April 18, 2019
Day 31: Stranny to Prague
We had to climb a hill to get out of Stranny, but then, we knew that. We backtracked to Neveklov, to regain the track, on the way reminding barking dogs behind gates that they already knew us, and again appreciating a large pasture full of sheep, and many Spring lambs.
For about 10 km beyond Neveklov we could still look around and say "Oh yeah, Czech Merano, lovely rolling hills". But around then we entered a new type of zone. It seemed to me to be just sort of random houses, random hills, and random landscapes. But there was a unifying factor. The roads we were on were narrow, rough, and extremely curvy. The curves produced very poor sight lines, and of course there were no shoulders. To this was added an increased level of car and truck traffic. This was not like getting stuck on a no shoulder French 9000 series D road, because the traffic level was not high enough to make us catatonic. It was instead just high enough to make us very nervous, and tired.
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Abut noon, we knew our fortunes were changing, for the worse, when we came upon a McDonald's, and in the distance, a line of tall white apartment blocks. Was this to be Prague?
A little more random landscape intervened, until finally we were not just beside this apartment thing, but injected right into it. This was not just a few apartment buildings, to which we might overreact, coming as we were from a week out in the wilds of rural Czech. No, this was a city of monolithic apartments. True, there was a little green space between the structures, but we saw no services for those who would be the residents - no shops, no neighbourhoods. Was this some sort of Soviet era monster project?
Slowly we exited apartment-land and came to, oh no, a giant shopping complex. It was called Chodov Center, and included all sorts of Western businesses. Beyond Chodov we had a typical city environment, with busy roads, gas stations, and traffic lights. Somewhere ahead soon would be the Prague we had heard about - with the Charles Bridge, the Castle, and all the medieval buildings, right?
Well not quite, I think what came next was a large forested park, where we rode on rough tracks a wondered what happened to the signage. A shady bench did allow us to eat our sandwiches and recover strength. That was good, because the Charles Bridge was not to come for another two full hours.
Fortunately, the park devolved not into the series of busy roads that Dodie had been afraid we would have to deal with, but a series of sort of bike paths, and finally a bike/walk sidewalk beside the river. The river is called the Vltava. It's a tributary of the Elbe, and joins in about 60 km north, at Melnik. (I had always thought of the Elbe Radweg as Prague to Hamburg-Cuxhaven, but clearly there is this little matter of the Vltava, before you get on the Elbe. The Elbe, meanwhile, runs at least 150 km before it ever gets to Melnik)
Following the sidewalk by the river (quiz - what river? yes, the Vltava - it is actually the longest river in Czech!) we passed through ever thickening numbers of people. But although there were bridges, none were the famous Charles one, and although to our right were buildings, some nice, not were knock your socks off.
My camera tells me that it was under a half hour from joining the river side until our socks got knocked off. It just felt like forever, I guess.
But then from "When is this going to happen" it jumped to "Oh my stars, this is incredible! Are we still in the same country?" What a contrast between staid and crumbly rural Czech, apartment city, shopping mall central, traffic light and McDonald's Prague, to finally knock your socks off, tourist clogged, Prague of the brochures.
My shots are taken on the fly from the bike, and its a bit hard while avoiding pedestrians and steering one handed. I realized that by the standards of what I had considered worth a photo in past days, I should be snapping non-stop. Anyway, I hope these photos will give some idea. Tomorrow may be a more deliberate effort, or at least it will be on foot.
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Walking our bikes along the "pesi zona" we absorbed the crowds, the food offerings, the garnet shops, and the amazing buildings all around. We loosely followed our GPS toward the hotel, and passed by famous looking stuff that no doubt we will soon know a lot more about:
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Dodie scored once again in choosing a hotel. Just on the edge of the old city, ours is the Hotel Zlata Vaha. Since it's a pink hotel, it's got to be good.
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We ducked out, and into the first restaurant we saw.
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Prague is not a place for bike riding, but it is set up for walking. So tomorrow we leave the bikes in the courtyard and sally out on foot to investigate more carefully!
Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 1,717 km (1,066 miles)
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