the England were playing Mexico in the World Cup. The kick-off was at 3am. and pubs had been given special dispensation to open until five in the morning. How rowdy might it get?

Very, we suspected ten minutes after we had turned- in. A group of lads waiting at Newhaven station, a few yards away, decided to amuse themselves by throwing things at some metal object - maybe bricks at a skip we suspected. This was accompanied by a lot of yelling and screaming and the sound of breaking glass. We probably use motorhome parking places instead of campsites about 20% of the time, mostly it feels safe enough, but occasionally you can feel vulnerable. Only once have we felt truly worried about our personal safety and that was in Bantry in Ireland. Happily the small mob at the station caught the last train and the rest of the night passed without incident apart from trucks revving in the small hours. We woke to the news that England had beaten Mexico in a close match and consoled ourselves with the thought that we were probably feeling much perkier than the people who had stayed-up to witness the victory live.

Still, we had a long drive ahead of us. Plenty of time to moan about the disfunctional state of service areas on the M1, the intensity of the traffic and needlessly aggressive driving. Welcome home!  And we were welcomed home because Sarah, Rob and Nico had arrived a few hours earlier, planning to stay for a week in Buxton to see the carnival.

The weather was fabulous and it was great not to descend into a post trip slump, with just the pair of us rattling around a four bedroomed house.

My usual antidote to a post trip slump is to book a ferry for the next one. That's not possible at the moment. Next week I'm booked-in ror a small op as a day case. The result of the biopsy might be consequential or not, but until I get the results we can't really make firm plans for the autumn. If we are good to go the plan is to do something fairly straightforward - a trip to the Languedoc, Catalonia, Rioja and the Basque Country maybe - we shall see. 

Lacrustine days (hiding from the heat wave)

We spent 10 days camping beside Lake Lipno, situated in the wooded hills in the southwest corner of Bohemia, a few kilometres from Austria and Bavaria. I can't recall ever having stayed in one location for that length of time previously. It is a lovely, peaceful spot, but that's not really why we stayed so long. 

The Met Office 'Ten Day Trend' - their in-depth medium range forecast that they put out on YouTube every Tuesday afternoon - predicted the day we arrived in Pilsen that a severe heat wave would develop centred on the borders of France and Germany with temperatures forecast to reach the low forties. The UK on it's western fringe and the Czech Republic to the east were expected to heat up too, but a few degrees cooler than in the Rhine valley. The forecast has been spot on, however the hottest air is now beginning to spread eastwards.

 We figured the area around Lake Lipno would be cooler because it's wooded, near water and a couple of hundred metres higher than the Vitava valley around Prague and Ceske Krumlov.

Under blue skies and in perfectly calm weather it is very beautiful here, dreamlike almost, the lake like a constantly changing mirror. Magritte clouds at midday...

... long magical twilights in the days leading up to the solstice.

The hottest it got was the upper thirties, we carry big cotton throws that we can hang from the awning to create shade.

During the hottest part of of the the only thing you can do is huddle in the shadows.

Nights were more challenging, a couple of them hovered around the low twenties making for an uncomfortable snooze. Mostly though the temperature dropped towards the mid-teens - staying beside a lake in wooded hill country was a good move, I think.

We weren't rendered entirely comatose. In the morning and the evening I managed to get out on my paddleboard. The conditions were perfect. 

The best moment came on our final evening when two swifts decided it would be fun to buzz the paddleboarder, swooping low, almost touching the mirror-still water a couple of metres in front of me.

We split our time between two campsites 

Camping Olšina

We stayed here four nights, then decided we needed a change of view and moved to a different site. Then we concluded that Camping Olšina was one of the loveliest sites we've stayed on so we went back to spend our final three nights in the Czech Republic there.

It's difficult to say just why we loved the place. It's a simple no frills lakeside site. It seems to be family run, the staff were attentive without being intrusive, the facilities simple, but clean and well maintained. 

As well as paddling about and swimming in the lake you can cycle along a track by the shore to the nearby village of Černá v Pošumaví. There's little to see, but it had a café and the coffee cherry and chocolate cake were excellent. 

From here there's a dedicated cycle way across the dam but after then the waymarked route follows minor roads, the temperature was edging up into the low thirties, we decided to head back.

Though it's called Lake Lipno, as the dam indicates it's actually a very big reservoir. Work on the dam began in 1952; it was the first major public infrastructure project undertaken by the recently established communist government and it included hydro-electric power generation as well as water storage. The woods that surround the lake are partially natural - a beautiful mix of broad leafed trees, and pines; the latter, I suspect, were planted for timber.

Camping Lipno Modřín

The second site we stayed on was at the southeast end of the lake near the main dam. It was a bigger and more organised place than Camping Olšina with chalets and Yurts as well as pitches. It specialised in accommodating groups of teenagers and provided outdoor activities for them - mountain biking, water sports and volleyball. Generally Czech teenagers looked very sporty and seemed amazingly sensible, easy going and confident. Though the place never got rowdy it was vibrant and busy. After three days we missed the tranquility of the previous.

The nearby village of Lipno nad Vltavou is a purpose built winter sports centre. The small harbour is lined with purpose built holiday apartments with a ski chalet vibe. The hills behind the place are marked out with toboggan runs and cross& country ski runs. 

There is clearly an attempt to make the place more of an all year resort with a lake steamer service in the summer season and what looks like a recently built marina. The toboggan runs now are repurposed as scooter tracks and a big wooden tower had been built with treetop walkways as a visitor attraction. 

The bike track running along the lake shore from here to Frymburk was more our thing. It's was metalled the whole way and mostly level. 

Much of the 7km track runs through broad leafed woodlands, very beautiful, but the roots bulging through the tarmac created unexpected hazards, particularly in the more shaded sections. Wearing sunglasses made this worse.

Frymburk is an attractive lakeside village, it obviously predates the creation of the reservoir and is more low key than the purpose built resort of Lipno nad Vltavou.

Picnic spots have been created along the way. The one nearest Frymburk had an information board with a picture of the lake in winter. It was frozen solid and featured a skate track. A truck was parked on it so the ice must have been very thick. Standing there with temperatures in the mid thirties this seemed unimaginable.

After three days we felt we had exhausted the delights of this part of the lake. The resort aspect of Lipno nad Vltavou was not to our taste and the campsite was less shaded than the previous one, not good with the forecast predicting temperatures reaching the high thirties.

We decided to head for another campsite by the lake a kilometre or so from the town of Horni Plana. When we got there it looked crowded and the pitches unshaded. So we doubled back and booked for three more days in Camping Olšina. The guy on reception was very pleased that we preferred his site to the others around the lake. He should be proud of the site, the staff are very attentive, the facilities are spotless and the pitches well tended, without destroying the place's 'lost in nature' ambience. 

It joins the shortlist of special places we have stayed, maybe a dozen or so of them out of the hundreds of sites and aires we have used over the past 12 years.

Ceske Krumlov - histories, real and imagined

Kutna Hora would be our furthest point from home, next we headed south west towards Ceske Krumlov, close to the border with Austria and Bavaria. There was no direct route, getting there involved zig-zagging about using a mixture of motorways and main roads through small towns and villages. Away from major urban centres the Czech Republic feels sparsely populated and the roads are quiet. It's only when you drive in less populated places, like rural Czechia or the byways of Extramadura or Arizona that you twig just how crowded the UK's roads are and realise driving at home is rarely relaxed or pleasurable.

Ceske Krumlov is one of the most visited towns in the Czech Republic, famously picturesque, a tourist trap really. The upside of this is that it has a municipally run Aire situated next to the tour bus park. 

The medieval core of the place is perfectly preserved, a red roofed village almost encircled by a looping meander of the Vitava, the same river that flows through Prague. 

Here, however, it has narrowed, shallower and faster flowing. Rafting is a popular activity.

 We stopped for a coffee and cake at a cafe with a riverside terrace.

Next we headed to the old market square. A big stage was being constructed. "What's happening?" I asked my new know-all companion. Chatgpt duly replied -

Five-Petalled Rose Festival (June) – The town's signature event. For one weekend near the summer solstice, the historic centre transforms into a Renaissance town with costumed parades, jousting tournaments, medieval markets, music, theatre, fireworks, and hundreds of locals in period dress. 

Even outside of highdays and holidays most shops that aren't cafes seem to be hawking medieval themed knicknacks and the buildings not given over to Airbnbs, catering, or gift shops repurposed as museums. 

It's undeniable that Ceske Krumlov's location is spectacular, the way it is almost encircled by the meandering river and overlooked by the palatial looking castle on the craggy outcrop above the town. 

However I found it dispiriting, its ancient centre more like a theme park than a functioning town.

The modern town, about a kilometre to the north, looks bland and unremarkable, England too has many historic towns besieged by workaday outskirts where the people actually live and work. In this regard we happened across a slightly startling and very familiar parallel, Ceske Krumlov has an excellent Tesco's superstore. It's the only overt British influence we encountered in our visit Czech Republic.

The store was identical in every way to a Tesco's at home - down to the layout, in-store graphics and club card points, apart from the fact that every label and every sign was equally incomprehensible. 

We couldn't even work out which mineral waters were still, which were very fizzy and which only slightly so. 

One big difference - 'every little helps' was not emblazoned on the front of the store. Maybe the genius phrase, which manages to encapsulate a core characteristic of Britishness in three simple words, doesn't resonate quite so much in Czech - Každá maličkost pomáhá -  so Google Translate informed me. 

Back at the van I looked into the history of Ceske Krumlov in a little more detail and began to wonder if the preoccupation with showcasing the medieval period stemmed from a reluctance to confront the more awkward issues surrounding the place's more recent history. It's fair to say that my grasp of the history of central and eastern Europe is somewhat sketchy. I do remember covering the Sudetenland crisis of 1938 in O level history but never appreciated that the German speaking areas of Bohemia had histories stretching back hundreds of years.  

Moreover, at the end of WW2 the allied powers - Britain, America and Russia - were complicit in the forced 're-settlement' into Germany of 2.9 million German speaking Czech citizens - almost 20% of the country's population. It was not achieved peacefully - it is thought that up to 200,000 people died. I began to perceived Ceske Krumlov not as a theme park, but a ghost town.

However, these issues are not straightforward. When we visited Kutna Hora a couple of days ago I noticed clusters of small ceramic plaques embedded into the cobbled pavements. They recorded a name and two dates. They were all Jewish residents and the dates recorded day they were born and when they were rounded up and transported to a concentration camp in Germany. One plaque was particularly heartbreaking, it commemorated a girl born in 1935 and transported in 1942, aged seven.

We are both fortunate to have lived most of our adult lives in a largely peaceful country during times when there was a concerted effort to bring Europe together, economically, culturally and politically. Sadly it is becoming ever clearer that such progress not a given, nationalism in Europe is on the rise and the USA is edging towards oligarchy and autocracy. 

We crossed the Channel on the 82nd anniversary of D-day, then drove east following the valley of the Somme along roads lined with military cemeteries. It's important that this is commemorated, but sadly this tends to be done along national lines - separate British, American, and Canadian cemeteries, very few German ones and virtually no collective recognition of the scale of civilian casualties. However the extent of the human disaster that engulfed Europe during the mid-twentieth century can only be truly appreciated if you consider the  total casualties. So far as military losses are concerned seventeen million deaths between 1939 and 1945 is the most common estimate. Civilian deaths are even higher, it is estimated that between 35 - 40 million non-combatants died and that during WW2 between 40 - 60 million people were displaced.

In this context the creation of the European Union seems almost miraculous and it's motto - “United in diversity” - brave, hopeful and aspirational. It has been great to be here with Matthew, Kristyna and Jesse - a truly European family. Equally, thinking about Europe's violent and bloodstained past is sobering. Collectively European nations really do need to make some savvy electoral choices in the next few years. Take heed of what has happened in America and don't listen to the voices of nationalism intent on rolling back the progress we have made towards a more peaceful Europe. I knew visiting the Czech Republic would be interesting, visiting a new place is always thought provoking, but it has also helped me perceive the history of our continent from a different point of view, realising that European history viewed from an island on it's western fringes is both figuratively and literally an insular perspective.  Habitually we have looked on from the sidelines, intervening now and then, but regarding 'the continent' as elsewhere, nearby foreign territory that somehow we are not part of. It's an odd notion, 22 miles of shallow water is not an ocean, it's swimmable!