One of the chain gang

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This was published 13 years ago

One of the chain gang

On your bike ... cycling in Prague.

On your bike ... cycling in Prague.Credit: Richard Nebesky/Lonely Planet

Do spectacular countryside and camaraderie make up for rampant nettles and a sore backside? Alison Stewart and friends find out.

NOBODY told me my five-day, 200-kilometre guided bike ride through the Czech Republic would feature so much rain, pork, cabbage, mud and so many mosquitoes, frozen toes, bone-jarring bike paths and nettles.

Nettles beside the bike paths, nettles on the riverbanks, nettles stinging me during undignified toilet stops. Then there are the cold showers, lumpy beds, wet clothes, sore backside, lack of heating and the food. And did I mention nettles?

Elbe River and valley from a rocky outcrop of Bastei.

Elbe River and valley from a rocky outcrop of Bastei.Credit: Martin Moos/Lonely Planet

"Why would they want to visit the Czech Republic?" asks the elderly uncle of our bike-tour manager, Lukas Svarovsky. I ask myself that once or twice as we hit yet another stretch of crazy Czech paving euphemistically called a bike path and my teeth clack vigorously.

But what is life without a little hardship and the positives are many. No one hurts themselves, for one. And our guides are saints. Valerie Wojnarova and Marketa Stanska never lose their cool with their sometimes petulant charges, nor does our jolly driver, Jindrich Fryje, who lugs our bags, speaks little English but provides regular cheer to the exhausted in the form of Tatranky chocolate bars (or cranky bars, as they are renamed). The Czech beer is, as expected, absolutely fantastic.

Continuing on the bright side, this is allegedly an "easy, flat ride", traversing about 50 kilometres a day, but, may I say, not that flat or easy. Within four kilometres of leaving Prague we have a two-kilometre climb away from the Vltava River at Troja, which some sail up with ease and some navigate ignominiously on foot.

This is despite our 45-kilometre training rides from Sydney's Homebush to Sans Souci, with a gigantic reward breakfast on the way. There are 10 of us - Nancy and Patrick from Canada, Claire from Ireland, Franklin from Arizona and six Sydney friends, all on the wrong side of 50, wearing our stylish "Aussie Peddlers" bike shirts (with the route stencilled on the back in case we get lost). Sometimes strangers laugh at us. It's a complete mystery.

We have chosen a guided tour with standard rather than premium accommodation, the rationale being we will be so stuffed at the end of the day who cares where we sleep. At €740 ($1010) a person including bike, accommodation, guides, luggage transport, breakfast and dinner, it's cheaper than many other similar tours. We also like the Adventura Tour bike manager, Lukas, who is helpful and has a terrific sense of humour.

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The tour takes us deep into Bohemia's complex and fascinating history, beginning with the 4th-century Celts and spanning the great Moravian empire that flourished at the crossroads between western Europe and Byzantium. We enter the golden age of Charles IV and Good King Wenceslas and the Hussite wars during which Catholics and Protestants defenestrated one another with alarming regularity. Finally, we learn about Habsburg rule, Hitler's invasion, communism and the 1989 Velvet Revolution.

But the absolute highlight is the spectacular and changing countryside as we follow the flow of the Vltava and Elbe rivers from Prague to Dresden through Bohemia, the Czech Middle Mountains and Czech-Saxon Switzerland.

Slightly worried about the ordeal that lies ahead, our group has treated itself to two nights at the Mamaison Pachtuv Palace luxury hotel in Prague, which Lukas has recommended. The hotel is in the centre of the city overlooking the Vltava River and beside the Charles Bridge. We are treated to glasses of champagne before being upgraded to vast, elegant football-field-size suites from where we make our sorties into the "City of a Hundred Spires".

Left largely untouched during the world wars, Prague has retained its unique character, though even in mid-September the numbers of tourists jamming the Old Town Square, Mala Strana and Nove Mesto, the massive hilltop Prague Castle, the monasteries, museums and gardens make me want to scream just a little.

Our first cycle day dawns and we struggle into our padded lycra pants. The novelty of pork and dumplings has not yet worn off and we try not to notice that there is a fair bit of self-padding. Valerie and Jindrich collect us early for the drive to our starting point on the banks of the Vltava. Due to the quick turnaround between tours there are some early bike problems. Claire's bike has no mudguard, rack or bag and is a mountain bike rather than the promised hybrid. Our tall friend Chris has a woman's bike, I have no bell or rain cover for my bike bag, some people's gears slip and Nancy, who is short, can't reach her handlebars.

Eventually, we set off on our first 52-kilometre leg, heading for the town of Melnik at the confluence of the Vltava and Elbe rivers. We love that Melnik is the centre of Bohemia's wine-growing region. I would like a glass after my ignominious hill dismount but there are still 48 kilometres to go.

We are going to become a bit blase about chateaux, castles and monasteries during the next few days but on this first day, we are like kids in a chocolate shop, pressing our noses against a variety of baroque, Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance beauties, some of which contain paintings by Rubens, Brueghel, Canaletto and Velazquez.

At this early stage of our tour we are stopping to admire everything - nettles, Dvorak's monument at Nelahozeves, Claire's puncture, forests of sycamore and mountain ash, hops, turnips, river locks, a tasty-looking Vietnamese black pig. There is a lot of off-road riding along dirt paths but this is fun. It isn't raining. Yet.

The old town of Melnik, with its Renaissance chateau and 15th-century Gothic church, rises ahead and we pedal faster, spotting some promising-looking vineyards. Once the Vltava joins the Elbe, the majestic 1000-kilometre river picks up speed on its journey to the North Sea. We stay at the welcoming Hotel Jaro with its below-ground restaurant. The trouble with below-ground restaurants is mosquitoes. They eat us while we eat pork. Day two brings the rain. It is weather that will stay with us. We are cycling to Litomerice (try saying that with a mouthful of dumplings) and we are only supposed to be riding 51 kilometres. Some bright spark, however, decides that on the way we will ride around a former sandpit now known as the Racice rowing course. That makes today's ride 60 kilometres, thank you very much.

The rain tumbles so heavily we lose Nancy, Patrick and Claire to the truck, lucky sods. No one among the Australians wishes to join them as the yellow jersey of shame awaits the first Australian into the van.

The bike tour takes us through one of the most fertile regions of the Czech Republic. The paths are lined with laden apple and pear trees just waiting to be scrumped. We stop for lunch in Roudnice nad Labem, one of the oldest Czech towns. It has picturesque chateaux, castles, monasteries, bell towers, fortifications, beautiful stone bridges and mineral springs but all that must wait.

The lunch menu tells me I could have a "fatback roasted on the skin". Or "yeast dumplings filled with nougat cream and poured with warm butter". Or perhaps a "rogueish pork cutlet accompanied by home-made lard dumplings". It's all so tempting.

We're running late and must cycle faster than a comfortable 20km/h. It makes me a bit cross, not to mention exhausted, and I have to eat a cranky bar. We are headed for the town of Terezin, whose small fortress served as a Nazi concentration camp. On the way, I get stung again by nettles and take to carrying dock leaves, the antidote. My husband Rob falls into a mud puddle, then gets lost.

The Terezin fortress, built by the Habsburgs to repel the Prussians, is a sobering reminder of Hitler's occupation. While this was not an extermination camp, more than 140,000 people passed through the camp and 33,000 died in the Terezin ghetto because of harsh living conditions. In 1947 the camp was preserved as a memorial.

We are a sombre group that arrives drenched and freezing at the Hotel Roosevelt in Litomerice. Everyone stampedes to have their shower and consequently the hot water runs out. This is also my first but not last experience of a shower that leaps off the wall and morphs into something from Snakes on a Plane as it flings freezing water around the bathroom. For dinner, there's pork.

We lose Nancy into the van on our 44-kilometre day three leg. She has slipped on a cobblestone and fallen on her giant bell-shaped hotel key.

I score her bike bag rain cover. The countryside is exciting because we are entering the Czech Middle Mountains with their conical igneous volcanic cliffs dotted with (even more) romantic castles and fortresses. We are headed for Decin, the northern gate of the Czech Republic.

We stop at Strekov Castle, which sits on a 100-metre-high rock (which means a 1.5-kilometre pedal uphill in pouring rain.) Here, Wagner wrote his music and as we gaze down over the magnificent Elbe canyon, we are inspired for our ride of the Valkyries, down the hill and round the corner, for our midday meal at Usti nad Labem where we see the "second most leaning building after Pisa". Pork for lunch.

At Decin's Hotel Faust, it's Rob's turn for a cold shower but we both enjoy a Snakes on a Plane experience.

The next day is only a 15-kilometre ride. We're headed for Hrensko on the German-Czech border (where a nettle reached up and bit my backside). Hrensko is the base camp for hiking into the sandstone rock formations of Czech-Saxon Switzerland. Here, the north Bohemian watershed empties into Germany. We plan a hike.

This is truly lovely country and we walk for five kilometres through cool forest to the Pravcicka Brana - a 30-metre-high natural stone arch, Europe's highest. Then it's another eight kilometres down through the Kamenice Gorge to the Penzion Lugano where at last we find a proprietor who will turn on the central heating for the shivering Australians.

We have delicious goulash soup and wine, which elicits some jovial singing (Land Down Under, O Canada, Big Yellow Taxi and Kermit's Rainbow Connection). The proprietor turns off the central heating and we are told to go to bed.

Our last day sees the rain cease at last as we cycle the 50 kilometres to Dresden, crossing the border and passing Bad Schandau; the Konigstein Fortress; and the pearl of Saxon Switzerland, the Bastei Bridge, a 76-metre-long sandstone wonder. At the pretty town of Pirna we stop for lunch (salmon and broccoli - oh joy) after which we enter the breathtaking Dresden Elbe Valley.

Comfort, good food and sad farewells await us at Dresden's Alttolkewitzer Hof hotel. We don our finery and head off to the ballet at the Dresden Semper Opera House for a night of dying swans, champagne and an awful lot of self-congratulation.

Trip notes

Getting there

Emirates is offering a return airfare flying Sydney-Prague via Dubai, starting from $1727. 1300 303 777, emirates.com/au.

Staying there

The Mamaison Pachtuv Palace, next to the Charles Bridge and overlooking the Vltava River, is a five-star hotel with 50 luxurious rooms and suites. Once Mozart's Prague home, it has rooms from €144 ($197). +420 234 705 111, mamaison.com.

Touring there

Adventura Bike Holidays offers a range of guided or self-guided bike tours in the Czech Republic and central Europe. +420 271 742 250, bikeholidays.eu.

The Prague to Dresden six-day, five-night guided tour runs from May to October, is rated "easy" and riders cycle about 200 kilometres. Highlights include the Libechov Chateau, Pravcicka Brana rock arch above Hrensko, Strekov Castle and the Terezin fortress. Price is €740 a person with a €130 single supplement.

More information

czechtourism.com, dresden.de.

Top tips for a cycling trip

1 Training. It's worth being fit. Some of us prepared by riding to work, some joined gyms six months before, doing cross trainer, treadmill, interval bike training and weights for strength. Every weekend, we rode 40 to 50 kilometres. This familiarised us with the best riding posture, gear usage, road-riding rules and our own fitness levels.

2 Bike gear. Tour bikes are hybrid, with water bottles and rear carrier bags with waterproof covers. Helmets and extra water are provided. You can take your own pedals and gel seats but we paid a little more to have them fitted. Tour guides carry bike maintenance equipment.

3 Bike clothing. Prepare for all weather. Gloves, cycle shirts made from fast-drying wicking fabric with inbuilt zip pockets, padded bike shorts, fleeces or merino layers, lightweight Gore-Tex raincoats, hats, quick-drying underwear, plastic-lens sunglasses, mosquito repellent and suncream.

4 Useful websites. Ground Effect, an online bike clothing store, groundeffect.co.nz; and Lightweight Traveller, lwtraveller.com.

5 Bike etiquette. Check with your tour guide for tips. Ringing your bell at pedestrians in the Czech Republic, for instance, is considered rude.

6 Insurance. You will need cover for cancellation, baggage loss, personal injury and third-party liability while cycling.

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