Bohemian Bike Bros

There isn't much territory Chris hasn't explored in the Czech Republic but he mapped a road trip of unseen spots that began in Trebon, two hours south of Prague.  And the weather, which looked iffy from afar, cooperated!

 

Here's the view from the Airbnb Chris rented from our very enthusiastic and chic hostess, just outside the town center.  Nearly everyone in the Czech Republic owns a small "huta" (the Russians call these weekend getaways "dachas), which explains why the two-lane highway was plagued with speed demons rushing to get to theirs on a Friday afternoon.

Our walks into town always yielded new discoveries and endless photo ops.

That skinny white monument in the foreground is a plague tower.  Everything old is new again

. . . except maybe us.  Chris has taken a page from Nancy Reagan's playbook with his new windbreaker.

Not everything pretty looks to the past.  Cool, simple branding for an optometrist, right?

There's a modern film center, too.

The last time I came across so many topless women was in Heidelberg, on a field trip to see the African Ballet.  Miss Tom, my 5th grade teacher, approached my father, a chaperone, with a stricken look when she realized some of the dancers would be performing bare-breasted.  "It's nothing they haven't already seen in National Geographic," Ken responded mildly.  The woman below is bathing in the Golden Canal.

Trebon is famous for its peat baths.  I had to experience mine vicariously through this museum display as neither of my traveling companions were eager to book a spa visit for that purpose.  Where was Thom when I needed him?

Another display demonstrated how Bohemians once carved wood to carry water from the Luznice River to the Golden Canal and the man-made ponds that have sustained local fish farming for 500 years.  

Very, very impressive that engineering feat, as became increasingly clear once we began our bike tour and saw first-hand the extent of the interconnected ponds, nearly all of which have an enormous fish feeder.

One First Republic (1918-1938) building pays proper tribute to the fish farmers.

Castles may be ubiquitous in the Czech Republic but finding an English-speaking tour guide, especially during the pandemic, can be hit-or-miss.

We missed.  Chris and Victor grabbed an outdoor espresso, served on what appeared to be petrified wood, before we joined a native group.  No guide, no admission.

The "no photo" policy and lack of translation forced me to pay closer attention to the things I was seeing WHILE seeing them.  Call it "slow travel" (or maybe mindfulness).

This big raven is about to peck out the eyes of Turks captured by the reigning king in a long-ago war, a motif we saw repeated in tapestries and porcelain miniatures on the castle tour while shuffling through the dark rooms in our slippered feet.

Not all the decor was worthy of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Our 30-mile biking expedition began on Saturday, just after a grab-and-go lunch from Coop, the supermarket we patronized throughout our five-day road trip.

Recording video while pedaling can be haphazard.  I'm still pissed I somehow missed the grazing brown cows and sheep.

World War I memorials and roadside altars are almost as ubiquitous as castles in the Bohemian countryside.  That last phrase sounds odd; I usually associate "bohemia" with urban sophisticates in dingy bars.

A two-tone stack of hay bales complemented my shirt.

Future Fish Farmers of Bohemia?

Getting to this church required a steady climb.

But the statues and view from the other side made all that pumping worth it.

Twenty-six members of the Schwarzenberg dynasty--former occupants of the Trebon castle, German and Bohemian nobles who date back to the Middle Ages AND princes of the Holy Roman Empire--were buried in this two-story crypt from 1877 to 1939.  World War II seems to have ended that way of life everywhere except England.  Today, only unrestrained capitalism mints new royalty.

Dining in Trebon can be an all-night affair if you want it to be.  We did, the first night. It felt like a Friday night in the Pines when housemates are at their chattiest.  Victor hogged the talking stick but his story about a former Clinton official's obsession with obits had us in stitches.

Trust me, you've never eaten a dessert this delicious:  potato gnocchi smothered in a creamy vanilla poppy sauce and garnished with star fruit. 

We dined pretty well the next night, too, where dogs were almost as numerous as patrons on the chilly patio. I'd wager that my perfectly cooked duck and carrots were farm-to-table although Czech restaurants don't toot this horn as loudly as their much more expensive American counterparts.

Chris ordered carp, the area's primary farmed fish. Czechs typically serve it on Christmas Eve, a tradition appropriated by the Germans, many of whom were expelled from the area after World War II.