I'm looking at possible future rides and wonder if anyone has ridden from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Prague? I would prefer to avoid long rides through farmland (flat or rolling) and wonder if the area south of Prague, once over the mountains, is all farmland or something more interesting.

Hi Ray, I've been in the area and while it's mostly farmland it's not like here in Ontario or the central-west North America. I would say that the hills are probably greater than what your thinking and the farms are smaller than here in North America, there is quite a bit of forested areas and small towns along the way. I think that there is enough variety to keep things more interesting. The area is between the Danube and Elbe so the mountain range between the two is not very high, maybe 600m above the rivers' levels and some roads can be a little steep but it's definitely not the Alps.

I have travelled routes through the area from Freistadt in Austria, Regensburg in Germany and the Cesky Krumlov east to Kolin; I have always enjoyed the countryside.

Do you have any thoughts of preference to go North through Austria? or first go East then North? Slovenia has great bike paths. We cycled a few days through Slovenia angling toward Maribor then Lavamund  to Klangefurt.  From here we took the train to Ulm Germany.   On this trip we then started west along the Donau River. Other trips we cycled Prague to Budapest in case you first want to aim for Budapest.

Hi Ray! I toured east to west across the Czech Republic, describing a big loop around Prague (which I'd visited fairly recently and wanted to see other parts of the country) back in 2019 - Bohemian Rhapsody. 

I've got lots of fond memories of this tour, there is lots to recommend the Czechia for the cycle tourist (fairly good cycle infrastructure, courteous drivers, good beer, easy camping and many quiet back roads). One of the most surprising things for me was that my days inside Czechia on that tour (I started in Poland and finished up in Germany) were the hilliest I've ever encountered in terms of height gain per day - on any tour! (even after going through the Alps and Jura a couple of times, and the Cantabrian mountains last year).

As folks have described the hills aren't particularly high or enormously steep, but they are rolling and relentless - you can easily clock up >1500m days without ever climbing above 400m at any time. In the UK Cornwall and Wales do compare but those areas are notorious for small, steep hills. 

In general (apart from a stretch of eastern Bohemia) the Czech geography is covered with patchwork woodland and is made of small round hills and many rivers - even though it is heavily agricultural, farms blend into this landscape. It's very pretty, even in the rain (which I did have a bit of). Oftentimes I was reminded of England or Ireland. Nothing is on a very large scale, so you won't encounter any huge swathes of plains or farmland, or enormous forests for that matter. There'll always be a village within a few miles.

This is hypothetical. But,I have good friends in Trento and I would want that to be that terminus of the loop. So, I would be going north from Slovenia to Prague. 

I’ve been to Ljubljana before and don’t need to go there again. In addition, I’ve done the climb up the Vrsic Pass and spent the night in Bovec. It would be nice to do that climb and spend an extra day or two in Bovec, but, it is a bit out of the way from Trento. Another idea is to go to Bovec and do the Vrsic Pass from the other direction. Alternatively, I could skip both. These are all part of my current speculation.

Having ridden across Wales and a fair amount in England and New England, I done my share of steep, rolling hills where the entire day is in my lowest gears. While this isn’t the best for my mood, it isn’t something I’m afraid of, either.

Thanks for the good info so far.