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Europe Tour April 2006 Part 3 - Czech Republic.

 

April 18, 2006 Tuesday (Continued Czech Republic)

Passports were required at the border for the first time since leaving England. At the small crossing point they spoke no English but this didn't pose a problem Immediately on crossing the border a marked deterioration in the roads was noticed. Rough surfaces with numerous potholes were common and road markings were noticeably inferior. Noticeably absent were any rest areas or roadside parking places.

Fuel is cheaper by about 10% in Czech compared to Germany with service stations near the border offering diesel for €1.00 a liter and obviously willing to accept Euro cash. LPG is widely available.

Driving into Marianske Lazne we were greatly impressed by the mainly nineteenth century period architecture of the main town with its hotels and spars. At the tourist office only one younger staff member spoke English. We were offered some maps and brochures in English and then told that they would cost €3.60 for a town map and a small colour guide booklet. Unusually I agreed to buy them as the town itself looked unusually interesting at first impression when driving in. Normally I refuse to pay for such things as maps and either get them off the Internet beforehand or spend more time in towns that have the sense to provide them free. I inquired about campervan facilities in the town such as a dumpsite but the girl had no idea what I meant and directed us to one of the campsites, well out of town. There appear to be no facilities for campervans in Marianske Lazne and I expect this to be the case in all Czech towns.

I changed fifty Euros for Krona at a rate of 28.1 at an Asian money changer, as the banks close at 4.30 PM.

I had obtained a GPS waypoint file of Czech campgrounds from the Internet and the locations proved accurate for several near the town. Originally in TomTom format, I had converted it for use with the Ozi-Explorer mapping system. I had also obtained a detailed map of the town from a Czech map-server on the Internet, which greatly assisted our navigation around the town. We have similar maps of other main Czech towns we may visit.

It being late in the day, we headed for the Autocamp Luxor, as recommended by the tourist office. The fee for two persons for the night, without electricity, was KR283, but I paid the equivalent €10.00. The campsite consists of a few powered sites on grass and a number of cabins, with a restaurant block and ablutions block. All very old and primitive, and also all CLOSED except the men's ablution block was open, however there was no water (not even cold water) at any of the basins, showers, cubicles of very bad design with no place for clothing, or toilets. There is no dumpsite for campervans and no hose taps to fill with water, even if there had been any water! There was a communal kitchen with merger and most Spartan "good communist style" facilities visible through the windows, but it too was locked. So in this campground what miserably inadequate facilities that existed were either closed or had no water, and they still had the cheek to charge ten Euro. The only other occupant a German campervanner was equally appalled at the pathetic standards.

It seems that it is technically "illegal" to camp in the wild in Czech, but if campsites are like this then you may as well do so, because this is a total waste of money. If this proves to be the case, and we are hassled by police for parking overnight, we won't be staying as long as planned in the Czech Republic.

Subsequent experience proved that you can park free overnight in Czech, at roadside rest areas, in parking areas in towns, and supermarket car parks. Exercising some intelligent discretion is the key, park don't "camp" by setting up outside tables, chairs and awnings in the hauptstrasser outside the rathaus. Choose a site well away from the main entrance to the supermarket. It is the same all over Europe, we have done it literally a hundred times and NEVER been hassled or asked to move on. The exact legality of the matter is not the point, if you don't make a spectacle of yourself, don't park outside residential houses, and don't stay in the same place more than a couple of nights at most, you are unlikely to be bothered by anyone.

April 19, 2006 Wednesday. Marianske Lazne, Czech. Feeling better as flu symptoms subside, and today there is some sun the early morning. The town is very attractive with many magnificent examples of late nineteenth century buildings, palatial villas converted to hotels, and some purpose built spar hotels. The natural mineral springs have long ago been built over and piped into indoor bath houses in the manner of the time when nature was to be conquered and "civilized" rather than enjoyed in the primitive state. There are six different mineral springs with differing chemical compositions giving a wide range of mineral water tastes. They are available either hot or cold FREE at a Roman style temple building next to the main 1890's vintage colonnade. Attractive parks compliment the town. We toured by bike and on foot. The springs contain a wide range of chemical elements dissolved as mineral salts in the waters, and each spring has a distinctly different taste. The chemical analysis of all the springs is displayed as a form of modern sculptured tabulation outside the colonnade.

The majority of the visitors are elderly, seeking the curative powers of the mineral waters for their ills. Perhaps they have left it too late, many look like they should have come years ago. The healing power of mineral springs has long been recognized and in the late eighteenth century received some early scientific investigation. I believe that the curative power results from the fact that many diseases are in fact due to trace mineral deficiencies in diet, and that those suffering from an undiagnosed deficiency may well experience an apparently miraculous cure. There is a greater recognition in Germany and Europe generally of the medical capabilities of herbs and minerals in holistic healthcare compared to the American medical style of drug based treatment of symptoms, which predominates in the USA, UK and Australia. Holistic medicine recognizes that mineral deficiency is a far more widespread cause of disease symptoms than the more limited recognition given it by conventional western drug based medicine. However it is not researched or promoted widely in the west because international drug companies, which heavily influence western medical practice, are unable to profit as much by such natural medicine as from the promotion of patented drugs, which are thus promoted as the only form of "mainstream" medical treatment. Not because patented drugs are necessarily the best treatment in all cases, but because they are the most profitable form of treatment. One only has to look into this subject anything more than superficially to see the reality of this situation.

We found free parking close to town near some smaller hotels, where there appeared to be good security from passing tourists, but no suspect run down areas nearby and where a lot of tourists would not be expected to park to attract local petty thieves.

Food prices in restaurants are reasonably cheap by European standards, with main courses ranging from about KR70 to KR120 or about €2.50 to €4.00 in smaller restaurants and hotels. We will prefer to eat out in a less touristy town as our general experience is that where tourists eat the local cuisine is corrupted to little more than schnitzel salad and chips, quality and quantity is poor and a far more interesting and good value dining experience will be had off the tourist trails in local taverns where you see a lot of local patronage.

In the LIDL store, food prices are perhaps a little cheaper on some staple items than in Germany, beer is about the same, but wine is generally dearer than in France.

Determined not to pay another ten Euro for the Luxor campsite with no water, we parked in the LIDL store carpark for dinner, and moved to a small public street parking area behind the service station opposite as dusk fell. We spent the night undisturbed and FREE.

April 20, 2006 Thursday. Marianske Lazne Czech. In the morning I checked out the nearby service station for water but found that none of the taps worked, as I had found yesterday at several others. For such a wet country there is a great lack of working taps. Moving on towards Karlovy Vary the general absence of roadside parking or rest areas, and profusion of potholes was again noticed until we came to a recently upgraded section of road No230 north of Minichov where we found a riverside parking area in the village of Beclov n. Teplow. I am sure that this would make a good SONP, and river water is accessible for washing cloths and dishes and flushing etc. Signs about pay and display but there was no ticket machine.

We drove on to Karlovy Vary and with a few inquiries found the tourist information office at the Hauptbarnhoff, the main railway station, where such establishments are often located in European towns. Prominently displayed were the maps and brochures, mainly in Czech or German, but a few in English, for prices from KR 55 to about KR100, which considering the cost structures in this country is too bloody expensive. Refusing to buy any more such overpriced stuff, I was given a small free map and a brochure of campsites in the region and directed to a place where it was said we could park the campervan, and park overnight. With my free computer maps I have obtained from the Internet and integrated into my OziExplorer mapping system this was more than adequate to find our way around. The recommended parking turned out to be a most unattractive parking area near a stadium in an area surrounded by low class flats, and although there was someone to collect fees, we didn't consider that we would want to leave the van in such a place for security considerations.

We found nearby free parking to have lunch and then ventured to find the spars, mineral springs, that the tourist office had pointed out on the map, saying we could walk there from the recommended grotty parking area. They neglected to mention that one has to walk there, as the entire area has been made into pedestrian malls, after being badly overbuilt in the mineral springs boom about 1890. There is no nice nearby parking for campervans, as the under cover parking station is too low for vans. So we drove around, partly through the pedestrian mall as we had to get out again, and then decided that this simply was not worth the hassle to sample another mineral spring.

The recommended campervan parking area, in an unattractive area of low class flats, has no dumpsite or water, and yet again the city seems to totally fail to understand the requirements of campervan tourists. The campsites usually recommended are usually far out of town, and are essentially places where the locals go "camping", in the countryside. There simply are no places providing proper facilities for campervans to visit the towns. They simply haven't grasped the modern reality of a new type of tourist market and are still organized around the nineteenth century concept of tourists who come by train and stay in hotels.

There is an enormous boom in campervans, all over western Europe but in France, The Netherlands Belgium, and Germany in particular, where millions of baby boomers are on the move in them, but the only country that has even begun to provide suitable facilities to attract such tourists is France, which is campervan heaven compared to the rest of Europe or the UK. The network of literally thousands of free or minimal fee Aires de Services, with overnight parking, water, dumpsites and often electricity, and cheap well appointed Municipal Campsites, close to the center of towns and villages sets France light years ahead of the rest.

Karlovy Vary has some magnificent architecture, and a lot of it has been well restored, but because of past bad town planning, most stemming from the late nineteenth century boom times in mineral spars, we found it just too much of a hassle to enjoy easily and so decided to move on, spending no money in the town at all. The six main mineral spars which are located in a narrow valley, have been hemmed in on both sides by hotels and other buildings leaving only minimal public open space, for parkland and pedestrian malls. Nearby parking is totally inadequate for campervans.

For campervanners Mariansky Lazne is a much smaller town to explore and even though it too had a total lack of campervan friendly facilities I would recommend it as it is so much more manageable in size, and you can find parking in a seemingly secure neighborhood. If the city fathers aver get a grip on how to cater for campervans it could become a star attraction on a campervan tour of the Czech Republic.

Leaving the town there are views of the delightfully restored buildings, but despite the wonderful views there is nowhere to park to enjoy it, so you just have to drive on by. Bye, bye Karlovy Vary, we would have liked to see more more of your charms, but you don't understand our needs yet.

We headed east along E48 and then minor roads towards Krivoklat, a small town we had read about in tourist books. The undulating countryside is unspectacular. Rest areas are few and at most consist of a roadside parking lane. View point parking is non existent. The only thing there is plenty of along the roads is potholes. Krivoklat had sounded interesting in the tourist hype books, but when we arrived the small town had no facilities for campervans, and little else, and I was again reminded of the fact, so often encountered, that most tourist books seem to have been written by the tourist guide equivalent of three wise monkeys, who see every farmers barn as the Taj Mahal, every roadside drain as the Grand Canyon, and every pile of rubble as the Mount Everest.

A few corespondents, who have read our travel notes on the Internet, have commented that in these notes I offer many complaints, and critically imply that by doing so I am being a naughty little boy. My experience with the average travel publication is that it is usually totally lacking in any complaints, as if everything has to be praised to induce travellers to go absolutely everywhere, and pay to see everything on offer. Also most tour guides are written from the point of view of either backpackers or tourists travelling by public transport and staying in local hotel or pension accommodation, so the particular requirements of the campervan tourist are not even considered.

I have no ulterior motive to induce you to go anywhere, least of all to third rate destinations which are grossly overrated by the liars or deaf blind mute anthropoids who write most travel books. So if I am not favorably impressed with a place or its facilities I tell you in no uncertain terms, and merely describe that which we found attractive, being fully cogniscent of the fact that interests very widely and there is no accounting for taste.

We drove to one of the campsites some kilometers beyond Krivoklat, far from the town, down beside a river. Pleasant enough location, but miles from anywhere and there were no other "campers" or mobile homes there. There was nowhere to park near the village, so we pressed on toward Prague intending to stop at a motorway rest Aires about 16 Kilometers west of Prague on the E50 just east of junction 5. We entered the motorway at junction 10 near Lodenice so avoiding the toll booth further west near Beroun at Jn18 or Jn14. It is worth noting that often tollways are free to use in the vicinity of major towns, not only in the Czech Republic but also in France and any other country which has been blighted by the scourge of toll roads.

The poor Czechs seem to have fallen out of the communist frying pan into the capitalist fire, with the advent of toll roads, pay to enter WC's, pay for any useful information at tourist offices, and spreading pay and display parking reminiscent of the UK. The ironic thing is, that as students of real or revisionist history of the twentieth century will know, communism was created, financed and brought to power, first in Russia, not by any "peoples October revolution", but by the worlds greatest capitalists, based in New York, not as a means of workers liberation, but as an instrument of global conquest and monopoly domination. Communism it is not "dead", it has changed it's name and image and has metamorphosed into what is now called globalization, or the New World Order. The means to the end may be different, but the objective remains the same. Communism, "Plan A" was seen to not be working very well, note all the potholes here, so Globalization, "Plan B", has replaced it with a far more subtle and sophisticated approach to the problems of controlling the masses. Communism was all big stick and no carrot, Globalization is lots of baby carrots and a velvet cane. Really big stick is only for truculent leaders like Saddam, Miloscovich, the Iranians. I wonder how Mathiar Mohammed got away with it when he refused to open the Malaysian financial system to international bankers control in the 1990's, resisted the 1998 Asian currency crisis successfully, and then had to the unbridled cheek to come out and make a globally public statement that, "Jews rule the world.", a few years ago. Where upon Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer scrambled over the top of one another to be first among world leaders to grovel obsequesiouly to the "offended" Jews and condemn him for "anti Semitism". Now there's a truthful politician I can really relate to.

We spent the night quietly and free in the tollway rest area, mainly populated by international heavy trucks, with not another campervan to be seen. Compared to western Europe there are hardly any campervans on the roads here. We saw a couple around Marianske Lazne, and one or two along the roads, but here in Czech we are almost an endangered species. No doubt due to the lack of suitable campervan habitat!

April 21, 2006 Friday. Near Prague, Czech. Today we visited Karlstejn castle, one of the most notable castles in Czech Republic, and a very popular tourist destination. To get a really good view of the castle you could climb one of the nearby forested hills that overlook it, otherwise you are confined to mainly looking up at the castle from the approach road. Lined with souvenir shops selling Czech crafts in particular Bohemian Crystal and glassware and carved Amber, and small restaurants and bars, the approach road is a pleasant touristy stroll. Things are relatively cheap by western standards with a full meal to be had for KC100 or under €4.00, a beer or coffee for KC20. I bought a souvenir wall plate for KC150 to add to our collection.

My gripe was the parking fee of KC300 for the day or KC70 an hour, which for this country is far too much. So I found free parking a few hundred meters away at Karlstejn railway station, which added to our exercise, thus benefiting both wallet and waistline. Tours of the castle with a brochure in a foreign language are KC220 for adults, and on entering one is confronted with "No photography" signs, and curiously a sign saying "No Translating", now what's that all about, I ask you. At the souvenir shops you can buy Russian Commissars uniform hats, replete with hammer and sickle insignia and red band, perhaps they haven't got around to changing the universal "Nyet", rule yet!. Pissants must pay KC5 for a piss at Karlstejn Castle, and every other public WC I have seen in Czech. So if you are a penniless pissant, then you can't pee in a public pissor because of your impecuniousness!

We returned to the E50 motorway rest area near Rudna via a pleasant back road drive along rivers and beside swiftly flowing streams, no where to park and stop to enjoy it all of course, but the drive itself was nice. Opting for the west side of the rest area this time as it seemed quieter, because the local restaurant there was closed.

Only the McDonnalds on the east side of the motorway was available for food. What a foolish government mistake to let multinationals take over highway food outlets. Such businesses should be in the hands of local small businessmen. I believe large global corporations should have no place in the take away or restaurant food industry, and the health of the population would be far better served with traditional local dishes instead of fatty fast food. Here in Czech the vast majority of young women and girls are still slim and shapely, unlike the hordes of waddling blobs of lard that have been created in America and Australia by the multinational junk food corporations that have foisted their fast food on to the ignorant through skillful advertising and image building. A modern scourge on the earth, junk fast food corporations, taking away local livelihoods and employing low wage, low skill youth workers, and creating a healthcare problem of obesity leading to diabetes, heart disease and all the physical problems of gross overweight. People are no longer able to recognize evil when they see it, and such corporations are evil because the effects of their products are on balance a malignant scourge on the people they induce through advertising chicanery to be their customers.

Were I religious, which thank God I'm not; for if I were, every time I saw the "Golden Arches", I'd be tempted to make the sign of the cross, much as one does at the sight of a vampire, to ward off evil. - - - Well we are getting nearer to Transilvania, home of Vlad The Impaler and Count Dracular, so it's a geographically appropriate cultural response. Maybe it will catch on, I'd love to see people genuflecting as they passed the golden arches in mock horror to protect themselves from the temptation of a big snack. (Will you have fries with that Sir?) Junk food has become almost a religion in the west, maybe a humorous pseudo religious treatment of it, poking fun at the symbols, is how to exorcise the junk food demon.

Potholes (in the roads) I have mentioned, what's the reality. You do have to exercise special driving caution, because although most of the all too numerous potholes are not too bad, and minor rough surfaces abound, there are isolated unpredictable really big deep holes in the road that could cause serious vehicle damage or even prove fatal to a motor cyclist. Badly broken edges also occur without warning, and there seems little appreciation of the safety concerns by local road authorities, as only a couple of the numerous really bad safety hazards I have passed have had any temporary warning signage erected. Take care, you have been warned. That said, some sections of road have undergone obvious recent improvement, and the motorways are fairly good.

Road markings are often non existent, and those complimenting the right of way signs at intersections are often so worn as to be illegible, so care is needed at intersections to be sure of who has right of way, not that you can really rely on that I have found. Driving standards are not up to those of Germany, but then no other country is, and overall I don't think they are any worse than in Australia. I've observed failure to give way, running red lights, tailgating etc, it is a bit like in Italy, no worse. Rubbish litters a lot of roadsides, much more so than in western Europe, but again not worse than you find in some parts of Australia.

Back at the E50 rest area, the professional girls were out in full force servicing the truck drivers, pink seems to be the in colour for prostitutes. Maybe they are the reason so many trucks stop here, they get more bang for their buck in Czech. No wonder they have a street sweeping machine go around the parking area, it's needed to sweep up all the used condoms littering the truck park.

Water. Although the well water from a service station we took on a few days ago seemed very clean, it gave coffee and tea an unpleasant taste, so for the first time ever in six years of touring in Europe we have resorted to buying bottled water. At Tesco on the outskirts of Prague 6 x 1.5 L bottles cost KC20.50, about 70 Euro cents. We had read of of the need for bottled water in Czech Republic and other parts of eastern Europe but despite the ubiquitous sale of it in other countries this the first time we have seen fit to buy it.

April 22, 2006 Saturday. Near Prague, Czech. We drove toward Prague stopping off at the Tesco super center for shopping including bottled water. It didn't seem particularly busy for such a large establishment and we wondered if it indicated that it was more expensive that it should be. We soon found a campsite on the west bank of the river only a couple of kilometers south of the old part of the city. Nice location with good views and adequate facilities for KC430 per night for two with no electricity, and no dog. Expensive but a very convenient location. Close to tram or underground railway into Prague and close enough to cycle, as we did in the afternoon after our arrival.

Speaking of Tesco there is an interesting story about the principal heir to the Tesco fortune. A Jewish lady, a Dame of the British Empire and major heir to the Tesco billions was involved with a London Borough council as an elected councilor during the 1990's. She instigated a racket involving the sale of council housing. She sold off council houses, during the orgy of privatization sweeping Britain well below their market value, to persons who would then be obliged to vote for her, and in the process defrauded the local council of some forty million pounds. When the accountants discovered her naughty deeds, being a Jew, she fled to Israel. Now Israel will not extradite any Jew facing any criminal charges in any other country, despite considerable pressure from the British government. So realizing that they couldn't get her back to England to face charges and pay the 40 million she had swindled the council out of, a legal settlement was reached where she agreed to pay twelve million pounds in settlement of the case, to have the criminal charges dropped, so she could go back to the UK without ending up in goal. For a fabulously wealthy woman with billions of pounds to become involved in such a matter beggars the senses, talk about greed, and the policy of Israel never to extradite a Jew is interesting too.

I found this story after a strange and unexplained report in the Australian papers about an Israeli diplomat being refused accreditation to work in Canberra at a high level diplomatic post, with strangely no clear explanation as to why. Turns out the Jewish gentleman concerned had taken quite a liking to small boys on his pervious diplomatic posting in Brazil. Shortly before the Brazilian Federal Police were about to arrest him on serious child sex charges,(his position was lower there and he did not have full diplomatic immunity) he fled home to Israel. Of course extradition to Brazil was refused, he was of course a Jew, one of the chosen people, and instead of having to face the music in Brazil, he was allowed to lie low for a couple of years then sent out to Australia. Somehow the Australian government found out about his doings in Brazil and refused to accept him. Now Jews are interesting people, they get up to so many absolutely intriguing things, so that's why I thought it worth while to follow the non story of the Jewish diplomat. More interesting than the story itself was the way the Australian papers only half reported it, with not a whisper of the real reasons behind it, for that would have been considered to be critical of Jews, and of Israel, and that of course would be, shock horror, anti semitism. The story of the diplomat and his little boys was widely published in Brazil in Portuguese language papers and translated on the Internet. The evidence was good, apparently he video taped all his fun and the Fereralies got hold of the tapes, so there wasn't much doubt about the case. I picked up a lead to it while researching the strange lack of any explanation for Australia's refusal of the Israeli diplomat, and the connection with Israel's refusal of extradition of him linked indirectly to reports in the UK online papers about "Dame Tesco" and her flight to Israel after her crimes, and a similar refusal by Israel to extradite her. Of course by relating these facts here I am by definition being anti Semitic, well too bad, anyone who reads the real news of the world instead of the censored propaganda that the Australian Jew controlled media publishes would be likely to feel the same, outraged. What a hide the terrorist state of Israel has, making itself a safe haven for criminals, embezzlers, and fraudsters and child sex offenders if they happen to be Jews. And the pathetic excuse, because Jews have been "persecuted", bullshit it's because they consider themselves better than every one else, better than the Goyim, the rest of mankind, who in Talmudic terms are merely animals.

April 23, 2006 Sunday. Prague Czech. The attractions of Prague are that it is a relatively new destination having emerged from communist rule only about sixteen years ago, it was not damaged during WW2, so all of the old buildings are intact giving streetscapes unblighted by modern reconstruction. From these points of view it is an interesting destination as part of a tour of Europe.

Public transport has integrated ticketing for the trams busses and underground railway and a 24 hour ticket costs KC80 or KC20 for a 90 minute ticket allowing multiple changes to get you almost anywhere in the city.

Prague has far too many tourists, and is too expensive compared to the rest of the country. Classical music concerts are staged frequently for tourists and they ask from KC450 for a one hour performance to 600 to 800KC (US$37) for a two hour performance. Considering that these are totally unknown performers, under equally obscure conductors, that is far too much to pay for a performance of possibly unexceptional quality, and is more a reflection of the surplus of tourists than anything else.

You can do a 40 minute tour of Prague, starting from Old Town Square, in a vintage car for KC1350 or US$62. Now for a 40 minute ride that's just exorbitant, in this country, but some people pay it. Despite being a large city most of the older parts of the town appear to have been totally taken over by tourism, the hordes led by guides with umbrellas hoisted aloft are absolutely everywhere. It is like the seething hordes in Venice's St.Mark's square extended to a city wide basis. I've not seen such a concentration of tourists anywhere before, and I don't particularly want to again.

NEVER eat out in tourist areas. So often they serve over priced dog food and it does not matter if no customer ever comes back, because there is a never ending stream of new customers. That's what we found near Prague Castle, when we foolishly abandoned our own advice and opted for "The Menu" of Prague ham, goulash with dumplings and apple roll, and Sharon had the alternative menu of potato soup, chicken breast with ham and cheese and chips, and apple roll. Hers was better than mine, but still merger for the price. The Prague ham consisted of one very thin slice of ordinary ham on a plate with half a teaspoon of sauerkraut, the goulash tasted of nothing but salt, and the meat was stringy cheap beef treated with meat tenderizer, served with a few slices of plain dumplings, the apple roll was the most tasteless I have encountered . The menus were advertised for KC180 and 170, but the advertised price does not include tax and service charge, so with two coffees the bill came to KC528, or €19.00 equivalent to A$30 for a really crappy lunch. There was so much salt in the goulash that I was still thirsting twelve hours later. The only consolation was that Sharon's potato soup was nice.

Considering that many of the "tourist" restaurants we have encountered serve what to us is grossly inadequate food, I am ever thankful that we can and do prepare the vast majority of our own food. If I had to have the hassle of selecting restaurants every meal, and being half the time grossly displeased with the dog food they serve, I simply would not want to travel. That is another of the great advantages of campervanning. You can eat at home all the time if you want. The cost savings are also massive. The $30 meal would not cost us $5 in ingredients. Food in supermarkets is overall, I think, cheaper in Europe than in Australia.

We will be on the lookout for a small restaurace in a little Czech village with several tractors and a couple of horse drawn farm carts parked outside, for there 99% of the customers will be regulars and the food will be cheap, plentiful, authentically local and delicious.

LPG is generally widely available in Czech, and they use the "French" filling adopter.

April 24, 2006 Monday. Prague Czech. Another cycle tour into Prague, more architectural appreciation, and a hot dog with a nice big Czech sausage, mustard and onions for KC35, much better value than yesterday's overpriced dog food. In the "Old Town Square" you will find a few food vendors and lots of souvenir stalls. It is quite picturesque, there is the fifteenth century astronomical clock which enthralls thousands of tourists every hour when it strikes. If you happen to be there have a look, but I wouldn't go a long way to see it, interesting yes, grossly over hyped too.

April 25, 2006 Tuesday. Prague Czech. A nice sunny day, so you can notice the yellow haze of photochemical smog more today that hangs over the city. Time to move on to Kutna Hora, a smaller town east of Prague. We took some back roads, potholes galore, narrow roads with heavy trucks, and the countryside is uninteresting too. Not a very pleasant driving experience. In fact the countryside in Czech is generally unremarkable from a landscape interest point of view. Maybe that's why ball the tourists go to Prague, perhaps there just isn't much else in the country that is of world class tourist interest. Not that you could ever tell that from reading travel books, because they all waffle on with reams of crap about how wonderful it all is, when in fact most of it is just plain boring. Kutna Hora, despite it's claimed World Heritage Listing. Turned out to be only a large church and we could only find the back way to that. I think they should have stuck to the seven wonders of the world, you know, The Pyramids, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon etc, because really, the term "World Heritage Listed", gets altogether much overused.

We decided to change our intended route with a view to cutting short our tour in eastern Europe and spending more time in the more campervan friendly regions of western Europe. The only thing I really wanted to see in this whole region is Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in Poland. So we are heading directly to Auschwitz, so I can see for myself the famous gas chambers, where all the Jews were supposed to have been killed. Being a student of real history I have very serious misgivings about all the so called holocaust propaganda, and have been reading a number of books on the subject which make very convincing arguments that mass gassings never happened, it started out as WW2 propaganda to justify allied mistreatment of the Germans and has become something of an article of faith, and money and sympathy generating industry to Jews. In Israel they have a saying, "There's no business like shoa business", shoa being the Israeli term for the holocaust. When you look seriously at the issues there is very little reliable evidence, apart from so called eye witness accounts, which are incredibly contradictory and many of which have been proven to be fraudulent, that mass gassings of Jews ever happened. No forensic evidence supports the claims, and any serious historical study is taboo to mainstream historians, under threat of legal penalty in some European countries. The whole thing smells of propaganda to me. Whatever the case, Auschwitz is the center of the greatest crime, or the greatest hoax, of the twentieth century, depending on how you view the evidence. In fact if you actually study the evidence at all, instead of simply swallowing hook line and sinker the "common knowledge" never ending propaganda about it, then you will probably be inclined to the latter view. Most people don't, they just believe everything they are told.

Heading east towards Poland the roads were still lacking in any good SONPS, but on a new bypass road around Caslav we found a roadside parking, actually set back a little from the road, rubbish everywhere. The noisiest place we ever stopped, with jet fighters and helicopters from a nearby base until 10PM and trucks till later.

April 26, 2006 Wednesday. Caslav Czech. We had done considerable reading of tourist guides about Czech in planning our intended tour route, but that did not fully prepare us for the lack of facilities for campervan touring, apart from conventional campgrounds. As I have explained such establishments do not cater for the requirements of campervan tourists for several reasons, they are expensive (except Municipal campsites in France) they are often not located centrally in towns, and you often have to significantly deviate from your route to get to them. In contrast well appointed roadside rest areas and the free of low fee Aires de Services in France cater very well.

Northern Monrovia was reputed to very polluted in the tourist guides we read, but in reality it seems no different to the rest of the country, perhaps it was worse in the communist era, and the guide books just keep quoting one another, and repeating the same errors and tales, as do many historians. Rubbish along roads, yes, some light photochemical smog yes, but that isn't unusual for this part of Europe.

We stopped for the night at a rest area along the E442 or road 35 NW of Olomouc. Minimal facilities, only rubbish bins, but able to get 20 meters or so off the road, and that for Czech is good. Traffic noise is a problem at night, but no jet fighters acting out WW3 overhead so we thought it relatively quiet. There was a "Hostinee" on the other side of the road, a pub that serves basic meals, where truck drivers would stop to eat, and these are the sort of places we recommend you go to to eat too.

April 27, 2006 Thursday. Olomouc, Czech. Our travel research had located a number of places with interesting features and we included several of these into our new more direct route to Auschwitz. We passed thorough Castolovice, Kostelec and Orlici and Doudleby nad Orlici where interesting castles were said to be. Heading east on road 17 to E442 or road 35 thence north on minor roads the countryside was more interesting, hilly and forested and there was still snow on the ground above 800 meters elevation.

The "castles" turned out to be more "chateaux" as they were not at all in the style of military fortifications but rather of grand houses from a later period, eighteenth or nineteenth century. Doudleby nad Orlici's chateaux was particularly interesting because of its unusual external decoration. Classical patterns done in a contrasting colour of mortar rendering over a plastered stucco base. The patterns were essentially two dimensional as distinct from the more usual three dimensional relief patterns used to decorate buildings in Prague and elsewhere throughout Europe. No doubt this is a cheaper technique probably originally adopted for reasons of economy, but it also results in a strikingly different appearance which made this building particularly interesting. The building was undergoing a wholesale interior restoration probably to outfit it as a restaurant and hotel, so although it wasn't open for interior inspection we were able to look around outside and the grounds.

Roads in the region were highly variable regarding surface conditions. A particular hazard on Czech roads is where repairs are being done and large rectangular sections of the pavement have been cut out, leaving holes about 100 millimeters deep. The holes are sometimes marked with a "witches hat" placed therein, but we also came across a section where they were not marked at all. Hitting one at speed could cause serious damage or a tire blow out, and driving at night on minor roads would often be really hazardous. SONPS proved to be almost non existent. However some of the small towns have central squares where one could probably park overnight, although weather one might be hassled by Police I don't know. As usual the smaller towns are so much more "manageable" and pleasant to visit in a campervan, with no traffic or parking problems, so as usual our route will take us to such places in preference to the bigger cities, except for the occasional must see place like Prague.

Next Part 4 Poland
Back to part 2 Germany

"The ignorance of the masses is profound." - DB Philosopher B. 1944.

"Prophesy - To observe that which has passed, and guess it will happen again." Elbert Hubbard American author and publisher [1859 - 1915]