The Czech Republic as you have never seen it before
Riding along EuroVelo 9, a modern cycle route, to discover the beautiful region of Moravia
It’s almost midday and the sun burns quite hot, but the wind cools down this Saturday. Right behind me, over the railway, you can spot on top of a hill one of the most beautiful and famous villages of Moravia, Mikulov; ahead of me, I’m observing some rusty three-metre-tall iron poles, each one engraved with a date and a name: they compose a memorial to the victims of the Socialist regime, who were murdered when they tried to climb over the Iron Curtain to escape to Austria, away from Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Czechoslovakia. This mythological entity which no longer exists, they say, and yet it’s still there. You just go to Prague, one of the travellers’ favourite low-cost destinations, and remember that this is not a city-state, but rather the capital city of a country; and which is that country? Czechoslovakia! The same country of origin of those dramatic movies which Fantozzi was forced to watch instead of the football World Cup final match; a country with smoky factories, producing heavy materials, but also blonde beers and top-models.
In reality, now there are the Czech and the Slovak Republic, two distinct states still very similar and good fellas. They both adjoin Austria, which is the final destination of this bicycle trip. A trip dominated by an astonishing beauty that is hard to tell by words.
Despite of some known problems — political corruption, an alcoholic president, economic troubles common to other European countries — the Czech Republic owns a huge richness: that of its natural heritage. Although its inhabitants aren’t always very welcoming, they hold a profound respect for their environment, which is probably their real passion. During the warmest months, you can rediscover this same passion on a long bike ride or a walk on dedicated trails, which form a perfectly organized network.
Almost without ever getting lost in this network, we leave from Brno on a Friday, immediately after work — the cycle route passes right in front of my office — and after fifty kilometres crossing fields, rivers and woods, under such a wide sky as I’ve never seen before, we get to Pasohlávky, right when the sun descends and diffuses a nice red light on the water of a lake.
On these shores, embraced in enchanting silence, we set our tent for spending the first night. We were afraid of not making it, but this part has been made easier by the moon light and by a glass of red wine, which we drunk at a cosy wine-cellar nearby.
We cross a few villages without seeing a shop where to buy some food. We pick up plums from the trees next to the vineyards, then we stop for a proper breakfast at a pub next to the railway; here the quiet work of the owners is interrupted by a wedding parade, and at this point we prefer to leave.
Follows the most beautiful part of the path, running along the Moravian hills, whose charm holds us back from stopping and try some more local wine.
After a lunch break in the garden of the palace in Valtice, we move up on tough slopes, rocks and pebbles; the trail gets lost into the woods, you can spot here and there a fawn or an Arc de Triomphe, for some reason built here in the wild forest. We stop to visit the marvellous Lednice, then we ride fast and silently the last ten kilometres to Břeclav.
We cross the old town, have dinner, we are stopped by the police that seems here to be busy just with the many cyclists of this little Czech Amsterdam. We spend the night at a pension run by a lady who talks more than what we heard talking in some months.
On Sunday morning we cross another lake and woods; after a few kilometres we are at the Austrian border. Once in Austria, we immediately get lost.
We establish a final stop and in one hour and a half we get there, crossing lonely, empty villages. In this disappointing last part of our way, even the wind turbines stand still as though they were bored.
However, riding back to Břeclav we are able to find the signs for our EuroVelo 9, which even here is a Way of Marvels. Up from the hills you can admire the well-known Czech hills on one side, and the Austrian Alps on the other side.
I’ve seen many similar beautiful places before, where you can stop to see the landscape and to pick up fruits from the trees, places that inspired my passion for bicycle trips as well as my university thesis on a project for creating cycle routes. The Czech Republic is one of those countries where it is possible to turn similar projects into reality, and yet many Italian Fantozzis still consider this as an underdeveloped country. But if I was still there in Italy, riding on paths in the middle of the nature, I could rather admire and pick up abandoned households and other kinds of rubbish.
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