Horni Plana (Czechia) to Waldkirchen, Germany (Oct. 1, 2022)

October 1, 2022

We had another cold, stormy, windy day that turned out to be really fun. We had 57 k in front of us with the plan to ride through the Sumava National Park to the border of Germany. This area was part of the no cross border zone area during the Cold War. After the Berlin Wall fell, the two nations created a border crossing at Nove Udoli for cyclists and pedestrians. I could find nobody on Cycleblaze who had written about this ride so I was left with having to concoct my own route.

Breakfast was great- Czech buffet breakfasts were similar to all the other very good Central European breakfasts. We have hardly had a clunker (Leonfelderhof was a rare exception).

We loaded up by putting on about a zillion layers; for Jill it was: wool underliner, wool t-shirt, cycling jersey, arm warmers, windbreaker, winter cycling jacket, rain jacket, cycling shorts, wool long underwear, showers pass waterproof cycling socks, waterproof lobster cycling gloves, headband! One advantage is that there is a lot less stuff in my panniers making it easier to pack! And we needed every bit of warmth.

The ride through Sumava park was wonderful, a super obscure place but mystical, and beautiful. It was pleasantly hilly. It was so cold that Dave didn’t stop much to take many shots which is a bummer. We only rode a small southern corner of the park and it would be a good longer tour to explore more of it. Put it on your to-ride list.

We came across this most unusual scene. The cat was motionless in the road, it didn't even flinch as we rode by. The dog also was motionless, sentinel-like, never taking it's eyes off the cat. I thought maybe they were buddies and the cat was in some sort of distress with its friend standing guard.

We arrived at Nove Udoli, the border, which is a train stop and a whole bunch of day riders were disgorged from the train for a Saturday ride.

The scene at Nove Udoli just after the day trippers had disembarked from the train

We crossed over to Germany and suddenly you are out of the Czech Forest and onto a plateau. On the German side the park is the Bavarian National Forest. We were freezing so got lucky to find a charming konditori (bakery) in Haidmuhle. For future riders, it’s the bakery off the main drag about one block down a hill (NOT the one on the main street attached to the grocery store). Fortunately, we ran into two locals who sent us there. After a delicious pastry and warming tea/coffee we put on our rain pants because in the next few hours a storm and wind event was predicted and the clouds were super dark.

The bakery where we warmed up in Haidmuhle

We popped onto the Adalbert Stifter trail, which was also an awesome 20 k gravel ride, slightly downhill. The trail is a converted, abandoned rail line which meant the grades were predictable and gradual. For me, it was like a Disney Land ride: steep descents scare me but this was a 2 percent grade the whole way. In the meantime the weather was a gathering storm which added to the fun because we were in a forest and felt mostly protected from the wind.

The Adalbert-Stifter trail was very well signed

All of our clothing was utilized on this day!

We arrived at the outskirts of Waldkirchen and had some trials with Komoot wanting to send us up some stairs. We refused. We found our hilarious hotel - Michel Karoli- up a very steep and long hill on a ridge on the outskirts of town. It felt a bit like a modern version of the hotel in the Shining. It’s a huge old place with a huge lobby where we walked in and nobody is there. It hasn’t been updated for 50 years. There was a guy that checked us in who was Hungarian, and spoke no English, and we had one of our more challenging check-in experiences. We are pretty sure that he was the janitor that had been recruited to man the check-in desk. He couldn’t sell Dave a beer because the beer was locked up. He didn’t know where we should store our bikes so he called his colleague who reported to put them in the conference room. But, the conference room was locked so we just wound up putting them under cover outside the front door in the entryway. Given how deserted the place was, we were not worried. We were laughing and were just happy to be inside as it had started to pour.

And, our room was okay. The best part was the shower which was old but big with good hot water. And, the tv had Eurosport so we caught the last 40 k of Jonas Vindegaard winning the 5th stage of the Tour of Croatia while we cleaned up.

Note the high tech phone and clock radio!

Another unfortunate problem with this hotel is that despite the fact it had a huge dining room and bar, it was closed, on a Saturday night no less, probably due to it being off-season, so we would have to go down to the restaurant at the sister hotel, which was only 1k away. But that 1k was down a hill and then up another in the dark, and it was pouring when we departed for dinner. We got lost and had to stop twice to reorient ourselves. The restaurant Karoli was a tradional German place - only a buffet was offered and there was a group there for dinner — think Rotary or something similar - along with a ton of families with kids. It felt very authentic and we enjoyed our buffet —it had a really good salad. The only glitch was they charged us for tap water (5.60 euros). When Dave asked about it the waiter just shrugged and the upshot of that was he talked himself out of the tip we typically leave. (We generally do tip at restaurants but more moderately than when we are in the US, and servers have always been very appreciative.) Afterwards we reflected that it was a rare time we felt taken advantage of on this entire trip.

The last two days of touring have been great. We feel we are out in the middle of nowhere.

Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 1,652 km (1,026 miles)

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