Pelhrimov

May 25, 1996

We started out with the breakfast that came with our room, which was not too bad - juice, coffee, bread, and a selection of the usual meat-heavy main breakfast options. After packing up we went back to the Church of Saint Barbara for a tour of the inside and a last chance to enjoy the wonderful view back over the town and the stream below before striking out to the south for Pelhrimov. (Ed: I'm surprised that the journal doesn't mention how or when we lost the journal, a few books, and I think the brown jacket in this photograph. It's the last record I have of this coat, and I have a vague memory of losing it on this tour. I think it was here on this last visit to Saint Barbara, but I can't quite imagine the mechanism - maybe I set some things to the side while repacking after the visit? Maybe it will come back to me in a dream one of these times).

I'm still writing this after several days have passed, and I can't recall many details of the day's ride - only some general impressions. The countryside was quite lovely, a continuation of the character it had approaching Kutna Hora - green, rolling hills, with broad swatches of yellow adding color. We gained elevation slowly but steadily throughout the day as we moved south, and the land changed accordingly with more and more woodlands and fewer fields. The housing stock gradually became more colorful, with an increasing use of wood and paint giving the villages a less bleak character.

We spent the entire day on extremely quiet roads, encountering villages about every five kilometers, and constantly consulting our map to keep our bearing. We veered off course a couple of times, and once I had to seek guidance from a man on foot. We had no common language at all, so he resorted to creating a crude map in the road for us out of twigs. At another point we slowly overtook a spry elderly woman on a typical one speed clunker as she pedaled up a hill with surprising strength. As we passed her, she startled us by breaking into a sprint and feinting as if to race us. As we biked together for a few minutes I managed to convey to her our origin and the ultimate destination of our journey, earning her expressions of astonishment.

At midday The roads were populated by workers breaking off for the week, which appears to end at noon on Saturday. Among the more colorful figures was a man hauling his son and two large bales of grain in a wagon, and a woman mounting her bike with a large sickle on the back - the same style we had seen two years back in our ride through western Hungary.

Our only break for the day was as a streamside store in Ledec nad Sazavou, where we snacked and enjoyed beverages overlooking the stream. We arrived in Pelhrimov sometime after four, where other than for a room and a colorful town square we found little to hold our attention. It was a somewhat disappointing stop. We did, after much searching, manage to find a notepad at a tobacconist to replace the one lost in Kutna Hora, as well as a room in the inaptly named Grand Hotel. It had an agreeable price (700kc, about $25), but little else about it was appealing. The town square was pleasant however, featuring a colorful façade of pastel buildings, gates from the original city wall, and an attractive but closed church; and, as we were to find in all major towns in the country, a plague column.

Oh,, and one other aspect of the day - we both got a bit sunburned. The day had begun with a gradually building threat of a thunderstorm, but by early afternoon the skies were largely clear and the air warm.

Today's ride: 75 km (47 miles)
Total: 165 km (102 miles)

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