Budweis to Linz

It took longer than I'd like to leave the Czech Republic. The bike routes aren't always paved, and sometimes the grades on the hills point upward suddenly. It's the first time I've had to bike and hike. Also, I now know it's okay to pause on a hill and then to continue. I never get off my bicycle in Cleveland. I've had to accept that some days I won't get as far.

I've had to use a combination of bike maps, my gps, and signs to get where I'm going. From Budweis, I discovered that bike route 1018 would nearly bring me to the Czech-Austrian border.

My days when I leave a city cause my mileage to be low. It's hard to leave. Couple this with hills and probably not eating enough, it's even lower. I think I bonked this day: I felt like I was in a tunnel by the time I reached Kaplice and like I could 't go any farther. I was in a stupor. This day I also stopped for some beers with a lady who was embarking on her own cycle tour to Budapest. It was a nice day, but I didn't get very far. 

I was able to get a room for 500 KC in Kaplice above a tavern on their square. It was a good place to stop. I ordered some food and tried to get on track again.

I was invited to sit at a table with a Czech  man and a German man at the tavern. The Czech man was smoking and drinking beers in his hiphop vest and showing us music videos of rappers on his phone. I found out that his girlfriend had just had a baby that night, i.e. his son. It was a little ridiculous, and different from how men are involved in birth in the U.S. usually. I've met other family-focused men in the CZ though.

I left Kaplice in the morning and again had some difficult terrain. My only real goal was to get out of the Czech Republic. At one point, I ended up along a river on a path that looked like this:

Then this:

Then this:

The last one I had to take my bike bags off of my bike and carried each over slippery, mossy rocks and through brambles. I thwacked through overgrowth and made a path for carrying my bicycle. I think I made a wrong turn here and ended up on a hike trail.

This little gnome was here to smile at me after I carried my stuff to a clearing. I sweat my clothes wet, maybe it was physical, maybe I was hoping I wasn't going to break an ankle out here alone.

Everything ended up all right. I decided to trust my instinct and go with the road instead of the cycle path when it seemed like a better way. I made it to Dolní Dvořiště when I saw this sign:

I rarely saw Eurovelo Route signs at all during my trip, and then I see this proper Eurovelo 13 sign after cutting a path over rocks in the Czech Republic. I stopped into a cafe in Dolní Dvořiště where I ordered a cappuchino and tried to talk to the woman there who clearly loved children. Her cafe had a kids' table, and there was candy and little toys for children there. I tried to show her my map and a picture of the sign on my phone, but we had too much of a language barrier and her son was just outside the cafe. He helped me to get a map and showed me around too. I was starting to trust my instincts a little more with people and just to relax. We talked about Pearl Jam and used little bits of English and German to communicate, but also used a translator app on his phone where you could speak into it, and it would translate your words into their language for you. We ended up going to Kaplice and Český Krumlov. We were driving backwards, and I tried not to think of it that way.

He helped me get a map and got me pointed in the right direction and that night I crossed to Austria ending at Freistadt, which was a day's ride from Linz as far as I knew.



Even though I only had maybe 40 kilometers to ride to get to Linz, I had a lot of upward hikes with my bicycle that zigzagged up hillsides. A highlight was walking by an organic milk (biomilch) farm and having a sweet little heifer walk along with me as I pushed my bike up a particular tough hill (mountain). The horizon seemed tilted every which way. I never felt like I was heading straight.



I eventually was 8 km away when I stopped for some sausages at a cafe. I was able to ask how many kilometers it was to Linz, and I was able to ask for a fork in German too. I was enjoying being able to communicate a little better than I was able to in the Czech Republic. I realized that I only had a downhill ride into Linz. On the descent, I let another bicyclist passed and he yelled "Merci." I also was able to make use of my German to read this faucet in a rock. I was a little thirsty...at first I thought it said "little drinking water" instead of "not drinking water."



The descent was unbelievable, and I had to pull to the side of the rode occasionally to let the sensory overload subside. I saw a couple ride down with their bicycle for two, so I figured that it was legal for me to be on this crazy downhill path with cars. I didn't pedal for the whole 7 kilometers.