Slavonice to Jindrichuv Hradec - June 25th

June 25

After a good night's sleep in our rather exotic, renaissance pension (only about 350k pp), we headed off into a rather grey day.
The Greenways route is very varied. Some of it is on excellent roads and some on really poor ones. The poor ones become bloody awful after weeks of rain (just ask Phillip & Linda). Having said that, the track is almost entirely through beautiful, green, lush countryside - either rolling, patchwork farmlands or green and greener forests, lakes, meadows and small villages. The forests are sometimes dark, mysterious, thickly-wooded places, where the branches are overhanging the cycle tracks and others are like open parklands. Both types make for beautiful scenery, which is just as well because I'm usually some hundrdeds of metres behind the boys - navigating the steep, gravelly, muddy, puddle-holey bits with more care than them.

Typical Greenways route in Southern Moravia.

We rode through lots of forest.

Today, after 15 or 20 km we came upon a completely restored WW2 bunker in the middle of a pine forest. There was a young man stationed out there, miles from anywhere. He clearly spoke a number of languages and explained to us the rifle placings, grenade 'pipes', with their grenade-stopping lids (to stop the attacking enemy hurling grenades at you through your own grenade 'pipes'), periscopes, water-cooled Steyr (this is apparently a very good brand of machine gun) machine guns etc. Seven men lived in this tiny little space - it looked quite large from outside, but the walls were about a metre thick.

Rod inside the bunker.

The entrance to the bunker.

After picking up supplies at Nova Bystrice, a very prosperous little town, we encountered a Czech/Thai couple, currently spending half their year in Muscat and half in the Czech Republic. They bought an old farmhouse and have almost completed renovations at a cost of 4.8 million k. They gave us some good info on Czech land & house prices. We are all considering moving here if the weather picks up.

A picnic lunch in the forest near the Pstruovy Creek was very pleasant and quiet.

More forest.

Another 20 kms brought us to Jrindichuv Hradec. The last few km before town were very muddy, hilly and potholed with large puddles to ride through.I did a bit of slaloming -scary! Although we were dodging rain all day,luckily, we only got caught in a shower towards the end.

After a coffee and beer in the main square, we located a pension above a restaurant.

A drink in the sunny Jrindichuv Hradec town square.

The place was very popular with a wide range of patrons, including families and young people, so we decided to sample their cuisine. I would rate it as the best food we have as yet eaten in the Czeck Republic. After dinner we stolled around the old centre - an enjoyable end to a full day.

Our pension.

Our street.

RE June's Posterior Query: Posteriors are faring very well, you'll be pleased to know. Each one of us has had occasional, mild chafing, rash or bumps. These have all been effectively and easily dealt with using simple creams, such as Bepanthen. Also, because there are so many things to see and do in these areas of Europe we are constantly hopping off our bikes as well as stopping for 2-3 nights in the major cities. So we rarely ride for more than 3 or 4 days without a break for site-seeing.

Re Pam's comments: I thought it was only fair to share my lergy!!
Many thanks for hints. Cesky Krumlov was fantastic. We're in Prague at present.


Re "Dr Dreamy": If Pat thought he was dreamy (???) you can imagine what I thought! Grein iS the place to be sick! Think ER - the tall dark Croation Dr then multiply by factor of say 3.

Re Tactile Opine's comment 'manicured edges': Yes, you are right! They seem to slash or mow the edges of many roads and even some of the forest cycle tracks. We find it quite amazing!