Thursday 30th - Bohemian village tour

Grain fields everywhere

Set our alarm so we were up for breakfast by 8am but unfortunately the person opening up the breakfast room was late on duty. John did a little work until it opened up at 8.30am. Away as soon as we could, walking a few blocks to the nearest car hire place we had found on the internet. Alas, even though the webpage for this hotel said it rented out cars, even giving the daily rates, the receptionist assured us that it didn’t. We walked on to the second and only other address we could find for a car hire place. We hit the jackpot with this hotel and within 30mins were heading away in a little Skoda (we thought we ought to use a Skoda in the Czech Republic).

Chotesov

Chotesov Monastery

My research showed that a few hundred Bohemians immigrated to NZ from about 24 villages around Pilsen. I narrowed this down to eight to visit. Unfortunately the weather had changed radically from yesterday and it was pretty cold and light rain. We didn’t have far to drive, as the nearest village was only 15km from Pilsen and they were all within 1 to 8km of each other. We tripped around from 10am to 3pm and had a pleasant time exploring each little settlement. The smallest was only about a dozen houses. They were not quaint in the traditional way, but definitely had a lot of character. Many of the houses within them were deteriorating or abandoned. You could see why a number of the residents would have chosen to look for greener pastures abroad to try and make a better life for themselves and their families. By the end of the day we had been to Litice, Vstis, Losina, Mantov, Chotesov, Stod, Lisina, Popov and Uherce! At Chotesov, we peered through a gate into the courtyard of the huge and decrepit monastery, unfortunately closed.

Lisina village

We got back to Pilsen mid-afternoon, by which time the skies had cleared somewhat. We dropped the car back at the hotel and by good fortune the TV in the hotel’s restaurant was showing Wimbledon so we sat down with a large Pilsener Urquell beer to watch for an hour. Sharapova was overpowering her opponent so we decided to wander around town for an hour, time we didn’t expect to have available to us to explore Pilsen a little more. There are hundreds of little bars all over the city, but very few cafes. We have really enjoyed Pilsen – it has been very different to anywhere else on the trip and we are looking forward to seeing more of the Czech culture when we are in Prague.

Still using a hand scythe

Called in at another falafel place for an easy meal, and this time got plied with lovely Turkish tea as well. It was very welcome. Back to our hotel for an early night, catch up on the blog, and even better we have emails from two parties who are interested in buying the bach and the section on the West Coast. 

Wednesday 29th – Pilsen

Main square, Pilsen

Had a great day today. We hadn’t really expected that, as being in Pilsen was more for Karen’s book than anything else. We knew there was the Pilsen brewery here (where Pils/Pilsener beer was originally invented), but no more. A nice breakfast at our hotel/pension, then first stop was for some water (local water tastes very average) then towards the centre via the synagogue. This is the 3^rd largest in Europe, and rather lovely, though quite neglected as the local Jewish population was mostly wiped out by the end of WWII. 

Square from the church tower

Next, to the main square for the information centre, and a visit to the cathedral. Again a lovely building. Quite different to any others we have seen, and rather more square in plan than most. We climbed the tower with a most attractive view greeting us after we had endured the 12-noon bells. Pilsen is on a slight rise in largely flat land, and is surrounded by vast areas of wheat, barley, grass (mown for hay) and corn, with plenty of patches of forest. The square itself is one of the largest in Europe, with baroque or older buildings around it. Pilsen is remarkably quiet. Somehow the traffic is less frantic and noisy than most comparably-sized cities, and it makes for a more relaxed atmosphere.

Well underground

We visited an ethnographic museum, full of articles and furnished rooms from previous ages and a Black Forest clock collection (funny that we didn’t do that while in the Black Forest).  We found ourselves 40 minutes early for a tour of the underground of Pilsen, so had a cheap plate of Chinese for lunch. Food prices are pleasingly low after Germany, really good value, and a good range of styles. The tour took us into the two level deep basements below the city, quite fun, with my helmet taking an awful lot of scrapes as passages were not built for my height. The basements were originally excavated below individual buildings to allow their residents to store food in the cool. They were gradually expanded and joined up over time, with their use expanding to include providing a safe place when the city was under attack from invaders. It was only 10 degrees when we were down there so were glad we had taken our merino tops with us.

Ancient blunderbusses

We found ourselves with a little spare time before the Pilsen Urquell brewery tour so we squeezed in the city museum. This had an extraordinary collection of ancient blunderbusses, one of the best anywhere. Literally hundreds of old guns, mortars, pikes and more. The crudeness of the earliest blunderbusses was amazing. Unfortunately no photos allowed, so I had to be cunning and hide from the cameras to take photos! It was too good to miss.

Pilsner Urquell Brewery

Final event for the day was the brewery tour. This was 90 minutes, starting in the modern packing plant (120,000 bottles an hour!), moving to the brewhouse, then the old cellars where beer was fermented in the cool (just 7 degrees all year) and also stored. They had a stunning 9km of cellars carved into sandstone, with up to 10,000 huge barrels in storage at times. The tour finished with a glass of naturally-brewed beer. Rather tasty. We haven’t tasted their commercial brew yet.

So, a surprising and busy day, with lots on. It’s so nice being reasonably priced again, and bodes well for Prague. It was lovely and hot again today, and was fun coming outside from the underground and the cellars into the heat. Grabbed a falafel for dinner and ate it on the way home. We tried to find a car hire place in readiness for our trip the next day but the address the guy had given us at the info centre was obviously wrong.

Tuesday 28th - Freiburg to Plzen, Czech Republic

Up at 6am, made some rolls for lunch for everyone, said goodbye to AJ (who had another hour’s stuff to do on the computer) and off to catch the 7.30am tram into Freiburg’s main bus station. Our bus pulled in at 8.25 and we were off by 8.30am. Plenty of passengers sleeping on board so no idea how far it had already come. Our trip to Plzen was going to take 9 hours.

Promptly fell asleep/dozed for a few hours, with a 10min stop coming at 11am on the outskirts of Stuttgart, though no food or drink on tap. Stuttgart is obviously heavily involved in the car business, as we passed huge complexes for a number of the major manufacturers, especially BMW and Mercedes. Our second 10min stop (and only other stop) was at 2pm in Nuremburg, where refreshments were available. Thankfully we had taken our own food and water on board. We dozed quite a lot on the trip (well, I did anyway - K) and the trip went very smoothly and surprisingly quickly.

Lovely architecture in Pilsen

We crossed the border into the Czech Republic by travelling under a building with a long overhanging roof and that was it. The countryside is hugely developed for cropping, especially wheat and corn. Into Plzen half an hour early. J had already booked a place for us to stay for our 3 nights in Plzen, something we don’t usually do but it just seems so much easier at this point in our trip, and also with the weather getting so much hotter it is not much fun lugging big packs around as we hunt for accommodation. Also it is pretty much high season now. Only a short walk from the bus station to our hotel. It’s pretty basic but clean, tidy and not far from the historic city centre, plus breakfast is included.

Our first impressions of Plzen are quite mixed. We anticipated it would look a lot less neat and smart as Germany, and certainly Switzerland, but it looks exceedingly tired and lacking much love and attention from the little we have seen so far. Not surprising I guess given its chequered history. We are looking forward wandering around the city centre tomorrow. We might just happen to check out the Pilsen beer manufacturing plant while we are there. We expected coffees here to cost a lot less than Germany (we haven’t had one for 4 days) but an espresso appears to still cost around NZD$2.30. On the up side, 0.5l of beer costs less than 0.25l of water, i.e. about NZD$2.

Impossible dinner menu!

We dumped our gear in our hotel and set out at about 7pm to find an easy meal and have an early night. We found a nice place just around the corner. It was obviously heavily favoured by the locals because we took one of the last tables. The menu was totally incomprehensible to us but thankfully the waitress spoke some English. We basically ordered chicken steaks with salads, and a beer. It was very nice and one of the best meals out we have had for while (though we have eaten out very little on the trip really). We might go back there in a few nights’ time as we have 3 nights here in Plzen. Managed an earlyish night for the first time in about a week. Unfortunately, even though we have TV here, we have yet again been gazumped by not having access to the sports channels and are still missing the Wimbledon tennis champs.

It was very hot again today. We passed one temp board in Stuttgart that read 35.9 deg. Spending the entire day inside an air-conditioned bus was rather pleasant!

Monday 27th - Freiburg

AJ was up until very late, and up again early this morning finishing off his awards entries. Today was pretty much a repeat of yesterday – guys working and me cleaning the house. We leave early in the morning tomorrow.

Alastair's bike ready to go

It is 40 degrees on the deck outside at the moment (7pm). The forecast was for 29 but it’s way hotter. We are just wilting. Walking a block to the supermarket is like swimming in hot water. AJ is going to have to cycle only early in the morning and again in the evening if this weather keeps up, and it looks like it will.

All tidied up in the house so we went out for dinner tonight, our last night together for quite a while. Had a very nice meal at a local Asian restaurant. Quite late to bed with last minute packing and trying to sort AJ’s train from Biarritz, France to Mulhouse. He hopes to get as far as San Sebastian before backtracking to Biarritz to get a cheaper train back to Mulhouse, and will bike from there back to Freiburg where he will be leaving 1 large and 2 small bags.

Sunday 26th - Freiburg

We woke to the first morning blue skies we have seen for about three weeks. It is very hot today, with the forecast anticipating 32 degrees on Tues, the day we set off for the Czech Republic and the day AJ heads off cycling.

Alastair trialling tent & hammock

J spent all day doing work on the computer today. AJ was busy finishing off some of his work, then he and I walked to a nearby park where AJ gave setting up his hammock and fly a trial run. It seems to work well, though I have since sewn on some extra tags to the fly so he can attach some new ropes to stop the middle sagging. Other than that it has been a washing/tidying day, though now at 6pm we have finally found a burst of sport on the TV – the Women’s Football World Cup. Germany is playing Canada so I guess that is why it is being televised here.

Saturday 25th - Freiburg

Freiburg market day

Today was the weekly market day in Freiburg, reputed to be one of the biggest in Germany, so we thought we should check it out. Finally a sunny day and it was pleasant wandering around the stalls in the main plaza around the cathedral. It very much concentrated on fruit and vegetables and little in the way of arts and crafts so we soon drifted towards the main shopping streets and tried to find a hardware shop to buy the odd bungy cord and other knick-knacks still needed by AJ. No luck anywhere but did come across some second-hand English books. We have read all the ones we are carrying, plus the ones at our home exchange. 

Off and tasty balls, Freiburg market

We were flagging by 2pm so caught a tram back to the house and had a late lunch. AJ and J both set to work on their computers while I started some tidying up etc. I also went for a run late in the afternoon, which I was very pleased to be able to handle. I have been plagued by very tight calves and Achilles tendons for the last two months and it has made running a tall order. I really don’t know why they are playing up.

Easy home-cooked meal again, overseen by AJ. After dinner we lined the sofa in front of AJ’s big screen laptop and watched on of his movies. A good way to chill out.

Freiburg Cathedral

A back street, Freiburg

Friday 24th - Mulhouse

We said farewell to our car today. And not before time. I drove through 3 sets of red traffic lights today, admittedly they were little sets on a straight road, mainly perhaps for pedestrians, but in the previous 5350km I only missed one set of lights and a Stop sign, so I think I must have had enough driving. 5350km in 51 days is over 100km per day, but I think I reached my limit around the 4500km mark and the rest has been hard work.

However the car has been good, and really valuable. I wonder what we will do in Céret next year, perhaps hire for a few days at a time.

Ettore Bugatti's personal Type 35

We started the day by heading to Mulhouse for the big Decathlon sports store to find Alastair the bulk of the gear he will need for his cycling trip. We bought a bunch of stuff, e.g. side packs, helmet, sleeping bag and so on but some was out of stock so we were advised to go to another Decathlon store not far away. Found it reasonably easily, and it turned out to be a mega Decathlon. Just huge, catering for a wide range of sports, even horse-riding. Yet another collection of gear was assembled, along with a running and cycling top for K, at 3.50 Euro each on super special. I (K) am starting to get quite enthusiastic about cycling around the countryside when we get back to Céret. We are planning to take J’s 2^nd bike back to Céret with us. We tried to sell it earlier this year but were only offered about $70 for what was a very good bike so it seems a better option to take it to Céret with us (within our baggage allowance) rather than buy a good one in France. I might also buy a bike in NZ and take it over when we go next year.

The Schlumpf Collection, Mulhouse

After a pretty successful shopping venture we next tried a nearby electronic superstore and AJ bought an iPod and gorilla tripod for his camera, both of which he had been holding off buying but will need for his trip. It was about 1pm by this time, so we needed to make a move towards the Schlumpf Car Museum which J has been hanging out for since he last saw it in 1982. We spent the next 2 hours having a wander around the 400+ cars on show, with the emphasis being on vintage rather than modern. There were huge numbers of Bugattis including the world’s most expensive model, the massive Bugatti Royale. Plenty of other French cars too, including an excellent selection of 30s to 50s F1 cars.

Bugatti Type 57 Atalanta

Bugatti Type 35s

This left us only an hour to have a very fast look around the centre of Mulhouse. We haven’t been there before and the city centre is very attractive and pedestrian friendly. We pretty much spent the time racing around trying to find a bookshop that sold velo (bicycle) maps of France. Finally got some, plus some maps for ourselves of our part of France for next year. Back to the car late, beating a meter maid by just one car,  and raced off to find the Peugeot Eurolease people at Basel airport, which was where we were to deliver the car back at 5pm. Arrived 50minutes late but no problem. Had 2 minutes to spare to jump on the bus back to Freiburg. At 22€ each for a 50min ride it was pretty expensive. Found ourselves a tram back from the city centre to our residential neighbourhood and dived into the supermarket for some much needed food restocking before finally arriving home at about 8.30pm.

Final display on the 207

The highlight of the day for AJ was the arrival of the hammock he had ordered from Amazon by courier earlier in the morning, and the buying all manner of bike gear for his trip at Duathlon.