Cologne to Prague to Kracow
I awoke at 6am on Tuesday morning knowing that it was going to be a full day in the saddle. By now I know exactly what I have with me, what bag it should be in, and where it should be on the bike. I know that in total, it takes me about an hour to be up, showered, packed, and Pietro satisfactorily laden.
I took off from a city that didn't impress me in some sunshine which did. Sarah was an incredible host who couldn't have been more generous, and in some ways I wished that I was able to fly her on to the next stop to scout out the area and have it ready for my arrival. Alas, a movie star I am not.
I crossed over the Rhine at around 8:15am and again pointed east.
I rode almost all day and frankly got tired of immaculately paved wide roads. In fact, truth be told, I got a little tired of Germany, the Germans, and anything remotely teutonically Prussian. This was compounded when about 30 miles from the Czech border, going through a section which on account of only being 4 lanes wide, they had reduced the speed to 80kmh, to my detriment. Now most of the day, I was blatting along happily at about 70-80 mph, and was still one of the slowest, but on this particular occasion, I was just above the reduced limit, by 13kmh. Cue the blue light brigade, who track me up to a safe place to pull in, and out steps Joseph Goebbels’ son. Well, he was small and squirrely, so it might’ve been, you don’t know that it wasn’t! Documents are handed over, he walks around the bike, then says ‘Mr Johnston’, (I thought I’d leave out the fact that my driving license says ‘rev’ on it on this occasion), you were doing 93 in an 80, that is 90 euros.’ Having only 30 on me and my card, I suggested that he take a reduced rate and I would carry on with greater awareness in future, unless he could accept cards (suspecting that as advanced as they are, they won’t have a swipe machine in their car). ‘Zat is ok, vee vill drive to zee next town and you can vithdraw money from zee bank’. What a gentleman. So, not only did he tap me up for 90E’s, but he proceeded to put about another 25 miles onto what was already going to be well over 550 miles that day. Anyway, there’s my contribution to their Greek bailout.
I eventually arrived at the Czech border, where the roads became more interesting, which would, I had hoped, follow a correlatory pattern for the citizens thereof. It was a rather painless trek down to Prague from here.
On arriving at my host’s place, I knew that from reading other reports, Prague isn’t exactly Truman Show Trustworthy when it comes to leaving stuff lying around. I was advised that I could park Pietro in the rubbish cupboard! I took a quick peak and then momentarily considered the two options: firstly, I could leave him on the street leaving him exposed to any passing prying eyes and preying hands. Or, I could unceremoniously buck him in the trash room (picture the one in Star Wars, without the water and monster, but with a lot more flies). So, I rearranged the bins, got the front wheel in, and then pushed and pulled until I managed to get the whole bike in. Shoehorns!
Yesterday I spent the day walking what seemed like hundreds of miles around the city. Prague is really quite amazing. Far more so than I expected in fact. There’s such an array of architecture, a depth of history, and a genuinely good vibe in the place. All in all I only saw one stag party, so I counted my blessings for that. Not surprisingly it was at the Old Town square where the big screens had been erected for the World Cup. I decided to watch the England match there and take in some of the atmosphere. I took a load of photos of various buildings (the palace, synagogues, parliament, the Rudolfinum (great story behind this), St Josephs Church, The Metronome, The John Lennon Graffiti Wall, the new ‘Revolutionary’ key installation after the 80,000 students kicked up a fuss in the new town, and sites which I found to be interesting but won’t bore you with the details of. I will post this sign for the ‘Communist Museum’ however. I loved the irony of it being located between two of the biggest symbols of capitalism – McDonalds
and the Casino!
So this morning I again got up early, and went down to Pietro’s ignominious stable. Some kindly soul had seen fit to throw bins on top of him, so I removed them, dusted him down, loaded him up, and promised to never do it again.
After loading up once more, I pressed on in the direction of Kutna Hora. I had heard great things about the ossuary here, and it was obviously one of the places the long way round visited. Kutna Hora is a pretty cool town which once mined about 1/3 of the silver that came out of Europe. Near it is a little village called Sedlec, which is where the Kostnice bone church is located. How did such a thing come to be? Basically, this nutter of a priest built the church on a graveyard in the early 19th century. When told that it was a stupid idea because what would they do with the bones, he said, let’s decorate it with them! I found it fascinating. It made me ask a lot of questions about death and its relation to faith. There was so much dissonance between church as I’ve experienced it in the past, and these countless femurs and skulls. And yet, rather than a feeling of malevolence or evil in the place as is usually associated with such stupas (such as what I felt when I visited those at the Killing Fields in Cambodia for example), I was left more hopeful here, particularly as when you look through the arranged bones, there’s a picture of the crucified Christ silhouetted in the light from the only window. If this was an intentional move on the part of Czech’s Father Ted (or Father Dead might be more appropriate), then it was genius, for this act of crucifixion was an act of subversion on death putting the bones in a different light. I’ll leave the theology for the next Horizon’s talk.
I departed from there and took off towards the Polish border. Remembering Lois Vince discussing the merits of plastic cheese (Dairy Lee stuff), I stopped in at a Penny Market and availed myself of a few triangles and some bread. After wolfing it down, I crossed another magical border and was taken to I don’t know where by my GPS. Over mountains, through glens, past goblins, and countless road work efforts was the norm. I hadn’t a clue where I was, but felt that the Zumo had not done anything to date that warranted distrust. My 380 miles today felt like 780. The roads went to pot, the first rain of the trip came down in Noahic proportions, and I was just wanting a good meal and some world cup action. I arrived at my hosts and waited outside in the rain in the Jewish quarter of Kracow (by Wassel Castle) for them to get here. We found a place to park the bike safely – which on this occasion will see everything stay on it as I can’t be bothered lugging it all around again tonight (keep your fingers crossed will ya?) – and went for some food. I’m now turning in as tomorrow I’m hitting the rain again to cross into the Ukraine.
Honestly, I’m not without my reservations for this next leg. Being in Prague on my own made me realise again what it is to be in a place where you have NONE of the language! So, I’m even more handicapped than usual from here. Everyone seems to have some distrust of their neighbours, and it doesn’t bode well when you’re riding into their neighbours laps a few hours later. Tomorrow I’m bound for L’viv (UKraine), and I was told tonight that it’s forecast for more torrential rain and roads which make the Republic of Ireland’s pre-Celtic Tiger roads sound like rolled silk. We’ll see.
Nostravie…
S
Result: letter of apology from TL. Worth a try.
