After visiting České Budějovice, today’s adventure was to seek out the smaller but more touristy Český Krumlov, then to continue to the Lipno Reservoir where we would catch a ferry to Austria and leave Bohemia behind…
Czechia’s hills call us back:
We had camped beside a lake at Resort-Restaurant Štilec which was tucked into a corner between two major roads, the 39 and the E55. There’s a neat little footbridge that crosses the E55 at the end of a road called Šumavská leaving Kamenný Újezd, the bridge dropped us right at the entrance to the fishing lake and campsite resort. Overnight there were twinkly coloured lights on most of the cabins and caravans, and there was a lovely bar/restaurant where we relaxed with a beer.
I woke to a misty morning across the lake, but as I made coffee and ate a couple of croissants, the mist lifted and the promise of a beautiful sunny day lay ahead. We didn’t want to stick to road 39, so our route wiggled slightly north, around Chlumec and into Zlatá Koruna where we found a lot more tourist camping and a few associated buses, but only on the section back to the main road.
We were going to need our climbing legs on this day, starting with a couple of North Yorkshire style country-lane climbs, before the prolonged climb from the Vltava gorge at Zlatá Koruna. This was when we first caught a glimpse of the outskirts of Český Krumlov: a series of colourful concrete tower blocks that could easily have been Hull city centre were it not for the surrounding hills.
Once through the communist era tower blocks, we reached the Bohemian heart of the city, which is quite rightly a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city seems to be mainly on a meander in the river, much like the city of Durham in the north of England, so we wheeled our bicycles over the footbridge underneath the city walls for a tour, and some mid-morning snacks.
In the city centre we hid from the baking heat in one of the many archways surrounding the square, and supped some good coffee – while watching the crowds wandering around. We didn’t leave until we felt we’d soaked up the cultural atmosphere of this beautiful city… and then headed back out into the Czechia countryside. We were now experiencing some proper hills once again, climbing away from Krumlov we followed a mixture of on- and off-road paths towards Boletice u ceského Krumlova. We rode along a disused military concrete path through woodland that had us bumping over the surface and wiggling between trees, until we met the sign warning us to go no further – as the military area ahead was very much still in use. So, with a bit of Dean’s navigation and tremendous sense of direction, we found our way to the empty country lane and began the biggest climb of the morning: up to Polná na Šumavě. Apart from maybe three or four cars, and one hiker, we saw no one else. There was a shaded picnic table at the top of the first major part of the climb, where we ate crisps and chatted to the cross country hiker who was going in the opposite direction to us.
Polná na Šumavě wasn’t quite the top of the climbing, but pretty close. We crossed a railway and continued climbing. As we reached the top, my Garmin read just under 500m above sea level, so I took a small detour along a dirt track to get me over that threshold… and then we could see the Lipno Reservoir ahead and knew it would be downhill all the way to the ferry. I loved the run in to the Lipno Reservoir, we swept downhill at speed on wide smooth empty roads, with a wonderful view spread out ahead between the trees of the forest.
It wasn’t just the downhill run though, we were cycling to the longest of the three crossings, from Dolní Vltavice to Kyselov, and this meant cycling along a spit of land that juts out into the lake. As with every road in Czechia; it was smooth, well maintained, and empty of traffic. We stopped for another community / tourism map on a large wooden board beside the way.
The ferry arrived just as we did – but just in time for their lunch-break, so we ate cheese sandwiches, and had a Radler (which is a shandy style beer) in the sunshine. Loads of other cyclists arrived during our lunch wait, and eventually when we loaded we were packed onto the small ferry. Yet even with so many of us there was room for more. The cool air off the surface of the water was very refreshing.
The ferry docked on what remained of our time in Czechia, a narrow strip of countryside in some woodland before we met the Austrian border – and a daunting forest climb. The road climbed almost dead-straight and relentlessly uphill to Oberhaag.
As we crested the hill, about 840m above sea level, the beauty of Austria opened before us. We’d definitely left Czechia now: there were far more houses and people, and the fields looked like each one had been mowed in stripes. We both stood in awe of the view and the descent that lay ahead of us – it was stunning.
Once again, Dean had the wisdom to find us a ‘Billa’ supermarket before we reached our campsite just beyond Ulrichsberg. This campsite was the busiest so far, and we knew we’d left Bohemia behind and entered a much more expensive part of the world. We would only have one night camping in Austria, but we had found a beautiful woodland location next to a lake, with special space set aside for bike-packers and hikers. I strung a washing line between two trees so we could hang our freshly washed cycling clothes out to dry.
Stage four from Český Krumlov, across the Lipno Reservoir by ferry, and on to the campsite at Ulrichsberg in Austria.
