April 26th, 2022
While I had booked a quadruple room with a private bathroom, we had been given a double containing a single bunk bed. The quadruple room would have allowed us both to sleep at ground level, so having a single bunk bed, one of us would need to sleep with their head closer to the ceiling than usual. As I don’t like heights, and this being a taller than usual bunk bed, there was only one option. I got the top bunk.
The bed itself was comfortable and the room warm, so sleeping wasn’t a problem; however, at about midnight, it did become a challenge. We assumed midnight is the time the bar that we had been in kicks out, as the quiet of our slumber was rudely interrupted by a bunch of loud inebriated gentleman trying to find their bedrooms. Eventually the noise subsided and we fell back to sleep.
At 2 am, the lights in our bathroom turned on, and we heard the noise of someone brushing their teeth, going to the toilet, and washing their hands. Before the light was switched off, we saw a head pop around the corner to check our bedroom out before retreating through the door to the adjacent room that we were promised was locked and would remain locked for the duration of our stay. We are certainly having a run of bad luck with accommodation lately.
The 7:30 am alarm went off far to soon after such a disturbed night’s sleep, but with a day of hills and very few choices of where we would be able to sleep; we needed to make an early start.
The hotel had advertised breakfast at an additional cost when we booked, but the restaurant door was locked, and there was no sign of life anywhere in the area. First breakfast was, therefore, a few squares of chocolate, with second breakfast planned for the first supermarket that we pass on the road.
The day’s first challenge was to get the Pino back down the internal flight of stairs without breaking something, including ourselves. With the use of reasonable brake control and a little heavy lifting, the bike and the panniers made it out into the fresh air and under a blue sky for a change. We geared the bike up before I went to complain about our 2 am incident.
It was the same person in reception that checked us in, but this time her English seemed to have escaped her. So, with Google Translate to the rescue, I explained our issue with the booking. Not being able to defend the problems we encountered, again with the use of Google Translate, she offered a second night at the hotel for free, but no refund… we will just need to see what booking.com has to say about it now!
We knew today would be challenging due to the 1000+ metres of climb. The road started to climb steeply immediately out of the town, giving us a taste of what was to come. The lighter bike without the trailer made the job easier, and the new socket on the Rohloff Speedhub allowed us to select a gear that worked, even though the first gear had our legs spinning like a spinny thing. Before long, we found ourselves on the country roads that Komoot had promised. The road surface was good, the scenery spectacular, the birds all seemed happy, and the sky was blue. The only problem was the distinct lack of groceries shops, so the absence of breakfast to add fuel to the bike power source hurt.
The terrain was rolling rather than a constraint climb, so once a hill had been conquered, we were rewarded with a free ride for a couple of minutes, just enough time for our legs to seaze up, before the next steep climb came into view.
We stopped as frequently as we wanted, enjoying the blue sky for a change, although there was still a chill in the air. We found a small shop selling stale bread in the town of Skolni, so at least lunch was a possibility.
After a brief stop to check out an unusual beehive on wheels with Deborah asking me to get a little too close for comfort so that she could get her photo, we pushed on to the top of a hill and a small wooded glade to enjoy our lunch of stale, and now crushed bread, melted butter and rubberised Edam cheese. While it didn’t taste all that good, it was much-needed calories.
We pushed on further, still without a plan for the night, until we came to another shop, a COOP, in the town of Velis. I went into the shop with high hopes and came out with a bottle of Fanta orange fix. The shop was a combination of a hardware store, a toy shop, an off-licence, and a grocery store after looting, following an earthquake.
Back into the daylight, I found that Deborah had made two new friends. When we arrived at the shop, a couple of guys were sitting 20m away on a nearby picnic table, but now they were checking out our bike. There was no common language between us, but when they heard the word Scotland one of the guys pulled out his phone and showed us a bagpipe parade that he had taken a few years ago. It’s always fun to interact with real locals, and these two characters were no exception. Still, it was time to move on, so we said our goodbyes and pushed off with phones pointed in our direction, no doubt to add to their video collection of strange things people from Scotland do in their spare time.
The rolling hill kept rolling all day, so with the afternoon drawing to a close, we set ourselves on staying in Pelhrimov for the night. We knew there weren’t any campsites in the area, so as we approached the town, we looked for potential hidden wild camping spots. Wild camping in the Czech Republic is illegal, as it has been in every country since leaving Scotland, but worth the risk if a spot with minimal risk can be found.
When we were at the top of the hill looking down onto the sprawl of the town, we hadn’t found anywhere suitable to camp, so hotels.cz and booking.com were our only hope. We found a cheap apartment at the other end of town on hotels.cz, so we had no choice other than head to it and kept our fingers crossed. When we arrived at the reception, it was closed, with instructions, translated with the help of Google Translate, to press the buzzer in the adjacent gate. We did, and we were immediately greeted with “full”. Which meant something to us, but I can’t help but feel a pizza delivery boy may have been left confused.
Booking.com had a single property showing as available! although more expensive, but as it was now approaching 6 pm, we had little option. I booked it, followed the 1.7 km direction given by Google Maps back up the hill to Beach Well, our volleyball training centre accommodation for the evening.
We checked in, unloaded our gear into a very modern room with so many storage cabinets even IKEA would be jealous, secured the Pino in the beer shed, which is apparently the safest room in the complex, and then headed out in search of food.
LIDL was the chosen restaurant of the evening, so with a shopping bag of food, we headed back to our room to feast, shower and have an early night, without any firm plans of where we will be resting our heads tomorrow night. Life on the road!