Day 30: Tabor to Stranny

April 17, 2019

We pulled our bikes from the stairwell where they had been stashed last evening, and I carried them down one flight of stairs, to near the front door. The storage stairwell lead up to what must be a currently unused part of the building, but it provided a window into how much maintenance and restoration goes into these centuries old buildings that seem so pristine to the present day tourist. It would be a huge amount of work to return that stairwell to the condition it must have been in when the frescoe visible on one wall was first painted.

It would take work to restore the upper floors here.

Down by the front door I popped my battery into its rack, and noticed that it was still discharged from yesterday. The connection between the charger and the battery is a bit loose, so contact must not have been made when we set the batteries up to charge in the room overnight.

There was a plug by the door, so there was nothing for it but to plug in now and wait a while. This set up a bit of a unique opportunity. With the Billa grocery store right there, I could have a look at it, without being rushed, or tired, or hungry. This was kind of a variant of my usual "cold light of morning" looks at the streets and buildings of the places we barrel in to at the close of each day's cycling.

Like every grocery we have seen in Czech, the Billa is quite subdued - not huge, and not with any sort of big or glitzy front doors. Of course, the products on offer we all "foreign" to me, and inherently interesting.

I saw that the bakery department had been restocked a bit, and now to be seen were some raspberry-like croissants, some poppyseed pastries, and even some seeded buns to supplement those awfully weak little baguettes.

Not bad, for grocery store bakery, and the prices are low.

Cheeses seemed to favour rather standard packages of "Leerdammer" and other sliced products that one might expect. Prepared meats had a lot of "hot dog" type sausages - not like German wurst. We had actually seen these hot dogs on offer at one of the breakfasts.

I cruised by a display of chocolate bars, that by virtue of being all labelled in Czech looked like a good bet for a souvenir. But on the back, amid all the Czech was the invitation to phone the Nestle info line. Gack, in an age of globalisation, it's hard sometimes to find a actual local product.

Finally (for this review - though I feel I am now quite knowledgeable about Billa - the products, the staffing, pricing, display techniques - you can learn a lot while your battery is charging!) beer. Czech is super famous for beer, Pilsener- whatever that is -, and in a grocery store it looks like you can have a half litre can for 83 cents US. Is that good?

Heart

Comment

Link

Deciding that the battery charge was good, or good enough, we set out. But the track and Greenway immediately lead us to a set of stairs, the proposed way for us to get off the ridge. We had already done enough stair carrying for the day, so we set off to find another way, ultimately using a "big" road. But out here no road is really dangerously big, so it was fine.

As usual, it did not take long to be back out in the countryside. But I got a rude awakening when my observation of past days about a lack of giant sprayers out poisoning the land was given the lie by no less than a John Deere. During the day we saw (and tried to avoid being gassed by) several others, of various makes.

Despite the incongruous traffic light noted near Plana, yesterday, and a few in Tabor, I continued to build my impression that rural Czech is free of such annoyances as grocery parking lots and places with illuminated signs.

For example, here is a typical Co-op today:

The car nose you see is in a narrow strip, one spot, by the road. Note the conservative entry and exit doors. Also, not wheelchair friendly.

The same town also had a gas station. Do those prices count as illuminated?

Looking at that Coop, I observed that obviously people would be walking and not driving to the store. Indeed, about 1 km out of the next town, an old man came hobbling along, pushing a walker containing groceries. Peeking out of a paper bag on top was a really nice looking brown bread. But the man's progress was slow and painful. "That man needs an electric trike!" was my culturally, economically, and practically insensitive comment. Followed by " Hey, I should have asked him where he bought the bread". Aren't you glad you don't have to cycle with me?

On a previous page I mentioned that we have no idea what type of terrain or surroundings we will encounter when we set off here for the day's cycling. Today, it turned out we were in what they call "little Merano", because of all the hills and dales. Note that - "hills". Indeed this was rolling countryside, where you were either ascending or descending. Partially charged bike batteries don't like that much. So once again we were speculating about whether we would find a cafe where my battery could plug in for a while. Dodie looked down at the GPS, and this is what she saw:

In case you don't trust "flying by instruments", here is what I saw on looking ahead:

Dodie had honestly thought that there was not going to be a darn thing on our trajectory, but when we next turned the map, there was Sedlec-Prcice! I happen to now know that Sedlec and Prcice developed as independent towns in Roman times, but in 1957 they merged. Even so, there are two distinct town centres. We rolled into the centre of Sedlec. Looking around, I saw no "Restaurace", but there was an Information "i". We went over there and of course found the door locked. But the next door (as seemingly every next door in Czech) contained Hairdressers. (Did Douglas Adams know this in writing the Hitchhiker's Guide?). The two ladies there had trouble with my Czech, including the part that mimes eating with a fork. But they caught on, and pointed across the square to a "Hospoda". That was a new word on us, but sure enough it was not only a restaurant, but the place where all the local workers were headed for the mid day meal. (I have since found that hospoda means pub).

Downtown Sedlec - see any restaurants? No, better check for pubs.

The choice was simple, 1,2, 3, or 4. I forget what we chose, but we got one curried chicken and rice and one roast chicken breast - both excellent. The pub was very big on Lobkowicz beer.

Dodie was quite cocky about her bike, confident that both she and it had lots of get up and go remaining. So we only connected mine, to the fast charger. I felt good about that, looking at all the new reserves as we set off. But oh, little Merano - up and down and up and down!

Fortunately, the way the stops up to Prague have broken down, the days are not so long. As you see today, not much over 60 km. But with the hills, both riders and both bikes became pooped. At the top of our maps was Neveklov, the largish town at about that 60 km point. But the booking that had been found was in Stranny, a tiny hamlet further on and further up and further down. We carried on, in search of Penzion Stranny, nervously noting any passing bus shelters, and watching our bike range indicators, which once again were saying 4 km. We have yet to find out what Bosch says to you when it calculates that you are done for. So far 4 is as low as we have gone. But with that kind of number, it was clear that Penzion Stranny had better exist!

In the hamlet, we found the Penzion sign on the building. Now that was already a big plus. But the doors were all locked. I set off to circumnavigate the property, and found another small door. I rang, and two small dogs answered, followed by a perfectly lovely woman who was expecting us, knew that we had already paid, and showed our bikes into their own private closets.

We were then guided upstairs into a large and pristinely clean area, with common sofas, tea and coffee, and such, and again to a large, airy, clean room. In the whole large place, we are the only guests. So the lady said she would bring breakfast tomorrow directly to our room.

Bus shelter back ups - ha ha, how could we have ever thought that.

Two other things. For almost the first time in Europe we have a bathtub that you can escape from just by getting onto your knees. It is so great. Dodie and I have already both fallen asleep in there. It's comfy.

Easy out bathtub - bigger than it looks.

Last thing, Scott Anderson has written about the rooms in attics, where beams and roofs have tried to brain him. We find these too, and somehow the danger points are always on "my" side. So how about this one for tonight?

Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 1,647 km (1,023 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	9
Comment on this entry	Comment	0