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October 24, 2011

Impressions – Prague to Vienna

Filed under: Austria, Bike, Czech Republic, European bike tours, Guide posts — Tags: , , , , , — Bike tour guru @ 2:34 pm
DuVine Guide Justin just finished up biking through the Czech Republic and Austria and took the time to share some of his favorite moments with us. From Prague to Vienna, here are his thoughts:
A little more than twenty years ago, an Austrian might have been thinking, “I wonder what color I should my paint my fence?” At the same time, a Czech living a few kilometers away might have been thinking, “If I try to scale the fence, the border guards will shoot me.” Great way to start a tour blog post, right? But this is just to illustrate how amazing it is today when one bikes across the nations’ boundary -no guard to speak of, no tension, no customs, no dogs or electric fences or anti-tank blockades. Just… freedom. Freedom to glide on two wheels to lunch in Austria, and bike back to the Czech Republic for an afternoon glass of wine. “The Iron Curtain? You just passed it; it’s plowed under that field of yellow-flowered colza. C’mon, I know a winery that makes a great Pinot.”
Bike Tour Czech Republic

A Sklepy, or Wine Cellar

The restructuring of the Czech Republic is far from complete – the cold, lead-handed communist leaders are now cold, lead-headed chiefs of private industries – but the change is far more than just the new coats of paint one sees everywhere. There is openness, and a celebration of their ingenuity and industriousness that has always been a part of the Czech people. It is worth comparing the new Czech Republic with the consistent Austria, a country as proud of its history as France. And the history is rich! You can discover them both on your next DuVine Adventure – Prague – Vienna!
I recently had a chance to ride much of this trip. There is so much to describe but I want to give just a few of my impressions and leave the rest for you to experience:
Bike Tour Czech Republic

The Ferry Crossing

Walking into the rooms of the 18th-century Zameck Liblice, our first hotel. Our host tells Lukas (our Czech guiding maestro) that the furniture is 18th and 19th century pieces. Museum quality. “Our guests just take care of it,” she says.
Biking 80% of the trip on bike lanes and bike paths, even into central Prague. I didn’t have to worry about cars for most of my day. The path takes us by Renaissance castles, 19th century whitewashed factories, restored zameks (chateaus), old farming towns with hops growing tall, tall, tall. At one point we cross the Vltava River by a small boat. We have to call the ferryman and he takes us across without a stroke: The boat is attached to a cable by a pulley, he turns the rudder one way and the boat is pushed across by the current. To return he pushes the rudder the other direction.
The best pilsners in the world are in Bohemia. Germany will have to deal with this fact. These beers taste even better when you are overlooking Prague from green, green Letná Hill.
Biking between the elaborate Neo-gothic summer palace of the Lichtensteins and the Baroque palace of the Lichtensteins with sylvan monuments and 500-year-old oaks in between. Then the bike path that was the old border patrol road. Such a contrast.
Bike Tour Czech Republic

View of the Wachau

Really good wines. Down in Moravia, in the wine village of Pavlov, I tried a Pinot that would charm many a Burgundian, and whites that speak both of quality and of locality.
In the wine village of Mikulov, at the Eat Art Gallery & Restaurant, Jitka has a guest Brazilian cook. He’s a young kid, he’ll be making Brazilian comfort food for the weekend in this great little space. This is the type of synergy that one finds only in big cities or in an artist town. I walk out at 11 pm, there are two couples tabled outside a bar, two people at another wine bar. Just these few under the watch of the gorgeous Mikulov Castle. They are laughing. The cobbled street is theirs.
The Wachau. Vineyards are terraced on the sides of the mountains, and we are biking next to the Danube. The sun is out. I pass a church founded during Charlemagne’s rule, take pictures of a massive vine. Lukas and I stop for a degustation comparing Rieslings and the local specialty, Grüner Veltliner. Again, I’ve been riding a bike path most of the day. The day is sanft, the German word for gentle, and ruhig, calm. Awesome.
There’s many other moments to describe in this Czech Republic and Austria bike tour, but the best way is to experience them yourself. This is a fantastic tour replete with great and gentle biking, hearty food; great, great drinks, and beautiful sites of which to dream. We can’t paint a prettier picture of these two great lands.
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June 2, 2010

What I did on my Summer vacation (you hope)

Filed under: Active Travel, Austria, Bike, Czech Republic, European bike tours, family tours — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Bike tour guru @ 2:14 pm

What I did on my family summer vacation … from your children’s perspective!

Well, you have to be prepared when the teacher asks you on your first day back to school! (and hopefully your response is something a lot cooler than the rest of the kids in your class) It’s usually something like…Charlie spent his summer at a camp  learning how to water ski on Lake Winnepausawke in New Hampshire …Maddy went to visit her cousins in San Francisco and learned how to mountain bike in Marin County…Ryan broke his leg skateboarding the half pipe his dad built in their backyard and spent the majority of the summer lying at home in a cast listening to his mother scream at his father that it was “all his fault” and that he should never have built “that thing” in “our backyard”…well, you get the point.

I spent half of spring trying to convince my parents that I needed to plan something really cool to do this summer…(you know,  just so everyone would be jealous and would be like, wow dude…that rocks!) only to find out that they had already planned a family bike trip to the Czech Republic! What?? Are you kidding me? I was going to have to hang with my parents and younger brother on a family tour – where? Let’s just say I was majorly bummed out by this news – in fact, I think I spent the rest of the school year sulking and trying to figure out how to come down with swine flu or triple E or some crazy illness that would prevent me from going on this family tour. Yeah, that didn’t happen.

Well, July came all too soon…and I was reluctantly packing for my trip when my little brother came in and asked me why I wasn’t excited to go? Whatever.  Like I had to explain this to him?

When we got on the plane that day…I barely spoke to anyone and feigned sleep half the time when it looked like they were going to try to engage me in conversation. And it was a pretty long flight, I must say! This was my first trip to Europe.

Prague

Well, everything changed when we got to Prague. WOW. How cool is this city? And on the first day of the tour, we got to watch this incredible falcon show at the Lednice Chateau with all of these really cool birds of prey hunting in the gardens. I got to ditch my parents and my brother for a while to hang out with some of the other kids who seemed just as uninterested in being around their parents and siblings as I was. I met a cool guy Eric from Canada who was a year younger than I was, this really funny girl from Australia who had the coolest accent, and twin brothers from New Jersey (who also had funny accents!).

After the show was over we went off for horseback riding lessons. This was all of ours first time, so it ended up being hysterically funny watching each other try to figure out what the heck we were supposed to be doing! I guess it ended up being a great first day bonding experience…as we all were clueless and just having fun… a great way to get to know random people. And I know my parents were happy, too…all they kept talking about at dinner was the tour of the wine cellar they had earlier and how impressed they were with Czech wines (something they had never tried before).

Falconry - Bird Show

Funny thing is…I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning (imagine that!) I was so excited for our first day on the bike…and to ditch my parents and hang out with my new buddies.  In the morning we got to check out the ruins of this castle and then it was bike time! Actually was pretty interesting too…because the road we were biking on was the former Iron Curtain Road…so the stuff we had learned about in history class I was actually getting to see and experience.

Actually throughout the week, there were all of these amazing places (well, I guess I should refer to them ‘historical’)…but being able to visit them in person and actually be there is so much different than learning about them in class – and nothing like our school field trips to museums! C’mon, field trips are more like forced ‘learning experiences’ – no one really pays attention, they’re just psyched they have a day off to goof around. On this trip it was just part of our active day out on bikes…visiting these incredible places that just so happened to be historical. And fun, too, because I was learning new things along with my parents…now that’s a first! -  it kind of put us on an even playing field.

Now my buds and I were talking mid-week about how we didn’t want to admit it, but we were actually having the best time with our parents that we have ever had. It was so different than family vacations we had taken in the past…stuff like Disney World, the Grand Canyon, that Caribbean cruise etc. Here we had plenty of time to spend time doing activities with the other kids (horseback riding and windsurfing lessons) and then choose when we wanted to spend with our parents.  And when we did stuff together, it was like we were in it together, you know? Like they, too, were your new buddies…I had never been out biking with my parents, or learned anything along with them. I’ll never admit to them how my fun I was having WITH them…but I will confess that it was the best vacation we have ever been on! I even liked hanging with my little brother…(now that  I won’t tell him).

Biking in Czech Republic

We learned how to make strudel, rode through these amazing places that looked like lands you only read about in fairytales…(or played with – like Legoland castles or something). Just really cool stuff. Not to mention, I was learning things just by being there…not listening to some boring teacher recite to the class about UNESCO heritage sites and write it out on the white board. Now I know what she’s talking about and can actually tell the class, “yup…I’ve been there” or “rode my bike through to that one”.  One up my fellow students…and most likely my teacher as well! Pretty sweet, eh?

Look, I’m just so happy my parents forced me on this trip! AND my parents and my new Australian friends’ family were talking about us all meeting up again next year and taking another family trip to Switzerland together! Sweet!

Oh and btw…I was definitely the envy of everyone in my class (teacher included) when I told them what I did on my summer vacation! And guess what the whole family is getting for Christmas this year? new bikes!

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