Original plan was to leave Friday evening for highlands area, where will join us friends from Brno and we will ride together at south Bohemia where will join a couple other friends from Prague. But because some of the riders could not ride with us, we left Prague Saturday morning with our friend, Frank and his girlfriend, Eva. Hana, my wife, went from Jihlava alone, driving her car and we had met up at a beautiful historical town, Jindrichuv Hradec, located just in the center of south Bohemia. The ride from Prague was quite easy, the weather was warm and the only problem we had were hundreds of cars heading south with people leaving for summer vacations. Every car seemed to have 4 mountain bikes on the top, some with canoes and all driving slowly in the traffic jam. We managed to pass most of them since we were on bikes it was much easier. But we still could not ride as fast as we wanted. But when we turned from Tabor heading to Jindrichuv Hradec, road was empty and countryside really nice.

From Jindrichuv Hradec it was an easy ride to Trebon. That town is really nice, featuring Middle Ages architecture and a number of good places for sightseeing. Since Eva had been there couple years ago, she recommended that we ride first to one of the garden/park areas that holds the historical neo-gothic crypt of Schwarzenbergs, one of our royal families. Eva and Frank went on a guided tour while we were waiting for them in the park.

We decided to return to Trebon for lunch and for the rest of the day, traveled towards our chosen trip point at Cervena Lhota, which boasts a romantic middle ages chateau, completely built in the middle of a lake, which was several hours' away. The ride there was really pleasant, we passed huge man made lakes area from 13th century and large forests. All in all, it was a great day for riding.

Frank had never been there, so they decided to have a guided visit while we were there. Hana and I had been there many times, so we hired a boat and went on the lake to look at the castle from different angles. Unfortunately, we arrived too late for a tour, so Frank and Eva had to spend 30 minutes waiting for us in the park, as we had no idea they weren't on the tour. But boating there was really romantic for Hana up to the moment I decided that we will apply equal rights in action, so I could shift to a more relaxed position and Hana could paddle.

After our return to Jindrichuv Hradec late that evening, we parked our bikes in the hotel garage (a nice touch, as some rain was expected) and drove Hana´s car to Trebon again - to have dinner there. (Trebon area is typical for sweet water fish as the tradition goes to middle ages, when the whole system of man made lakes and water management with channels has been established). So we had to have dinner at one of so-called garden restaurants at the main square with historical houses all around.

After very nice night at Jindrichuv Hradec, came a warm, but wet morning. Continuous rain and dark gray sky did not really give us an optimistic view on the day ahead. So after a late breakfast in the hotel we decided to take short route to Prague. But just after couple kilometers rain stopped and a bit later sunshine appeared behind clouds. So we canceled our plan to escape to Prague and changed direction to head east. We decided to ride to a place called Kamen, where there is little castle with an exhibition and collection of historical motorcycles. It was just about one hour ride to beginning of the Bohemia-Moravian highlands area as the whole south Bohemia was covered by rain.

From Kamen we cruised through great countryside to Jihlava, where we had lunch with Hana (she'd been working that afternoon) and decided to ride more on northeast to visit "skansen" at Vesely kopec near Hlinsko. Skansen is a village of historical countryside houses collected from a certain area and moved to a new location to show generations how people lived in past. Some 20 houses are located at Vesely kopec. Some of them were there originally, some were moved from distance of up to 50km; disassembled and built again in exact position of each wooden or stone piece. Some of the cabins were really excellent, mainly water mill and water saw.

And finally from this area we had nice ride to Hlinsko and realized, that we are going wrong way, so turned back to Chrudim, Caslav and agreed to ride to Kutna Hora and to Prague. I´ve been delayed by heavy traffic on the main road and lost Frank riding in front of me, so when I first saw Kutna Hora sign, turned and thought, Frank is somewhere in front of me. About 10km after the city (BTW with one of most beautiful gothic cathedrals in central Europe) stopped, gave Frank a call and realized, that he continued on the main road to Kolin as the signs to Prague guided them that direction. So we agreed that he will return to the junction where I rode and I will ride against them to meet halfway. So we did, but I did not see them the whole way back to main road. Another mobile call clarified it - there were two junctions and we were riding parallel on separate roads from the main road. So I headed back on the main while Frank was 10km after the town, where probably I called him before. So we agreed to return to Prague independently. As I was close to Podebrady, I decided to have a little ride there and return on the main road to Prague from Kolin. It was not a particularly nice ride in 100km worth of heavy traffic. Hope Frank and Eva had better way home. But anyway, we had something like 650km more on the odometer after this weekend and most of it was very nice riding in the countryside with real cruising speeds and warm wind. This is what makes cruising so nice for me . . . a fantastic way to relax!