March 29, 2015
Day 73 - Vyssi Brod to Cesky Krumlov: Easy, pleasant day (boring for you, great for me)
Back in the Eastern Bloc. Okay, not quite. This could be anywhere else in Europe. It's amazing how quickly things have changed, how border controls are gone--and have been gone for years--between Austria and Slovakia, Austria and Czech Republic, etc. But what I keep hearing is that deer, astoundingly, still don't cross the border. Even people have changed their weekend migration patterns faster than that.
At the hotel, I lingered in bed long enough that I could hear the sound of a vacuum cleaner by the time I was ready to leave. So I had to sneak my bike out of the room when the cleaning staff wasn't looking. And that was the hardest part of my day.
It had rained overnight, and although spring is a week or two behind the Austrian side of the hill, the forest had that fresh smell, that clean air, that slightly wild look. I took my time on the quiet roads, stopping often to listen the birds and watch the placid river.
And to top it all off, the road was mainly downhill. The last village was an anomaly--it looked like a broken, dead, former industrial town. There was some English graffiti: "Welcome in shit".
It was early when I got to Cesky Krumlov, so I had plenty of time to both look around town and sit around doing nothing at the hostel. There was a Chinese girl staying there who was determined to meet a handsome man at some point during her 10-day trip. She kept repeating this to the unfortunate Thai guy she was talking to--I call him unfortunate because she didn't seem to think he qualified as handsome. Some Koreans had told her Austrian men are very handsome, so she was looking forward to going to Vienna next.
Hostels in Europe have become far less interesting in the past few years. Or maybe they stayed the same and I've become more interesting... nah, it's the hostels that have changed.
Today's ride: 32 km (20 miles)
Total: 3,437 km (2,134 miles)
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