Home -> Europe -> Czech Republic -> Travelogue 2003 -> Monday 14 July

Vienna - Puchov (Slovakia), the Moravian karst

The day starts warm and sunny after a very cold night, but we feel a bit... disoriented may be a good description.
It starts when we leave Vienna at the northwestern side. We drive through a very beautiful area and have some nice views over Vienna, but at some point we have driven about 100 kilometers when we see a sign: Vienna 39 km.

Near the Czech border the Austrians have build a fairytale world with a medieval castle, knights and dragons. We just want to leave Austria now, so we don't stop. Elisabeth feels sorry that she doesn't get a stamp in her passport, while Teije does get one.

In Brno, after Prague the largest city of the Czech Republic, we take a break. The cathedral of Peter and Paul dates back to the 11th century, but both towers were build in the 19th and 20th.

We had planned to spend most of the time today in the Moravian Karst, a hilly woodland, northeast of Brno. There are many caves which can be visited. We don't know whether it is our not too detalied map, the bad Czech signposting or just our feeling of desorientation, but we keep getting lost. It doesn't matter much, since it is a fantastic region to drive through, and certainly to do some hiking or cycling, but to visit the caves we are every time a bit too late. The last tours are at 3 o'clock or at half past 3. At the best of all caves, Punkevni, we are even only 3 minutes late. Somehow, nothing seems to go right today.

Since we think it is still too early to look for a place to stay, we drive on to the east, and we decide to return here tomorrow or the day after. This house (a small sort of castle) we see near Dub nad Moravou.

We keep on driving around, and in fact we don't know exactly where we are going. Maybe it is a sort of holiday-tiredness that is troubling us. We have seen so much already the last few weeks and now we want to see the Czech Republic within a week. Maybe it is just too much. We would like to see all of the country, find a nice place and stay there for some time, but we don't have that much time anymore. So, tonight we have to set ourselves some goals and forget about the rest...
Meanwhile we have crossed another border and are now in Puchow in Slovakia. We still have a lot of Slovakian money, so we will spend it all today and tomorrow morning. But tomorrow we will be back in the Czech Republic.

Travel through Europe and Africa

with Elisabeth and Teije