Prague to Vienna, approx. 500km

The view of a thousand spires from the hill

We had a delightful time in Prague, a city which deserves its reputation for being beautiful and charming. Our time was divided between resting, touristing and running bike errands in fairly equal amounts. On our way into the city centre, we came accross a large park on top of a hill overlooking the whole city centre. It was magnificient and we spent a lot of time there, having coffee, lunch and beer at various times of the day.


Still life of pastries, coffee and knife

To get to Vienna, we followed the Praha-Wien greenways route which is 460km long and took us through the hilly rural region of South Bohemia and the wide wine-growing basins of Moravia on the Austrian border. This section was a little bit more challenging but was also very rewarding. Although we have confirmed that I am no climber, the thrill of hills really comes at the top, when you can look back and see where you have just come from, or spot the next village where coffee or lunch are awaiting you at the bottom of a long sweeping downhill.



Riding through Czech Republik for the last week was a really interesting experience where I was often reminded, in a strange way, of places like Vietnam or Laos. Besides Prague, there are no other big cities and we rode through countless miniscule villages separated from each other only by a couple kilometers. The rural areas are deeply rooted in tradition with tightly packed villages surounded by paddocks divided to form a patchwork of various shades of green and yellow all over the hillsides. The gleaming spires of small churches stick out of every hilltop or valley directing your eye towards even the tiniest of hamlets.



In contrast, the legacy of Soviet times is palpable. One woman in a deli told Chris "I am old-school, I am Russia ! " when she couldn't understand his order and the bleak social housing style of construction is visible all around the bigger towns. More disturbingly, there are also traces of a previously strong Jewish population all over the country. Almost every village has a synagogue or a jewish cemetary. We saw many Orthodox Jewish tourists in Prague and around who must come in search of their distant roots. Interestingly, as we were riding along the Czech-Austrian border, we saw dozens of small concrete bunkers completely covered in vegetation, surrounded by fields of corn or sunflowers.


Exploration of WWII relics

The area which forms the transition between Czech Republik and Austria is called Moravia and is famous for its wines. We sampled a Riesling which was a little bit fruitier than usual but still nice and crisp. We spent one night in Poysdorf, an Austrian town most famous for its sparkling whites which we didn't sample. Every village in this area produces its own wine and as one enters the town, the streets are lined with wine cellars, often dug directly into the hill exposing only a small wooden door hiding the treasure inside. The route flattened out a bit once we reached the wine region and made our arrival into Vienna relatively easy, despite strong winds and threatening weather.



Nevertheless, this section went wonderfully well. It provided us with a few challenges and we were panting up some steep hills more than once but the weather was good, the scenery beautiful and the Czech network of cycle-paths was surprisingly extensive and pleasant, mainly taking us along quiet country roads. We barely saw another cycle-tourist and the local people looked at us with an air of suspicous surprise a lot of the time. It was also a good time to think about the rest of our itinerary and it became apparent fairly quickly that we would be going around and not through the Alps. Physical and mental strenght are connected but can also work separately and battling our way up the hills of the Alps would quickly turn into the holiday from hell so we will leave it at that and follow the Danube into France and then, head South as far as our timing will allow towards Lyon, Avignon and eventually Nice.