Traveling to Cesty Krumlov-Day 4

The world looks better on a bicycle.

Today was a day of transition. We met the 18 people, who will be our traveling companions for the next 6 days, early in the morning, at the hotel. They seemed a nice enough bunch; 3 other couples from Pennsylvania, New York and Bermuda, a whole group of friends who travel together annually from Falmouth, an investor from California and some friends from Colorado. They put us onto a bus, and we drove once more through Prague, passing the Old and New Cities and heading through the intensely capitalistic maze of factories and production facilities that now ring the city. Some suburban sprawl as well. Then we passed into farmland, acres and acres of the stuff. Crops were mostly in- saw a little bit of corn, but not much else. We moved to successively smaller roads until we finally came to the town of Cesty Krumlov. This is a very old town on a stretch of the Vlada river that practically does a u-turn in southern Czech Republic. The topography is wild; quite hilly, but always resolving into one stretch of the river or another. The buildings are pretty and old. But most importantly, here is where Vermont Bicycle Tours lets us meet our bicycles. I was quite excited.

First, however, we had to complete forms. Then we had to be trained. Then our bikes needed adjustments. THEN we could go. We wandered the town by foot and took a few half-hearted pictures, visited a church, ate some lunch, and sat through the trainings. Being in the Czech Republic was nice, but all that mattered was getting on the bicycle. Finally we were off.

It was glorious. We peddled down hill, encountering cobblestone streets and sharp turns that seemed to make no sense. We crossed the river, and peddled along a gradually widening road that ran under the old city walls. We crossed the highway and lost ourselves in the surrounding countryside on a series of designated bicycle paths with little other traffic. We saw villages and farms and smelled Czech manure (actually, it all smells the same) and saw chickens and a carp farm and sheep and little else. It was a fabulous test ride, it was 13.5 km and it was over way too soon. I can’t wait until tomorrow.

One thing while riding through the farms; something about the way the houses looked, each with a vegetable garden poised on the hillside, made me think of my grandparents, with Pop’s vegetable garden and the delightful clutter of their basement. It felt like coming home, although for no rational reason that I could perceive. I am 3 generations removed from this soil, after all. It was a comfortable feeling.

Dinner was preceded with wine and champagne, and resulted in many conversations about bicycling and politics and life and art. One of our tour guides, Olga, sings in a Czech folk group and is a native of Cesty Krumlov; Jan is from Brno (eastern Czech Republic), has two degrees in Computer Science and will be moving to Finland to do dogsledding toursnext month. We speculated on the fall of communism and the hope for the future and the rise of bicycling as a tourist activity in the Czech Republic.

Prague was wonderful, but the world really does look better from a bicycle.