Dobrý den, I’m cycling in the verdant countryside and sort of lost.

A fine day for cycling I think. May I use a bike, I wish to ride to Plzen, I say to the staff. With enthusiasm they rummaged in the cellars below, found something that would do the job, gave me a map and wished me a good day. I took my phone loaded with the Maps.Me app, a few bottles of water, roughed out a plan to ride across the river at Liblin follow the road alongside to Plzen, find the famous Pilsner Urquell brewery and off I trundled.

The ride was quite ambitious as there were many rolling hills in that verdant countryside, dirt roads and stops to admire the scenery. Also the bridge was under construction in Liblin, meaning a massive detour to get to the other side.

I was glad to have the Maps.me app on my phone. It proved very useful on the forest roads and making decisions for me as a I struggled getting used to all those consonant combinations and character decorations eg. ý: they just blend into a jumbled cipher.

The dirt forest trails are in good condition and have minimal traffic, making for very pleasant riding.

Rural dwellings sit right on the edge of the road. The architecture is pleasant on the eye with the high pitched roofs for snow shedding and earthy colours. Not many new buildings around, or if they were, they aged quickly.

It is very rural here, being in a river valley there is plenty of water to keep everything green, not like our Australian scene which is normally a golden brown.

The villages are tidy and a pleasure to ride through. This village is called Vejvanov.

With its small dams, the geese enjoyed a bit of socialising. They were not, however too happy about my presence so I shot a picture and left before the attack was more than verbal.

There is the odd old church around the countryside to keep history buffs happy.

I got to Liblin only find that the bridge was under construction repair. The town was split by the river and several km of detour was required to get to the other side. Some villagers had boats to cross the river. Oh well, life is but an adventure so I elected to seek another crossing point. I found one at a village called Brasy. A ferry service instead of a bridge enabled transit across the river.

It was here that my battery started to go flat. Mapping applications exhaust the battery quite quickly. I forgot to take my spare phone with me so I was in a bit of a quandary. Where to from here ? I asked the ferryman for directions back and got “ kvucivz chvuvich Darvica “ – anyway needless to say it could be a series of expletives or detailed instructions, there was clearly a language barrier. The other passengers also could not speak English. I looked at the cloud covered sky for directional confirmation and had no help from the sun either. So I studied the map carefully and hoped to remember all the little towns and turn-offs I made. and elected to ride back.

If you are into golf, there is quite an extensive golf course here by the way - Darovanský dvůr Resort.

Luckily I met a cyclist, who was heading in my general direction, who could also speak English. He was able also to verify the location of Zbiroh castle with a local.

We rode up to a mountain bike fire trail area called Sklena Hut where there were some club races being held. Would have been fun to explore, but I’m not in the position of truly blowing it in terms of my location, and I would be in major trouble with my beloved if I missed the flight to Dubrovnic for our trip to Montenegro tomorrow !