September 14 Telc

Distance traveled: 106.4 km

Cumulative distance: 384.1 km

Top speed: 110 kph

Temperature range: 8 - 10 degrees

We happened to meet the owner of the hotel where we stayed in Brno on our way out in the morning. I complimented him on the hotel, particularly on the quality of the kitchen. Having record bad weather contributed to our decision to eat both our evening meals in the hotel but the fact that the food was so good made that decision so much easier. 

We indicated to him that we were on the way to Telc and he gave us a great tip, which was to avoid the highway; he said it would be "very bad", a reference to the weather.  Nonetheless, we did have to ride on the highway about a quarter of the total distance in order to get to a back road route and indeed, the highway was very bad. Pretty heavy traffic, pouring rain and a low evel of confidence navigating because I could not see the screen on my phone. 

However, before heading on the road to Telc, we needed to deal with a couple of things before we left. I hadn't wanted to have my old phone out and in the rain because it has a cracked screen and I didn't want it to fail because of getting water logged, so I asked the kitchen staff if they had a small plastic bag that I could use to wrap my phone and be able to see it while traveling.  They actually came up with a pretty good option, after offering me a Styrofoam container first. 

This seemed like it was going to be a pretty good solution but if you think about it, you might guess what went wrong. Remember, it is pouring rain on us. I wrap the phone and the plastic is keeping the rain from falling on the screen - yaaay! - but moisture quickly condenses inside the plastic bag, making the screen virtually unreadable. However, through the fog, at times I was able to see that the route guidance was showing ahead of me so that between long periods of verbal instruction, I could see that I was probaby going the correct way.

The other issue I was having was setting the phone in the phone holder in a suitable manner. The phone holder grips are snug to the phone and it is hard to get it into a position where it is not squeezing one of the buttons. Gripping the phone near the bottom doesn't balance the phone so it droops. Gripping it in the centre is difficult to not have it press a button or two, so the phone kept trying to start another operation or switch screens or turn off after I had carefully wrapped the phone. I went through this several times before we started out. 

But we needed to get gas before leaving town. There was a gas station close by but I couldn't see any navigation, so I was going strictly by voice commands. As I have mentioned before, in these thousand year old cities, there and no grid lines that streets follow so coming to an intersection means that there may be five streets converging and obviously, not all at right angles to one another so when Google Maps says "turn left at the next intersection", it is not always obvious "which left". Fortunately, the gas station wasn't far and unlike when we rode into Brno a couple of days before, we did find our destination pretty easily. Even without our communicators (mine was waterlogged from the ride from Prague) Nan was still abe to yell at me enough to help me make decisions about what way we should be going. Luckily, being a Saturday morning, the traffic was very light.  

On the way out of town, the screen arrangement failed once again and all I had was black but I was getting verbal commands. I stopped one more time to get it sorted and again, I was back to the condensed water look but, as before, I could see a blue line through the plastic and the verbal commands were able to get us to that nasty piece of business, the highway. 

Water falling on our heads, water splashing up from the road, water spraying onto us from passing vehicles, it wasn't long before we were wet and cold. I had neglected to do my rain jacket up properly after filling with gas and Nan got be to pull over into a gas station with covered pumps to get sorted out. We saw three other motorcycles there and the riders all looked miserable. 

In three more kilometres, we came to our exit to the back roads. It was immediately better. Even though it was still raining hard, we were no longer getting sprayed by passing vehicles, much less spray from the road. It was a true "country road" - narrow, twisty and hilly and under other circumstances, would have been a joy on a motorcycle.  The other thing we love is riding through the little villages. We have referenced this before on the blog and other blogs, how it is a journey through time to ride through small villages, hamlets and towns. This is one of the things we like about touring in the U.S.: old west towns frequentlly have buildings 100 to 150 years old. In Europe, that is not even old. We are frequently riding by buildings that are 300 to 500 years old and occasionally, 1,000. What's more, the roads sometimes pass through a hamlet and the buildings are built right to the edge of the road. We can go by on the motorcycle and literally looking into people's kitchens as we go by. On this day, we occasionally smell smoke from home fires burning. 

We are also passing by natural bodies of water, ponds or small rivers. All look like they are getting ready to burst their sides. Rivers are running muddy and the water is a long way up the banks, ponds have greatly expanded their surface area as trees around them are submerged. Sadly, because of the heavy rain, we have elected to keep the camera put away. It got pretty wet on the ride down from Prague - it took two days for the case to dry out - so even though we knew we would see things we wanted to photograph, we made the difficult decision to keep the camera safe.

It took us two hours to get to Telc, the incredible distance of 106 km. It felt like we had gone 500.  Literally the minute we arrive in town, the battery on the phone packs it in and we are without navigation to get us to the hotel. I ride around town a little, hoping to encounter the town square and maybe we will see the hotel but no such luck so I pull into a parking lot and get a USB cable to plug in the phone. Once botted back up and navigating, we are still a couple of km away so there is not much chance we would have ever stumbled across the hotel, let alone the square. 

Even with navigation, it wasn't that easy. The turn-by-turn guide has us turn up an extrememly narrow, cobble stone street, takes us through an archway and then into the beautiful Telc square. It is quite expansive, with tiny, narrow cobblestone streets spoking off in many directions so it is a little bit of a challenge when the phone is saying "your destination is on the right" because it didn't even seem to be sure "which right". Nan jumped off the bike and walked around, which was a good call because I was riding on these big cobblestones with rivers of water flowing over them in the rain. 

Turns out, the entrance to the hotel is on a footpath, not a road at all. And then we can't even find the proper entry door. The first one Nan tries is locked, the second is locked and then a young man pops his head out the next door and says "this is the way into the hotel".  He has been expecting us because I mentioned when I made the reservation that I was looking for suitable motorcycle parking. He even has our reservation up before we introduce ourselves. 

It is only 1:30 so our room isn't ready. We have to chill warm up in the lobby area, which really isn't a hotel lobby but a bar/cafe. We each have a latte and we visit with the nice young man Philip who is running the show this afternoon. We only have to wait less than a half hour to get our room, which is in the annex, a five minute walk in the rain around the corner. 

When we get to the room, the heat is on and we drape stuff over or near the radiator to dry out, hang our rain gear in the bathroom and change ouor clothes. We get warm and after a couple of hours, go back to the lobby/bar/cafe and Philip keeps us company while we have a glass of wine before dinner. Philip recommends a couple of restaurants a 10 minute walk away, which normally we would relish but today, not so much. But he tells us they serve authentic Czech food, so we put on a brave face. 

The route is across the square then almost back to where we had stopped to connect the phone to the USB cable on the bike. It is still more walking to get to there but we can see it from a distance. The restaurant is busy. In fact, it looks full and I am thinking we are going to be joining another table with patrons already seated but there is an upstairs and there are several open tables but we don't actually see anybody eating so we are concerned that this is the bar and not the restaurant but the lone staff member comes over and clears the prior patron's dishes and says that yes, food is served upstairs. We are both in the mood for comfort food and we opt for goulash with a side of roasted root vegetables. It is the best goulash we have tasted on the trip, loaded with chunks of good, lean beef and a dumpling the size of a small head of cauliflower. Looks like it, too. 

While we are there, we notice a rather rambunctious group of ten old guys celebrating something. They are doing shots of what looks like creme de menthe. I thought, there has to be some history there because who drinks creme de menthe, esecially in shots. So I walk over and take a few pictures of these guys. Nobody seems to care that I am intruding on their private party but then I walk up to them and ask if any of them speaks English. I email the photos to one of the fellows so that he can share them with the group. 

After dinner, we stop back in to see Philip, have a nightcap and a piece of excellent cheesecake. 

This is from the entrance to the annex, separate from the main hotel. There are four suites in the annex plus a nice seating area and a beautiful patio off the back.

The blue building is the annex.

The main hotel, which has six rooms.

These are pictures of the beautiful Telc square.

The view from our room. It looks like a moat but I don't think it is a moat. There is a road that goes over top with an arch underneath so it clearly was built to allow water to pass.

Dinner. That is NOT a head of cauliflower but a dumpling.

The old Guys Gang. Except the bartender on the right. We think he much have just celebrated his 16th birthday to be working in the bar.