Author: travellingkathy

The troops are all gathered in Bad Vöslau, Austria for 3 races over the weekend. But before that, I visited Bratislava in Slovakia. Just a flying visit. 24 hours, with an afternoon and morning for checking out the sights.

A small Old Town, rather less prosperous than Czech and more graffiti etc. but also fewer tourists so a more relaxed feel. Cruise boats on the Danube gathering passengers after their day of sightseeing  Thought of B and B!

One remaining town gate – St Michaels gate.

The western town wall wall was restored when they put in a town bypass in the 1970s.  These photos taken from opposite directions.

And of course the castle on the hill (which itself is now overlooked by modern ‘consulate-row’). Here seen from the old town below.

Lots of memorable stuff seems to have happened 1100-1700.  Not so much since? Certainly a lot of the significant buildings seem to have been built, destroyed and rebuilt during that period. Prague lost importance as the Austrian-Hungarian empire rose.  There was a national revival in the late C19.  Occupation by the Nazis and then Communists took 50’uears out of the middle of the C20, but Prague is looking elegant and thriving nowadays. (Well that’s my take on it, in brief!). And so many churches.

The first photo here – Charles Bridge in the foreground, St Vitus Church within the castle grounds on the skyline   The second photo – Church of Our Lady before Tyn overlooks the Old Town Square

I took a tour of the Jewish quarter today. For several centuries it was one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe, peaking in 1500-1700 and again in the early C20. But around 80,000 Jews from Bohemia and Moravia were caught in the holocaust and one of the old synagogues commemorates those lives, listing all on the walls.

i finally found more on a story I partly got last week when I asked our hotel host why we had two public holidays. His English wasn’t quite up to the explanation. It seemed the second day might have been an anniversary of a martyrdom …  Yes! Priest Jan Hus was burnt at the stake on 6 July 1415. He was an early reformer, wanting to preach in Czech instead of Latin etc. Finally in 1920, a separate Hussite church was set up independent of Rome.

Which brings me to the culture … lots of churches and other places are advertising late afternoon or lunchtime concerts. So today I went to an organ with trumpet recital in St Nicholas Hussite Church which has a chandelier straight out of Phantom of the Opera. A smallish space filled with extra chairs out. The blurb appeared to advertise 4 items (I knew the first) and on the other side of the page nine items (including those 4) were listed. I assumed their various concerts selected from these nine. But after four items, the concert continued. Clearly others in the audience were similarly confused, getting more and more restless as 30 min for 4 items stretched to 60. Got no idea how many items they actually played, but it was interesting enough. Handel, Mozart, Bach and others.

I emerged at 6pm to find the Old Town Square hopping. A large stage, cameras, big screen, microphones etc. Bohemian Jazz Festival. Quite a large and young audience either standing or sittting on the ground in the square.

The Czech MTBO finished successfully for me – my 2 fellow competitors made such big mistakes on Day 1 that they couldn’t catch me. I did my best to ‘lose it’ on the third race with two big route choice errors and they proved that they can ride much faster than me, but they too didn’t have clean races so I had a 25 minute start on the last day in the chasing start.  (Fastest over the previous races starts first and the others start according to their cumulative time behind.) As it turned out I had a faster time than either of them in the last race so definitely a winner!

The third woman had a DSQ on Day 1 so wasn’t on the podium.

The main disappointment this year was the lack of variety in the terrain compared with the lovely areas used 2 years ago. Day 1 and 4 ( and also the CZE Relays on Friday which I skipped but other of the Aussies entered) used the same forest and the same exit route from forest to finish. And Day 3 which was in a different location, still had similar working pine forest. All virtually no single track and the break from forest roads was largely very junky forest rides mapped as dotty tracks.

The Day 3 location was however very picturesque – based on 2 grassy soccer fields high above the village of Dobric with fields between us and the village. The organisers even moved the beer tent to be at this new event centre!

I didn’t do much sightseeing in the Plzen area this year. By the time we got ‘home’, did the washing, had an early dinner, and I went back to the awards ceremony each night, I didn’t have the energy.  Besides, I saw most of the sights that interested me 2 years ago.  A couple of photos from the Friday foray are in the previous blog.

Now moved on to Prague late Sunday.

It’s the season for holidays. Last time I was here the event centre was at a holiday camp on a lake on the edge of Plzen. This year the organisers have taken over two small adjacent holiday camps near Plasy, a small town 30 min north of Plzen. Holiday camps seem to have small cabins, just big enough for their bed size (eg 2 bunk beds – four people). The main camp has this year added some small 2-mattress sized tents with fixed floor.

The orienteers have added some hiking tents, caravans and motor homes. The camp provides meals in the large dining room and has a rec hall. The main camp where we had the event centre had basketball courts and a beach volleyball court – the sand at the back of it was a popular play space for the small kids with their toy trucks. There used to be a swimming pool but that’s not in use this year. I guess there is hiking and biking in the nearby forest when we’re not racing! And there is a small cold stream too shallow for swimming. But what else do they do? There is another similar camp up the road.

We had lots of kids and family groups, but we also had a major activity each day to keep people occupied. And a large ‘beer tent’ with a party each night. One interesting feature of our event was how many small children took part. 32 entries in MW12 – they could do it independently or be shadowed. At each awards ceremony, the top 3 were acknowledged and then all the MW12s were called up for a small prize.

After their race many continued to hoon around on their geared bikes that looked much too big/sophisticated for the size of the child.

One mother rode all races with her smaller child in a trailer!

On Friday Carolyn C and I visited a couple of nearby old towns. In Stribro, in the large town square was a large group of children who eventually left their small backpacks around the central column and headed off at a run in different directions in groups of approx 12 – 3 or 4 older kids and a bunch of younger. Some carrying paper which turned out to be a map with ‘treasure’ locations shown. A type of orienteering activity.

The Czech National Heritage Museum in Prague has a centre for Building Heritage in Plasy in the refurbished brewery building on the campus of the old monastery.

I wonder if Simon and Elliott have been there?

there is a room devoted to each of the main aspects of building, and going back over the centuries on how it was done.

A demonstration of different types of brickwork; joining materials; I particularly liked the models of stairs – straight, bent, curved, spiral etc etc with explanations of the strength of each etc. Surfaces and renders; windows; doors; roofs; heating; water; electricity. And so on.

And as you go higher though the rooms and up to the mezzanine, it gets noisier. And there is the children’s room with tables for making designs (there is also a large ceramic and tile display which is separate for the building stuff), and a huge table of  building blocks, and an interactive wall-size jigsaw puzzle of a medieval building scene. The kids were having a great time!

i had forgotten my camera so not many photos, but this one demonstrating different methods of filling a half-timber wall.

So we are staying in Plzen in Czechia ( the new name for the Czech Republic if it catches on). The home of Pilsner beer and Skoda cars. About 1 hour west of Prague. In a small, friendly, family-run hotel where we stayed 2 years ago. Just 2 of us the hotel this time but two other Melb couples elsewhere in town.

But this year the MTBO (see earlier posts for translation) is based in Plasy, a small town 30 min north of here. There is acknowledgement at the 8pm awards ceremony each night of the placegetters for that day (by age class) and the best cumulative time over 4 races wins the class on Day 4 (next Sunday).

there are only 3 entries in W70 so provided I keep my head, I should get a place. Both the others were here 2 years ago and much faster than me.

Day 1 (yesterday) was a middle distance race. First make your way UP to the start c. 3 km from the arena. The last km was sufficiently steep that I walked it. Most of the race was in some sort of pine forest – tall straight trimmed trunks so good visibility – on the plateau above the town.  Lots of rough indistinct ‘dotty’ tracks – I could ride down but generally could not ride back up them even on relatively gentle slopes. We had a long first leg. (Hardly ‘middle distance’) and I dithered along the way. Eventually got into the map but lots of small pine cones (more like horse chestnuts) and roots on the formed tracks. Not nice riding. Only as we came down off the plateau at the end of the course did the riding get nicer.

I started first in W70 but thought I saw the Dane about halfway round and expected that she’d caught me 6 minutes. Was surprised to finish first. The Slovak had taken the wrong map so DSQ in W70. The Dane finally came in 33 min down on my time!  Well that’s a good start. Top of the podium last night.

Day 2 (today) was the Sprint on the edge of Plasy. They had some issues getting permission for the event so had constructed an artificial set of tracks on a field over the river from the old Monastery. See the black dashed lines on the Yellow area on the map. They were mown ‘lanes’ marked with tape on the field. Some courses crisscrossed this area several times. The only legal places to ride or push your bike were on the black tracks (dashed or solid lines) or brown tracks or paved areas, or the dark orange near the start. (But not if red-hatched). Lots of marshalls making note of any violations.

Main issue for everyone was that the brown tracks were too hard to see on the map. I took a long way round because I couldn’t see the brown track along the edge of the yellow between #2 and #3.  The large buildings around #6 are the old monastery and former brewery, now a museum. We had gone over there yesterday so I had a bit of local knowledge.

i don’t think the others get much Sprint practice so I feel obliged to traipse out there again tonight for the awards ceremony. Bit boring – lots of long announcements in Czech interspersed with a bit of English, to a crowd that is generally not paying much attention.

I’ve now got a decent buffer but two longer races to come on Sat/Sun so anything can happen!

I had booked a hire car for 34 days but my travel agent couldn’t confirm a GPS. So on Sunday, I found the hire car place and in the Sunday rush, took a ticket, waited an age, and confirmed that indeed it did have a gps. Oh and by the way, you might be better to come early on a Tuesday to beat the 9am rush, we open at 6:00.

OK.  That’s a plan. Have early breakfast, take a small bag with me, organise the car, check it out, and come back to the hotel to get the main bag and bike.  So at 7:15 I’m down there. No waiting. Ah, your car isn’t ready yet. You are not due until 9:00. But for only 8:50 EU you could have a slightly larger and more luxurious car now. Me: is that 8:50 per day.  Yes but for 2 days until 6th, that is only 17EU more. Me: but that’s 6th August, not July! (And I don’t really want a larger car.) Ah! I see.  Yes well that would be an extra 70Eu. Me: look never mind, I’ll come back at 9.

So off I went and killed some time. Got back down there with trolley piled high well before 9. Judged well when I took the ticket and was called right at 9. Ok good.  Now let’s do it. Well there was a bit of tooing and froing and muttering and checking with his neighbour and supervisor. I assumed some computer problem. Finally he came back: you have the car booked until 6 August. Yes.  Well it is due to be sold on 28 July. Can you bring it back to change over?  Me: No! Wait, maybe, let me check my schedule. I’m due back not far from Munich early that week. Maybe I could … but how would that work? I might have 2 bicycles (Kay had a thought that I might take her bike from AUT to FRA.) could someone help transfer the luggage?  Yes my man could organise that. Me: is there any discount for the inconvenience? No, you have prepaid.   More discussion with supervisor. Me not all that happy but don’t want to come away with a smaller car …  So we apparently have a deal. Off he goes for the key … and comes back with a smile. You are in luck. We have a very new car we can give you. Skoda Octavia with only 600km on the clock. (No idea how that compares with a VW Passat but I’m past caring. )

I’ve got to say somewhere in all that I thought of Christine trying to persuade me to do a car lease rather than regular hire!

so I can report it cruises very nicely at 130. Can match it in the fast lane at 150 if needs be. I’ve survived the first roundabout (though the right hand lane petered out before my exit so Mrs Sat Nav had to work harder to get me back on track) but by then I was almost in familiar territory in Plzen.

So a bit later arriving in Plzen than planned but all good. The bike seems to have survived the trip ok. Now just got to get my head into racing mode at speeds rather less than 150kph.

I arrived safely in Munich an hour later than scheduled on Sunday morning. 70 minutes was not long enough to transfer in Zurich with long queues for security and immigration. But I wasn’t the last to arrive at the gate!  Just a little plane with 2 propellers for the last leg.  Parked on the far side of the airport in Munich and I could see my bags coming off the plane as we waited for the bus. Much relief.

Sunday afternoon – a foray into the city centre to the sound of piano-accordian buskers on every corner. Then late afternoon the church bells

Lots of central city churches. St Peters is the oldest. 1181. This photo taken from the tower of the new (1908) town hall.

And lots of decorated buildings.

On the plane over, I watched “The Zookeper’s Wife” .  And then on Monday took a tour of Dachau. Reckon I’ve got my ‘fill’ this week .

First the tour took us via the town of Dachau  pop 47,000 and with an Old Town that predates Munich. The concentration camp was located at a disused munitions factory just out of the town  Dachau was a concentration camp ie a slave-worker camp, not an extermination camp (so, unlike Auschwitz). But lots of torture and poor treatment and starvation still meant many deaths .

the map in the museum shows the location of the very many such camps all over Germany and the occupied territories  as the guide said – the populace must have known what was going on.

It’s about this time before a forthcoming trip that I do a test run just to check that I’ve remembered how this blog thing works. 

Now in count down mode for 1 July when I’m again off to Europe  with the mountain bike. This trip is focussed on MTBO (you’ll see that acronym a lot – mountain bike orienteering).  Three multi-day events. The first over 4 days near Plzen in Czech Republic. The next 3 events over a weekend in Austria just south of Vienna.  And the third, the World Masters MTBO Championships based in Orleans in France. Fly out of Paris on 6 August. In between the events, some touristing in areas I haven’t been previously including Prague, Bratislava and Vienna. 

The bag is waiting in the hallway waiting to be packed. 

And I’ve just remembered how to add photos!
I don’t expect to make blog entries every day, but hopefully enough to show that the trip is still on track. 

Apart from explorations of history, the highlights of this trip have featured walks in the parks.

On my previous trip to San Francisco, I’d done the major tourist  activities. This last day, a Sunday, I went looking for parks to walk in. There are three major parks on the west side of central SF – the Presidio on the south side of the Golden Gate Bridge (top left on the creased map), then what would have been an extension of that formerly army-owned land, Lincoln Park facing the Pacific Ocean- entrance to SF Bay, and then further south and separated by housing, the long (5km) sliver of green just 750m wide of the Golden Gate Park (at the bottom of the map). Central SF is to the right of the map.

So so I caught the bus. I usually prefer trains or trams – it’s easier to know where they are going. But the #38 starts at Union Square on Geary St and just goes straight for 9km to the beach. It dropped me off at 33rd street and I headed into the SE corner of Lincoln Park. Most of the eastern section is golf course, but crossed by a road and then footpaths. Walked initially uphill and then down past the “don’t feed the coyotes” signs to the coastal track high above the waves crashing on rocks below. Glimpses of what were the remains of shipwrecks at Lands End. And views to the northern shore and back to the bridge.

There were Sunday crowds on the wide pathway that once boasted a tramway (1889-1925) to take passengers to the swimming baths and fairgrounds at the southern end of this park.

The baths were were the main attraction.  A postcard view, but now it’s left to the imagination for what was there.

Then I left the rocky coast as the hill moved inland and took the road along Ocean Beach as the incoming coastal fog marred the view. Low tide made the beach even wider, but the November activity was all near the promenade – volleyball and frisbee games. I needed Mel to explain!

So then into Golden Gate Park. From the map it appears to be a set of formal activity spaces: soccer fields, dressage ring, polo field etc – and further east various institutions and pavilions. But my map didn’t show the myriad of formal and informal paths, small open bush areas with low gnarled trees forming bush playgrounds for the children, clearings in the woods that can be reserved by partying groups, and lots of eucalyptus trees among the spreading pine trees.

I ran out of steam about halfway up the park and bailed out to find the ‘N line train’ which turned out to be a tram that goes into tunnels and stops at stations co-located with the BART stations in the central city.

And so ended my USA-Canada trip.

But the last photos were flying into Sydney with a northern approach to the airport.

Thanks for reading and and thanks for your comments. Until next time …