Harvest Of Hostility (or Potatoes Of Wrath, aka Malignant Tubers)

This is the only photo I was able to take before all hell broke loose. Sadly, it doesn't do the scene justice.

Editor's Note: Until I get back on the bike, I'm reposting a few "classic" Prague Bike Blog posts. Here's one that people still mention to me. It's also one of my most commented posts. First published on September 15, 2008.

It's been a few days now, and we're still shaking our heads about it. They threw what at us? They yelled what at us?

It's unbelievable, and disappointing, but sadly, in the Czech Republic, not all that surprising.

Stewart and I were out for a ride on a cool, crisp, breezy, but sunny Saturday. A perfect day for a bike ride. The smell of fall in the air -- wood smoke and rotting apples.

We met at The Smallest Pub In The World in Úholičky, kinda halfway between my home in Černý Vůl and his house in Roztoky. (It was closed, but I did notice that they sell half-liters of Gambrinus for 18 CZK (about $1.06), one of the lowest I've seen this season.)

From there, we headed up the hill to Tursko, and then followed some familiar country roads in the direction of Holubice.


Some of the beautiful trails and landscape near the villages of Hole and Okor (above and below).



We're always keeping an eye out for a trail we haven't taken before, and on the way to Holubice we passed a dirt road or tractor tracks heading into some farmer's fields. We took it.

And after a kilometer or so we came across a pastoral scene -- a group of five or six men and women all bent over in a field, harvesting potatoes. They were digging in the earth, and we could hear the dirty potatoes falling into the buckets with dull thuds. At least one of the women -- a woman of some years -- was wearing a country dress and had a colorful kerchief tied evocatively around her head.

It was a painting come to life. Indeed, many famous artists have chosen to immortalize the acts of picking or harvesting or gathering -- olive pickers, cotton pickers, potato pickers, apple pickers, hop pickers, berry pickers.


"Potato Pickers," by the French artist Maurice de Vlaminck (oil on canvas, 1905-7).

We stopped our bikes and admired the scene and remarked at how it truly was a painting come to life. We took a few photographs.

That's when one of the men who was harvesting the potatoes started yelling at us. We couldn't quite make out what he said, though. Just that he was mad. And get this. He whipped a couple of potatoes at us as he yelled, trying to hit us.

What the *$#@&???!!!

Then the old woman in the kerchief starting yelling at us, too. Our Czech isn't great, but we could make out the words "work" and "potatoes" and "foreigners."

For reasons that still baffle me, these folks were really pissed off. Was it because we had stopped to admire their work and take a few pictures? Did they resent us because we weren't helping? Because we were speaking a foreign language? Because we didn't ask permission before we took a few photos?

I'm sorry, but I simply can't comprehend such an incident happening in any other country.

Imagine: You're touring the wine country of Tuscany and you stop to take a few photos of the grape harvest, when all of a sudden the Italians start chucking bunches of grapes at you and yelling for you to get the hell out.

Imagine: You're touring the wild west coast of Ireland and you stop to watch men slicing peat from the black earth. You take a few photographs, only to discover the men lobbing wet hunks of peat in your direction and yelling at you to get lost.

I saw a post on a forum on expats.cz the other day that was titled: Do Czechs Hate Foreigners?
It saddens me to say it, but I easily understand where such questions come from. All of us who've lived here have our stories. And yes, I know many, many wonderful Czechs (and I even met one later on in this same ride).

But it seems to me that the true test of the personality of a people is not how they treat friends, but how they treat strangers. In this regard, the Czechs fail miserably most, but not all, of the time.

How did Stewart and I react?

Firstly, we were pretty stunned to have someone throwing stuff at us.

Our second reaction was to basically say to them, "What's your problem? What did we do?"

When then didn't work, we just started smiling broadly and waving at them and wishing them a "hesky den," or a good day, and saying "nashledanou" (goodbye) in bright, cheerful voices.

What else could we do?

We rode off, not sure whether to be pissed off or amused. I guess we were a little of both.

From there, we headed toward the village of Hole, and from there through some lovely fields and forests, until we ended up somewhere behind the village of Okoř.

We sat outside in the sun and downed a couple of cold beers at the Family Hotel Okoř, our usual watering hole.

Then it was back home for both of us.

On the way home, I passed a woman selling apples at a roadside stand. More importantly, she was also selling apple cider. At first, I thought it was burcak, the young, sweet, partially fermented wine that's also in season at the moment.

I love apple cider, having grown up in the northeast United States, and I have never really seen it in the Czech Republic. I really miss it and was very excited to see it for sale.

The woman was extremely friendly (wiping out the bad thoughts in my brain from The Potato Incident) and sold me two 1.5-liter bottles for 30 CZK each.

It was absolutely delicious. I gotta go back for more.

RIDE STATS
Length of ride: 31 kilometers
Average speed: 13.8 kph
Maximum speed: 42.4 kph
Pivo Index: 2
Time on the bike: 2.10.30
Distance ridden so far in 2008: 1,208 kilometers


This woman selling apples and cider by the road almost wiped out my memories of the Potato People.


I almost ran over this gigantic caterpillar on the road, like an orange speed bump. I picked it up and put him in the grass. Anyone know what kind of a caterpillar this is?


I think this window was in the vowel-deficient village of Svrkyne.


I liked the geometry in this scene in Úholičky.


This dog was barking at us from on high.

What's Flat And Warm And Has A Beard?

The view of Alachua Lake, part of Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, near Gainesville, Florida. The "lake" was, indeed, once covered in about 5 feet of water. Today, buffalo roam where low-draft steamboats once traveled.

Editor's Note: I'm in the United States for a holiday visit, and haven't had a chance to ride or post lately. So I thought I'd rerun some "classic" posts from years past. I'm currently visiting relatives in Gainesville, Florida. Here's a post about Gainesville, written after my last visit here in October 2007.

I should have made my first attempt at a century in Florida.

Daisy, Emma and I flew to Gainesville, in central Florida, on Oct. 22 (Daisy's birthday) to visit Daisy's parents, and to take Emma, who's 7, to Disney World and Sea World during her fall break from the International School of Prague.

We had a great time. Gainesville's a cool college town, and the University of Florida just happens to hold the national football and basketball championships simultaneously at the moment, the first time that's ever happened in college sports. It's also a bike-friendly city, with cycling lanes gracing most of the city's streets. And the weather was warm -- around 75 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit (around 25 degrees Celsius) -- and humid, although overcast for many of the days we were there.

I did manage to ride one day during my visit, borrowing a mountain bike from Daisy's father, Paul, who had a nice Mongoose Maneuver hanging in his garage. I pumped up the tires, gave the gears and chain a few squirts of oil, and I was off to tackle the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail State Park, which everyone had recommended.

The trail used to be a railroad line. The tracks were removed, and the line paved, and it's now used by cyclists, rollerbladers, walkers and folks on horseback, who ride in the grass along the pavement. Before it was a railroad, it was a trader's path that the website says dates back to Seminole Indians and Florida's first inhabitants.

The trail starts in Boulware Springs Park in Gainesville and ends 16.2 miles (26 kilometers) later in the town of Hawthorne. In between, it passes through Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park and the Lochloosa Wildlife Management Area.


The 16-mile trail follows an old rail bed.

It was warm and overcast on Sunday (October 28), and it felt great just to be out on a bike in a T-shirt and shorts, after enduring the frigid temperatures in Prague. It's was also cool to be biking in such an exotic environment, past swaying palms, Southern live oaks dripping with long beards of Spanish moss, and cypress trees oozing upward out of primordial swamps where alligators are known to dwell.

It was also both wonderfully refreshing, and rather odd, to be cycling on a path that was 16 miles long but which was completely, entirely, and totally flat. Rob and I should have come here to take our first stabs at a "century" -- that is, 100 miles in a single ride. All centuries are not created equal.


I saw a red-shouldered hawk (right) sitting in a tree along the trail, and what I believe was a flock of wild turkeys. I passed a few cyclists, and one woman on horseback. Other than that, I had the entire trail to myself. I had a great time. It would have been cool to have seen a 'gator, though.

(We did paddle past four or five alligators during a canoe trip on the Oklawaha River, about an hour outside Gainesville. Not only that, we also caught a glimpse of the wild rhesus monkeys that live in the forest along the river, as well as innumerable turtles and herons and a few kingfishers.)

The highlight of the ride occurred when I took a spur off the main trail that said it led to the Alachua Lake Overlook (see photo at top). I expected to see a lake, of course, but what I found at the end of the spur was a wooden platform that looked out on the vast Paynes Prairie State Park -- all 21,000 acres (8,500 hectares) of it. It's 8 miles (13 kilometers) long and 1 to 4 miles wide, and is home to bison and sandhill cranes and alligators and almost 300 species of birds.


I borrowed this Mongoose Maneuver from Daisy's dad, Paul. It did the trick.

Apparently, the sinkhole that drains the prairie became blocked back in the late 19th century, causing the prairie to flood, creating an immense, shallow lake. Difficult to imagine today, but low-draft steamboats used to ply the waters of Alachua Lake until the sinkhole opened again in 1892 and the lake drained dry. It's said that the event triggered massive fish fries by the locals, but who were eventually overwhelmed by the stench of thousands of dead fish rotting in the prairie.

Florida is a lovely state, and it was a great pleasure to get out in it, and there was no better way to do that than on a bike.

The folks running the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail just need to consider putting a pub or two along the route!

RIDE STATS
Length of ride: 53.5 kilometers
Distance ridden so far in 2007: 1,744.5 kilometers


The boardwalk above led off the paved trail to an overlook (below) amid lush cypress trees and wetlands. This is where I thought I might see an alligator or two, but no such luck.




A picturesque picnic spot at the end of the trail in Hawthorne.


Some local color seen along the trail (above and below).




Dangerous curve ahead.

Bike Blog Redux: Horse Latitudes

Stewart and I stop for a couple of shots of medovina in the middle of nowhere.

Editor's Note: I've been off the bike for some time, due to bad weather, no time (we've just moved from our house in Cerny Vul to a flat in Prague 6) or, in some cases, sheer laziness. Until I get back out there, I thought I'd republish a few classic posts from around this same time. This story originally ran on December 28, 2008.


What I'd always feared finally happened.

I came racing down along a woodline from an overgrown field onto a dirt path or road, and surprised a group of five or six horses and riders, who were about 30 meters away.

The horse in front of the pack, surprised by my sudden appearance, spooked, and reared up. The rider -- a young woman -- tried valiantly to keep the horse under control, but couldn't, and fell, hard, onto the frozen mud track and between some trees.

I froze as it was happening, not wanting to spook the horse any further, and felt helpless as the woman fell, hard, seemingly in slow motion. The horse was riderless, and none of the others dismounted to help the woman, who remained motionless on the ground.


You can just make out the five horses and riders in the center left of this picture. I didn't want to make matters worse by taking out my camera and clicking away while they were right in front of me.

I feared moving forward to help her, or to grab the horse, not wanted to make matters worse by spooking the other horses, or frightening the riderless horse enough to make him bolt.

In the end, the woman stood up -- she said she was unhurt, though I'm sure she was bruised the next day -- and grabbed the reins, and Stewart, who had advanced, held the horse while the woman remounted.

The group passed us, and continued down the trail. They didn't really say much to us as they passed. I thought it strange that none of the men had gotten off their horses to help the woman who fell. Maybe there's some unwritten law or something.

I felt bad for having scared the horses, but the trail we were on -- indeed, all of the trails in this area -- are shared by both bikers and horse riders, and encounters like this seem inevitable.

Fortunately, no one was hurt. Stewart and I hung back for a few minutes to let them get ahead, and continued ourselves on our ride.

As usual, Stewart and I had met at the Smallest Pub In The World in Úholičky and set off on a cold, gray day. I was feeling a little better about riding than I did on my last, depressive outing. We headed out of Uholicky and up the hill toward Tursko, with the intention of visiting the archaeological dig we'd discovered a few weeks back in Holubice, to check on any progress.

It was gone.

Covered over. Construction site. Laying some sort of pipe or sewage system. Too bad, really. Our guess is that when such things are uncovered during construction, they must be mapped and recorded, but then can legally be covered back over.


There used to be an archaeological dig on this construction site.

In any event, all the cool stuff we'd seen a month or so was gone.

We rode and talked, talked more than rode in some parts, explored unexplored paths and dirt roads, stopped in the middle of a huge field and had a few shots of medovina, basically a modern version of medieval mead. I'd brought a flask of the stuff, which we'd first tasted on an outing to the Bee Institute a few months back.


The middle of nowhere, somewhere near the village of Holubice.

It's smooth and sweet and delicious, but I think next time I'll bring the usual bourbon or whiskey/whisky. Need more of a bite out there on the trail in the cold and raw.

As usual, we behaved like kids as often as possible, in this case aiming squarely for all of the frozen puddles on the trails. The sound of our tires slicing through the ice sounded like some large, thick piece of cloth being ripped from end to end. As often as not, there was a pool of cold water beneath, and our feet got a bit wet in the process, especially Stewart's. He had a fine old time bunny-hopping his bike from the trail into the puddles, sending shards of ice and ribbons of muddy water flying.

By this time, our feet and fingers were cold. Or at least mine were.

We ended up, of course, in the restaurant at the Family Hotel Okoř, one of our favorite biking stops. Decorated for the holidays, it was the definition of cozy. (By the way, they serve the best steaks in Prague, in my opinion. Daisy and I go there for dinner a few times a month.)

As darkness swiftly fell, Stewart and I holed up inside, warming ourselves with good conversation and, not inconsequentially, three glasses of Ballantine's whisky and a half-liter of beer each. We also had a nice chat with our favorite waiter at the hotel, Tomas. He deserves a separate blog entry all to himself, which I must do sometime. Great guy. I keep forgetting to take his picture while I'm there.

Nice and toasted -- er, I mean, toasty -- Stewart and I headed back out on our bikes.

By this time, it was bitterly cold and pitch dark, and I had neglected to bring a headlight. Stewart had a tiny clip-on headlight, and I had my flashing back light, so he rode ahead and I rode behind.


It's fun to crunch through all the iced-over puddles.

Funny where you find yourself sometimes. Here we were, riding on an empty country road in the middle of nowhere in total blackness and in the freezing cold. We could only laugh.

We parted ways in Velké Přílepy, Stewart heading home to Roztoky, me to Černý Vůl. Truth be told, I had trouble even seeing the road from that point on, it was so dark.

For the first time, I was actually thankful for the occasional car, so that its headlights could remind me where the edge of the road stopped and who-knows-what began.

I managed to stay on the pavement and made it home in one piece. So did Stewart, eventually. He had quite a bit further to ride than I did.

A memorable ride, which helped to put the bad memories of my previous outings out of mind.

But I gotta get my headlight hooked up. Jeesh.

RIDE STATS
Length of ride: 30 kilometers
Average speed: 12.3 kph (!)
Maximum speed: 35.6 kph
Pivo Index: 1 beer, 3 glasses of whisky
Time on the bike: 2.25.24
Distance ridden so far in 2008: 1,393.5 kilometers (866 miles)


The Restaurant Okor (above and below) is always a welcome sight, but never more so than on this cold and raw night.




While I was waiting for Stewart in Uholicky, I stopped to admire this building, whose architect has, like me, a soft spot for trees.

Let 'Er Říp

The Nelahozeves Castle, reflected in the Vltava.

On the heels of our epic ride to Mělník, the boys decided to ride from Prague to Říp.

Říp (pronounced ZHEEP) is the legendary hill that rises almost 500 meters up from the flatlands north of Prague. If you live in these parts, you've seen it, even if you didn't know what it was. It's believed that Říp is where the first Slavs settled. It's a distinctive part of the landscape in these parts, the remains of an old volcano.

Stewart and I had driven to Říp on a winter's day a few years ago and hiked to the top, which turned out to be a lot of fun but not the most strenuous hike.

Cycling to the top would be a different matter, however.

We met early one morning in the village of Statenice -- not far from my house in Černý Vůl -- and headed off to Okoř. On this ride would be Stewart Moore, David Murphy, Rob Coalson, and a new addition to our riding circle, Marian Opletal. Though it's a traditional watering hole for our brood, we decided it was a bit too early for a beer in Okoř.

From Okoř, we headed the back route toward Zakolany. The guys decided to head up the hill to the ancient settlement site of Budec, a grueling climb. I decided to save my legs and took the road route to Zakolany and would meet them there.

Once in Zakolany, I spied a pub that had already opened its doors and went in and ordered myself a beer.

No sooner had I taken a sip than my phone rang. It was Stewart.

"Have you ordered a beer yet?" he asked.

"Just did."

"You won't believe this, but there's a big festival going on up here. Pig on a spit. Beer. Get your ass up here."

Now, the funny thing is, we had been joking just a few minutes before about how beautiful Budec is but how nothing ever seems to happen up there. About how cool it would be if there was a pub up there and we could enjoy a few cold ones to reward us for the climb. It never occurred to me that Stewart, with his call, could have been playing a practical joke to get me to cycle up there. So naive.

I inhaled my beer, hopped on my bike, and made the even steeper climb to Budec from the Zakolany side. So much for saving my legs.


We were surprised to find a Renaissance festival in full swing at the ancient settlement site known as Budec.


Some of the food from olden times on sale at the fair in Budec (above and below).


Fortunately, Stewart wasn't kidding.

Indeed, there was a huge Renaissance festival happening up there -- ham roasting over open fires, archery and crossbow classes, arts and crafts for sale, a metalsmith, a sword-fighting demonstration. And beer.

We had a couple of cold ones, and I enjoyed a plate of freshly roasted ham, mustard and brown bread.

What a fantastic thing to find.


Ham roasting on an open fire. So good. Say what you want about Czech cuisine, they know their ham.


Beers at Marina Vltava (from left, Rob Coalson, David Murphy, Marian Opletal, Stewart Moore, and me).

From Budec, it was back to Zakolany, and then along a back route to Kralupy that Stewart and I had cycled a few times coming from the opposite direction. It's a fantastic trail, one of my favorites, even though I'm not sure I could find my way if Stewart wasn't riding with me. He discovered it many years ago. There are no cars, for the most part -- just leafy trails through beautiful forest on a ride that defines what mountain biking is all about.



In Kralupy, we headed up to Nelahozeves to have a few more beers at Marina Vltava.

By this time, it was around 1, as I remember it. It had taken us something like four hours to ride 25 kilometers!

The plan was to have lunch in Říp. Based on our last ride to Mělník, I knew that a trip to Říp was likely to be an all-day affair, even though the kilometer total isn't all that high. Lunch would likely be around 3 or 4 p.m.

I had things to do and couldn't afford to get home so late. I rode with the guys for a bit longer, north of Marina Vltava, then crossed over to the east side of the Vltava and headed back toward Roztoky. I waved goodbye as they set off for Říp.

As I understand it, they didn't get back to Prague until 10 p.m. or so that night, after getting lost and having to take the train home for at least part of the way. I'm hoping some of my cycling pals will write about their adventures so the full story of the Ride to Říp can be told.

As for me, I had a great ride back to Roztoky along the infamous Baker Falls trail. I sucked down another beer before taking the ferry across to the west side of the river. I took the path from Roztoky to Unetice and then home to Černý Vůl.

Truth be told, I was whipped and secretly glad I didn't have to face the ride back to Prague from Říp. But I have a feeling I missed out on some great adventures.

Watch this space.

RIDE STATS
Length of ride: 60 kilometers
Average speed: 15.7 kph
Maximum speed: 43.9 kph
Time on the bike: 3.46.24
Pivo Index: 5
Distance ridden so far in 2011: 452 kilometers


Stewart's new Mongoose on its maiden voyage.


I got a kick out of this. At the Renaissance Fair at Budec, kids got to use washboards to clean clothes, as if it was some sort of fun thing to do in your spare time.


I also got a kick out of the crossbow demonstration. Kids got to fire real arrows from a real crossbow at a target about 20 meters away. I'm not sure this type of thing would ever be allowed in the United States, for example. Too bad. Very cool. Wish I could have fired a crossbow when I was 9 years old.


Dew on field grass near Budec.


When I was riding alone to Zakolany, I spotted this giant cracked concrete pipe. For some odd reason, I decided to stop, climb inside and take a photo. I'm weird.


The boys at Castle Okoř, early in the ride.


The lovely ride down into the village of Okoř.

Cycling In Moravia

Atop Castle Orphanus.

Every time Daisy and I would drive by the ridiculously picturesque Czech town of Mikulov, usually on our way to or from Vienna, I'd always turn to her and say, "We've definitely got to visit that place sometime."

From afar and up close, Mikulov looks what a Hollywood designer would create if asked to come up with a romantic European hilltop town - a high castle and tower, surrounded by a sea of orange tiled roofs, the surrounding countryside upholstered by the region's famous vineyards, a large cobblestoned central square dominated by a clocktower.


Mikulov's Dietrichstein castle, which was almost completely destroyed in World War II and later restored to its former glory.

Daisy and I had a free weekend recently, so we decided to head down to Mikulov for some cycling, which I'd always heard was fantastic in that area, and some sipping. Mikulov is about a 2.5 hour drive from Prague, near the Austrian border.

Based on the recommendations of a few of our friends, we booked a room in the very comfortable Hotel Templ, a former 16th century synagogue. No sooner had we checked in on a beautiful sunny September day than we on our bikes, heading out into the countryside, a few borrowed bike maps in my backpack.


Harvest time. I must confess that we picked and ate a few grapes, juicy and warmed by the sun.

I had this notion that as soon as we headed out of town, we'd be presented with our choice of cycling trails through acres and acres of vineyards, cellar doors thrown open and tasting opportunities at every turn.

It wasn't quite like that.

The main road out of town and toward the other famous wine city of Valtice was quite busy, with trucks and cars flying past us at a good clip. I didn't see -- on the map or with my own eyes -- any other obvious trails through the vineyards. We cycled to Sedlec and then decided to head off the main road and follow a sign for what seemed like a vineyard selling wine and food. It turned out to be a good move, for we found ourselves on a lovely cycling paved path skirting Lake Nesyt.


We were happy to see this sign -- wine tasting and sales in Sedlec.

The vineyard turned out to be a wooden shack selling local wines by the bottle or the glass, and a separate, rather sad, snack window selling grilled sausages and fries. Napa Valley, it wasn't. But the wine was crisp and delicious and inexpensive, and the snack window offered a giant jar of sour (not sweet) pickles, which Daisy loves and which are simply unavailable in the Czech Republic.

We were on our bikes, the sun was shining, and we were drinking local wine. We'd gotten what we came for.


Not exactly Napa Valley, but the wine was cold and crisp, and the pickles were sour.

We continued riding along Lake Nesyt and then cut up a dirt road through vineyards bursting with red and white grapes. We connected with another busy country road and slowly cycled back to Mikulov.

It wasn't a long ride (around 20 kilometers), but it fit the bill. Then it was back to the hotel for a walk around the castle in the gloaming and then a somewhat uninspired dinner at the hotel, enlivened by a nice bottle of Gala Chardonnay-Pinot 2008, from the nearby village of Bavory.

Here are the trails we followed. I forgot to turn on my Garmin until we'd made it to Sedlec, so that's why things kick off there, rather than Mikulov itself:


The next morning, we decided to head toward a castle ruin in the Pavlova Hills that I'd spied from the road coming in. It wasn't a long ride to the 13th-century Castle Orphanus, but from Mikulov the route was almost entirely uphill. There were a few good climbs in there, and Daisy was hurting (I almost titled this post Whine Country). I'm not a great hill climber (in fact, I'm horrible), but I was doing OK. Daisy just hasn't been riding lately.


The ruins of the 13th-century Castle Orphanus.


She was framed, I tells ya!

The castle ruins, perched high above the surrounding plains, turned out to be worth the slog (although the road leading up to the castle was too steep to ride). We could see forever, and who doesn't like a good European castle ruin? We clambered all over those crumbling stones, headed into the nearby village of Klentnice for a beer or two at a roadside snackbar, and then rode almost all downhill (wheeeeeee!) for the 10k or so back to Mikulov.

Once in Mikulov, we cycled to the city's famous Jewish cemetery. The city's Jewish heritage dates back some 650 years, credited to Mikulov's location on an important trade route from Vienna to Brno. World War II put an end to all that. There are some 4,000 tombstones in the cemetery, which is almost 20,000 square meters (five acres) in size, the largest in the country. The oldest legible marker dating from 1605. There's also a fascinating little museum outside the gates to the cemetery. Highly recommended.


There are some 4,000 tombstones in the city's Jewish cemetery.


Lichen on a tombstone.

We had a great time on our short visit to Mikulov, but I can't help but think we missed some fantastic cycling trails. I'm talking about dedicated cycling paths, not trails that follow roads. I perused the cycling maps, but the marked trails all seemed to follow some fairly major highways.

I'd like to go back and try to find the paths that we missed. I'd welcome any tips you may have.

(For more about Mikulov and the surrounding towns and castles, read my friend Evan Rail's fantastic article in "The New York Times.")

RIDE STATS
Length of rides: 38.5 kilometers
Average speed: 12.5 kph
Maximum speed: 51.1 kph
Distance ridden so far in 2011: 392 kilometers


A stand selling burcak, the very young, cloudy effervescent wine that's an autumn tradition in the Czech Republic.


A scene near Mikulov's main square.


The view of Mikulov coming back into the city from Klentnice.



As we were cycling down from Castle Orphanus, a group of horseback riders was making its way up the mountain.


The rolling Moravian countryside as seen from Castle Orphanus.


A street scene in Mikulov.


Beneath the walls of the castle.


An interesting sculpture below the castle walls is silhouetted against the setting sun.


On a Mikulov street.


Vineyards near Sedlec, with Lake Nesyt in the distance.


Daisy on a trail through the vineyards.


I'm guessing this is a defensive bunker dating from World War II, but I'm not totally sure. Along the bike path near Lake Nesyt.


The fantastic cycling trail along Lake Nesyt.


The Hotel Templ in Mikulov.