Despite being squashed in like sardines, the campsite settled down around 11pm and we had a good nights sleep. We woke around 7am to blue skies and had the same idea – let’s leave this place now and find somewhere nicer to do our ablutions, have breakfast and get sorted out – maybe a clearing in the woods. We were gone by 8.
We drove along the main road, gradually dropping out of the valley. The mountains were stunning if you blocked out the ugliness – the advertising hoardings, supermarkets, petrol stations, the road furniture and signage. It was a long and ugly scar in a beautiful area. Why we are so good at desecrating places especially stunning ones like this?
We came out of the mountains and crossed into the Czech Republic at Cieszyn. We followed the dual carriageway along a broad valley with mountains in the distance. We approached Ostrava and decided to find a cafe. We first pulled into a petrol station to sort ourselves out (so much for the forest clearing) – to feed the Pupster, have a quick wash and a change of clothes so we looked presentable at least. We followed the city centre signs and found ourselves in the broad boulevards of Ostrava – it looked quite attractive. Suddenly for no reason, we lost all internet connection, the satnav blank and were now blindly driving around the streets, unsure whether we should be straddling the tram lines and totally disorientated. We pulled up down a side street with parking notices we couldn’t even translate, desperately trying to figure out what to do. Then suddenly hubby gave a whoop – somehow he got connected back to some 4G and we were saved (gosh, aren’t we so reliant on technology that when it suddenly goes belly up……). Feeling quite flustered, we decided to shelve the idea of a city centre coffee and headed out of town, spotting a Tesco (??) sign in the distance.
Once back on the dual carriageway heading to Olomouc (I’ve been calling them motorways, but think they just dual carriageways – the equivalent of say, the A1 in England – but they big, fast and get you to places with ease) I did a little research on Google Maps and located a possible cafe on an artificial lake just outside the village of Naklo. So we headed there, the village itself trim and tidy and then came across Wake Surf, the inland watersports centre. It boasted a sliver of beach with families and couples either swimming or sunbathing with a couple of bars and a cafe where we sat in the shade and ordered food. It was 28 degrees .
This place had a great vibe and was quite funky – behind us was a big covered area with hammocks, chairs and benches to lay on and have a nap. On the water, you could jet ski, canoe and kayak and even a zip wire water ski set up which looked fun.
My nachos and the drinks turned up quite quickly, but hubby’s burger got lost in translation and we had to ask the waitress. While we waited, we texted our intended campsite for tonight to see if they had room – we didn’t want a repeat of last night, thank you. Yes, not a problem, just turn up. The burger made an appearance and looked delicious and apparently was very tasty and worth the wait. We thanked the waitresses and set off back on the main roads.
The afternoon was spent traversing north east Czech, a mixture of large fields of wheat and barley as far as the eye could see, to rolling countryside, hills and woodlands. The middle bit was a bit tedious – it was like the Vale of York and a bit featureless, but the scenery kept swapping around. The Czech’s were also in the middle of a major road construction project here, slicing through the countryside. They kept popping us onto parts of this new road and after a few kilometres, taking us off again back to the old country roads. It wasn’t far off being opened by the looks of things, but in the meantime they utilised the bits that were finished while they finalised the closed off sections. Seemed a good idea! Sometimes the new road clipped the edges of villages and some residents found themselves staring at pillars of a particular raised section at the bottom of their garden which seemed rather unfair. One unfortunate house, looking quite newly built, was a complete island surrounded by the devastation of construction and excavation of this new bypass.
We lost count how many times we jumped onto dual carriageways and back onto minor roads. As we neared the mountains, we noticed each village had an icecream vendor which seemed quite inviting until we noticed the long queues. The villages starting to get prettier too. As we approached Liberec on the dual carriageways, we found ourselves travelling up and down hills in a corridor of green. It was a fabulous backdrop of woodland. These mountains were getting quite spectacular – we passed the Trosky Castle, two towers perched high on top of two volcanic rock plugs which could be seen for miles. They seemed to like perching things on tops of hills as we saw a couple more, but couldn’t identify them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trosky_Castle
We also found it interesting that the towns seemed to be quite sprawling and industrial and seemed to appear out of nowhere. One moment you were along a wooded country lane and then approached a busy roundabout surrounded by Lidl’s, Makro’s and retail parks.
Finally leaving main roads behind, we found ourselves on quiet, narrow backwater roads in beautiful woods, steadily climbing. As we got nearer to our campsite, CampingSolar near Chřibská, a delightful old town of chocolate box prettiness, we were having to stop and squeeze past on coming cars (they haven’t heard of passing places around here). The mountains seemed more wild, more untouched – it would be unfair to compare with yesterday’s as we had only driven down one part which happened to be the heart of a tourist Mecca. It was slightly sad to see more road building here – trees had been felled as if they were thinking of widening the road. Maybe traffic had increased and warranted such a move, but it kind of ruined the uniqueness of the area. We had seen so many road projects today – it must be EU grants funding all of this as it would have cost millions.
But it was magical here and beautiful. We hadn’t seen a hint of any commercialisation at all which was wonderful and hoped it stayed that way. We had glimpses of long distance views through the trees (the downside of being in woodland – can’t see much). Finally we turned right and after a gentle climb came across CampingSolar, our home for the night. We negotiated the electric gate and parked up – there were two other campers – a little caravan and near us, a couple in a car with no sign of a tent or other shelter, but had a couple of strings of fairy lights hanging up – just perfect. We put up the awning as it felt it might rain, but it was still quite warm. We chilled, fed the Pupster and then fed ourselves – after a while we wandered down the road for a beer at the restaurant on the corner, sitting outside with a few other people. A little girl approached and asked in Czech if she could stroke Pupster. I replied in a combo of basic English and sign language that it was okay when she helped me with my linguistic failings and spoke clearly in English. “Can I pat your dog?” She got rewarded with a big ear lick from a delighted Pupster.
As we were losing the light, we headed back to our camper and relaxed. We had a sort of a plan to head in a south west direction and to stay in Czech longer rather than enter Germany, just to the north of us. We had seen a lot today and wanted to see more of this lovely country rather than give it a cursory toe dip. Roll on tomorrow!
apathtosomewhere 