A castle and lakeside resort just for us? You shouldn't have

September 6th, 2012 Thursday

In the morning we awoke to a light rain, so we stayed in longer than usual. It cleared up by about 9 am, so we packed our things and hit the road, jack. The pathways were pretty beautiful, and the terrain pretty flat, so the morning went smoothly.

The road we hit

We stopped for lunch in a quaint little town. Everything in the square was old school stone, castle-like. I thought a dragon was going to come out and eat me at any moment. We sat outside for lunch to appreciate the square, had a delicous lunch and drank 5 Radlers (lemonade beer drink) between the two of us.

Chicken schnizel and potatoes

After lunch we treked on and it was a bit rough after that. We went through a nice trail, but it was forever and a half of uphill.

At a high point, still smiling

The hills shot up and down for a bit, and it was interesting to think that we were about a km away from the Austrian border, biking along side it. We eventually hit a major downhill with lots of twists and turns. I hit more than 30 mph, and had to slow to about 20mph for a sharp turn that almost carried Hanako off the cliff (she was ok, it was exhilirating). It was all worth it because we then saw this magnificent castle:

Oh hey I heard you like exquisite palaces, so I got you one

In our return uphill; we decided to stop and take a few more pictures of the castle. I mused that being a pesant and having the black plauge run through my town as the king sat loftily in his castle eating a fat hog for breakfast would have sucked. On a lighter note, does this castle look familiar? Well all you Vin Diesel fans, it should! Its the castle used in the film XXX we later found out.

After more uphill, two bridges and a dam, we got to this:

A beautiful lake side resort, complete with sunset, and nice Czech people. We got to the camp and looked for someone to hand money to, but no such luck. The camp was in its off season, so I asked some people standing around what we should do and how the showers worked. They in turn gave me two Czech shots and a microphone! Ok, so no mic, but two shots of that Czech moonshine that we tried in Prague and one for Hanako too. They also helped me make change for the showers which were 20kc (a little over a dollar) for 4 minutes of shower time. The peole who gave us the shots turned out to be college professors chaperoning a group of college students doing cycling tours through Czech.
We set up camp on the same lawn as the college students, and rushed to the showers before they closed at 8pm. Afterwards we went to one of the only restaurants still open and got some delicous Czech food. Mmmmm MMMmmmm Czrch us out. We met a strapping young lad named Jan (the John equivalent) who helped us translate to the cook what we wanted since our menu was in English. We ordered food and invited Jan to come and chill with us and drink. We drank there until the place closed, then moved to the fire pits close by (but without fire in them). Jan brought a bottle of Czech vodka and a few international beers that he had aquired along his travels. He also gave us blankets as we were close to the lake and it was a bit too cold for our California blood. We shared travel stories and passed the time drinking. Eventually some of the college kids came by to make a fire. One of them wanted to get it started with the plastic wrapping from the wood bundles but I said eff that! Not trying to breathe in melting plastic. Jan was kind enough to get newspaper to get the fire started. We hung out by the fire for a bit longer, and after Hanako retired to our tent, Jan conviced me to do the tree climb activity at the campsite that is his normal job in the busy season.
Czech out the next post for details and pictures...