We entered the Czech republic on 21st May 2005 and took 3 weeks to cross from West to East. On the way we passed through Prague and interrupted friends during their exams. We then carried on Eastwards and visited friends in Zlin before crossing the border to Slovakia. Our knowledge of the Czech republic and the Czech language was fairly minimal so it proved to be an interesting couple of weeks.

As we are both residents of the EU, the Czech Republic presents no visa or entry restrictions for a cycle tourist. On the contrary to our entry in Germany, there was a proper border, which we could not miss, and passport checking.

This is where the fun starts. Because we did not want to carry too many books, we thought we would buy a czech-English dictionary once in the country. It took us one day to reach a big town where we could buy that kind of book. Near the border areas most Czech speak very good German and this has been a great help. We have purchased a phrase book and dictionary in Marianske Lazne, but as we soon realised, it is a guide book for Czechs so it gives the english pronunciation of words, not the Czech one. This is when a welcome crash course in Czech was given to us at the Stanowitz campsite (see below). Now we can just about get buy, but if you plan on spending time anywhere else than Prague, where English seems to be spoken by a lot of people, it is worth investing in a small phrase book purchased in England.

For the record, one of the longest words without a vowel in Czech is "scvrnkls", meaning "you flick". And it is pronounceable (not by us though!). And there is a Czech word that everybody know. Yes, even YOU! It is the word "robot". Thank god, we can pronounce this one!

The plan had been to stay in campsites where possible. The choice of maps have proven to be extremely unreliable with the positional indication of campsites. One map indicated 6 campsites around Marianske Lazne - we became concerned when none of these were signposted - as it turned out only one campsite existed and that was about 5 km from the town. We wanted to give a special mention to this little campsite in Stanoviste On top of a beautiful setting, the landlords are genuinely helpful, provide excellent food on wet days (as well as sunny days I am sure) and a lot of tourist information on the area and the Czech Republic in general. We even had an improvised lesson in Czech pronunciation! The link to the Stanowitz (or Spessart) is here if you ever go into the area.

The campsites cost in the region of £5 to £7 per night (115 Kr to 325 Kr in Prague). One pound is worth about 40 Kr (one Euro about 29 Kr).

We found that a map is sold in some shops that indicates all the Czech campsites of the country (we think it is an ADAC map). Be careful as there is a lot of out of date information and some of the campsites simply don't exist anymore. On top of this, some campsites, when they exist, are not open out of season (this was at the end of May), which has meant for us a few nights of wild camping.

Generally cycle shops seem to be quite thin on the ground. We have tried looking in a shop in Marianske Lazne, which is a big town, for some headset spacers for Isa's bike but they didn't stock such exotic equipment - this doesn't bode well for the more remote areas!

Drink seems to be exclusively lager based with names similar to those known in England - Pilsner Urquell, Budvar Budweiser and other variations on a theme. Generally drinking in bars or from the supermarket is extremely good value (a bottle of beer in the supermarket is about 15p, and 0.5 l of beer in a bar is 50p). Generally the prices of food and drink are about 1/3 to 1/2 of the price of Germany and the Netherlands.

The initial impressions for buying food are that there only seems to be the bargain supermarkets such as Lidl and Plus. These are very good value offering discount, over produced, end of line type products but not ideal for the fussy cyclotourer eg they do not stock tinned tomatoes, but you can buy any type of tinned fish (in every variety of accompanying sauce). The most serious cause for concern is the lack of bakers - our fascination with the regional variations in cake and biscuit production may need to come to a premature end. We finally asked the question where to find bakers and bread ("chleba" in Czech). The answer was that we can find bread in Potraviny (little grocer shops) or samooblusluha (supermarket). The bread is good - I am still wondering who is baking it though. This is not the case in Prague. We found a few bakers, who sell a whole range of sandwiches and drinks too.

In the more remote villages the only option for food is to find a "Potraviny". With the exception of tinned tomatoes all your staples can normally be found, although fresh fruit and veg can be difficult. In the bigger cities such as Zlin, absolutely everything can be found in supermarkets such as Carrefour or Tesco. It is like you never left England or France.

Cheese Report: Well nothing to report, absolutely, totally disappointing. Virtually all shops contain varying types "laughing cow" type cheese. The only way to buy cheese with any flavour is to buy smoked cheese - and that soon gets quite tiresome. There are a number of Balkan cheeses available (Feta) which are good but rather differing in quality and flavour (the language barrier cannot be underestimated here - it's very difficult to know what you're buying)

Late may and early June should mean warm and sunny weather - ideal for touring. Our last few days of good weather in Germany continued with 2 days of 22 C, but then we decided to have a rest Marianske Lane and the heavens opened - not continuous but great heavy downpours. The weather then suddenly changed and we are at our fifth day of continuous sun without a single cloud in the sky. Isa has been sun burnt in Prague and the temperature is well over 30 C. We were told this is the Czech weather: all bad, then all too good.

We finished our time in the Czech republic with a good solid 4 days of proper rain. We were in the more mountainous area and I suppose there must be a reason why it is so lush and green (when we reached our destination across the border in Slovakia they had received 8 days of constant rain)

So far we have not needed any reason to consult with medical practitioners in the Czech Republic. Being members of the EU and working in the UK we have E111 forms which should help to ensure we get reciprocal treatment if the need arises.

There is a great deal of forests in the Czech Republic. The Western area from Cheb onwards is rolling hills covered with pine forests over the summits. Lower down is a mixture of arable (the ubiquitous rape seed) and open meadow land. The meadow land in late May makes a wonderful sight - memories of being about 6 years old and the farmer making hay and straw bales came flooding back. It is a sight which is not seen very often these days in the intensive agricultural environment of the UK. With the meadows come all sorts of birds and insects - the best being the skylark - always an evocative sound of early summer.

With the large amount of woodland lining the roads we have been startled on a number of occasions by deer jumping out on to the road and running alongside us before leaping back in to the safety of the forest - quite scary on a downhill at 50 km/hr.

Red Squirrels abound with their lovely big fluffy tails - none of those ugly grey tree rats found in England. Even the odd black (red) squirrel. As we moved further the instance of storks has increased, initially only in the manmade nests atop 10 metre posts, but latterly just stood in a field watching the world go by.

In the Czech Republic:

Distance Travelled - 801 km

Days Travelling - 13

Average Distance per Day - 61 km

Highest Point - 876m on the Slovak border (highest of the trip so far)

22nd May 2005 - Cheb to Stanoviste (near Marianske Lazne)

The day started with a visit to Cheb. It is a big city with a fabulous square in its middle. As we found out later, the square is a local pride and has houses dating from the 12th century. it was really nice and there was a local mountain biking race around the town. It is nice to see other people suffering too sometimes! Outside the main square, we found the town quite rundown. Beautiful houses literally crumbling away. What was most intriguing was the amount of casinos and game bars around the town. But very sad were all the signs between our campsite and Cheb with "Love story" or "Aphrodite" written on neon boards and pointing towards the woods.

We then went on Marianske Lazne, truly tired (but I was happy not to have to spend the night in the forest eating berries and roots). This is when we found out that from the 6 campsites marked on our map, there was only one 5 km after the town in Stanoviste. So we pushed on and found a lovely campsite and had our first Czech meal!

An interesting fact that we later learnt about our patch of forest is that it is considered (by the locals at least) to be the very centre of Europe.

23rd May 2005 - Resting the legs in Stanoviste

The campsite was too nice and we had three hard days since leaving Bamberg. We decided to stop for a day and ... it rained like hell! Once again!!! Raaah!!!!

We still managed to spend a few hours in Marianske Lazne, which is a big spa town. We were wondering the day before why there seem to be only hotels around in this town (and what hotels - very grand!), with nothing else to be seen. We finally found the answer to our question. The main attraction for people who don't have to money to spend on the town many spa treatments is to drink water from several different springs. Some are fizzy, some flat. The one we tried smelt of rotten eggs and tasted rusty iron. Disgusting, but still recommended by doctors. Makes you wonder what I was doing removing iron, manganese from the water when it is a selling point here!

24th May 2005 - Stanoviste to Kralovice - 73 km

We left Stanoviste and headed straight Eastward. Our first stop was a few kilometres after our start to visit a monastery at Tepla. It was fabulous. Again, as we noticed for so many villages after the border, the building was in a pretty bad state, but restoration work is ongoing. We were told that the whole area suffered greatly during the communist period. A band of 10 km wide from the border was forbidden to anybody and some villages were destroyed. On top of this, all the German citizens were sent back to Germany after the war, leaving some villages totally empty. Then the communist regime simply did not invest in the area and things were left to go from bad to worse.

As for Tepla monastery, there was mainly a lot of big empty rooms with very little left in them. The building was used by the Soviet Army until 1973 after all the monks were arrested and imprisoned in 1948, when the country came under Soviet Control. However, two essential things were left untouched. They are both amazing: it is the library, which is the second biggest of the country after Prague monastery and the church, which is in the purest over the top baroque style. It is well worth a visit!

25th May 2005 - Kralovice to Roztoky -58 km

On that day, we decided to aim for Krivoklat castle, which is set in a national park next to the river Barounka.

The plan seemed easy: aim for the river then follow the river and then find one of the four campsites that were shown on various maps we looked at. Hum... the first mistake was to think that following a river in the Czech Republic would be easy. We went up and down and up and down like never (our map doesn't have contours). Sometimes we could see the next village one kilometre ahead on top of the next hill, but to reach it involved a 8 km detour and a 280 m climb. It was all quite taxing, but again, we crossed some genuinely fabulous area of the land. And quiet, quiet like you would never believe it.

The road finally seem to follow the river Berounka and we found a campsite. We decided to carry on to the Krivoklat castle (only 3 km further) and to the three other campsites that we were expecting. The road started to go seriously up and then down and up again to the castle, with no campsites to be seen (second mistake!). The castle was worth the detour, but it was hard on the legs to go back up the hill to the campsite we passed an hour before!

26th May 2005 - Roztoky to Prague - 68 km

By then, we had no illusion on the type of day this was going to be: it was going to be hilly because that is the way the roads go here and it was going to be hot, up to 30C!

We headed slightly South, through Beroun to Karlstejn castle, which is a must-see in terms of Czech castle. The first sight of Castle one turns the corner into the small, pedestrianised approach street is quite striking.

27th to the 30th of May - Heating up in Prague!

The thermometer must have exploded! It is suddenly so hot here, we are struggling being basic tourists in our big walking boots!

The nice things about the heat is that we finally managed to wash our laundry and dry it quick and you cannot move too much in the heat of the day, so it gives us a chance to do the website (in my swimming suit!).

We have seen bits of Prague so far but our most enjoyable moments were with our friends Jo and Duncan in a fresh beer garden (Letna park) overlooking Prague. It is nice to meet friends after so long spending time just the two of us and the coolness of the beer garden was well needed after a day visiting in the blazing heat!

We have seen the old square of Prague, the jewish ghetto and Prague castle. There is no point in describing the area to you, a guide book would do it a thousand times better than us. It is simply beautiful. Many houses and churches are in the baroque style, which means to me well over the top decoration-wise and expression-wise. Makes the bishops look like cool dude trying to tell you "all is cool man" (this is what I translate from their exaggerated gesture).

The city is unfortunately packed with tourists and the heat does not help. It had changed very much since I came in 1998. Nobody spoke English then, only Czech and German, and when you ordered a meal, you were never sure what would come (apart from the traditional dumplings on the side of the plate). It is all over now and it is no doubt a pity. KFC and McDonalds seem to have taken the place over and you can eat mexican or italian while ordering in English anywhere.

Our final day touring around Prague was a Monday and we managed to get out of bed earlier than normal - helped by the thumping heat of the sun on the tent. The day turned out to be much quieter and pleasant for sightseeing - less queues and not as many packs of guided tours. There are so many guided tours that they are now using personal amplified PA systems to allow their huge groups to hear everything they are saying.

We made the obligatory tourist walk over the Charles IV Bridge, and interior tour of St Nicholas Church before settling in for some lunch - it was very good timing - the heavens opened and an enormous storm with viscous winds and huge hail stones cleared everyone from the streets.

We returned to the campsite amongst broken branches and blown over fences - fearing the worst for the tent - but luckily all the weight of our bags kept everything in place.

31st May 2005 - Prague to Uhlirsky Janovice - 84 km

We followed the river South out of the City of Prague and into the suburbs before heading Eastwards. Our target was to reach Zlin to meet up with friends we had made at a wedding in France in 2002. The initial roads were very busy (as always near big cities) so we tried to stick to small marked "tourist paths". Terry had found some 1:100,000 maps to quench his hunger for accurate cartography - so navigation was much easier. As much as possible we avoided the planned cycle routes as their route indication and directness are poor. The cycle route surfaces are also very unpredictable and can easily add hours onto a seemingly straightforward route.

We planned to stop and camp at Sazava and have an early finished. We reached the village early after following the Sazava river. The route had turned out to be less picturesque than expected (perhaps we are starting to get a bit greedy). We made a tour of the old church and monastery before locating one of the two campsites. One was closed completely and the other had the builders in - no camping allowed! This area of the Czech republic had very few campsite options so it would be wild camping again - and yet another early, civilised finish thwarted.

We continued to Uhlirsky Janovice and found a beautiful spot to camp in a cherry orchard, the grass freshly cut - and the road opposite closed for bridge repairs - the situation turned out for the best in the end.

1st June 2005 - Uhlirsky Janovice to Zdar nad Sazavou - 87 km

We set off from our lovely campsite through quiet countryside - hardly a soul around and virtually traffic free. To avoid the major roads to the North and South we were cycling through a virtually deserted area, there were forests and meadows punctuated by small villages and hamlets - and road was never flat - 40 metres up, 50 metres down, 100 metres up, 40 metres down etc etc. This continued for the whole day.

The temperature was 28 C and we decided a campsite was needed to allow us to freshen up. The day finished alongside a lake just North of Zd'ar nad Sazavou. It was a small bar with a field and a strange shower arrangement - 6 washbasins around a room with a open shower in the corner - the shower curtain had long since disappeared - and window to the outside world - I suppose this was to allow other campers can see when the shower was free.

Pilgrimage Church of St Jan of Nepomuk on Selena Hora (Green Hill) near Zd'ar Nad Sazavou

2nd June 2005 - Zd'ar to Tisnov - 68 km

In the morning we visited Zd'ar to see the UNESCO heritage monument - Pilgrimage Church on the Green Hill. This is a wonderful 17th century church built designed by a Czech architect called Santini (maybe a bit Italian too). The whole church is surrounded by a 10 sided (decahederal) cloister full of all sorts of imagery and symbols. The church is based around a five sided star, with five doors and, five chapels and a variety of designs of windows to satisfy the needs of the various benefactors.

The church is based on the theme of St Jan (St Jean Bouche d'Or in French) and his famous tongue - he could be trusted with secrets - so much so that he was drowned in reward for his discretion. To celebrate his sacrifice the church is dedicated to him and the ceiling has an enormous tongue painted upon it - the windows above the chapels were also designed to resemble tongues. Apparently Gene Simmons from Kiss will be having a similar memorial made for him when he is drowned.

The campsite included of a group of 19-20 year students from the local town who were out to enjoy the weekend. They were very interested to speak to us and practice their English. They were very concerned about there chances of getting jobs in the local economy - their opinion was that there were no jobs in the area, the Czech economy offered them no opportunities. They were all looking for jobs in England, Ireland and Sweden (Apparently France and Germany were too difficult to get into!). Because of the huge competition for jobs in the UK they thought of maybe using agencies to find work for them - an introductory fee of £700 and half of their new salary to the agency - someone is making a lot of money from the new, bigger Europe.

Since joining the EU they had concerns that the prices in the Czech republic would rise beyond the means on the average Czech worker (the average wage is £350 per month). A valid point when you consider that the prices of everyday items seem to be 50% higher near to the German border.

It was quite surprising to meet these young people who were already so disillusioned with their future prospect. They thought that the Czech republic no longer produced anything except beer and football players- and that all the new factories are all foreign owned by the US, Germany and France. It doesn't sound all that different to never ending inward investment in the UK.

On the positive side they gave us their own preferred list of preferred biscuit snacks, Czech and Slovakian dishes and the Top 5 Moravian beers - vital information for any traveller.

4th June 2005 - Plumlov to Zlin - 78 km

We left Plumlov campsite in bright sunshine - no sign of the students, they had seen the dawn in with a bonfire and some funny cigarettes.

We reached Prostejov at midday to buy some lunch from a Potraviny only to discover that Saturday is early closing day in the Czech republic. The city centres are almost like ghost towns on Saturday afternoon. It makes for a very pleasant atmosphere without the hustle and bustle and traffic of the Saturday rush. It definitely makes the weekend more family orientated - perhaps Morrissey was partly correct - every day is like Sunday.

Typical Zlin House

Modern Version of the Zlin house

7th June 2005 - Zlin to Ticha - 82 km

Before our departure, Richard contacted his friend Pavel, who lived close to the Slovak border near the town of Frenstat. We were keen to meet with Pavel as he has managed to complete a bicycle tour of the Black Sea in 18 months on a budget of $350 back in 1992 (needless to say we are already above this limit...).

So we left Zlin on Monday morning and set up for a long bike ride to Ticha. After the flat run of the Moravian plane down to Zlin, we were facing the first little mountains of our trips. The weather was wet and cold and we arrived at Pavel's late and exhausted.

A warm welcome and a plate of good food from Pavel and Lucia was all we needed. That night, we also tried to milk the goat Cosa. We were not too successful, but we had a good go. A bit of early practice may be helpful in Mongolia...

8th of June - another day of rest in Ticha

8 o'clock in the morning and the heavy sound of rain drops on the roof tells us we should stay a bit longer in bed. Mid day and it is still raining heavily. We decided to call it a day and to stay with Pavel and Lucia, who were definitely making us feel very welcome. We got an introduction to cooking with buckwheat and Czech spices and in the evening Pavel prepared a sauna in the house, which ended up with a deep in the river behind the house. Cold cold cold, but you are definitely left feeling great after such a treat!