55 Czech kilometers = ouch

Our bikes tend to gather dust, as we don't use them a lot in Prague because of bumpy, teeth-chattering cobblestones. So when colleague TheFlyingDutchman organizes a bike ride through the countryside, we try to tag along. This time I went without BW because he had a play rehearsal he couldn't miss. It's challenging getting up at 6:45am on a Saturday when your partner is still nestled under the warm covers, snoozing!

Our group set out from the Rajska Zahrada metro stop, bound for lunch in Poděbrady and then Kutna Hora.  We ended up with 6 teachers and 3 students - and TheFlyingDutchman's wife, TheLibrarian, in a helper car.

Most of the way was paved, though some of the roads were pretty gnarly and I felt like I was competing in the Paris-Roubaix. Lots of rotten apple squishing beneath our tires at times, too.

This particular ride wove through many villages; so quaint.

Our lunch point, Poděbrady, was a pleasant little spa town with a lot of royal Czech history. TheFlyingDutchman said it's famous for inventing tweezers, too. (?!) 

After 55km, we were pretty hungry. The unfortunate restaurant we chose to patronize had insipid soup, undercooked chicken and what tasted like instant coffee- and the waiter grumped at us for not having exact change. 

After lunch, the group set off for Kutna Hora (30km more) and I went looking for the local train station so I could make it back to Prague in time for BW's play. 

Truth be told, my backside was so sore by that point, I don't know if it could've handled bearing my seat weight the rest of the ride! 

Before hopping the train, I dipped into Poděbrady Castle; it was throwing a small wine festival. 

The courtyard inside had a special Euro-themed art display of rotating hearts painted to symbolize the countries in the EU. I paid 50kc ($2.50) for entrance, which included a wine glass to take home and a voucher for a glass of wine! 

George of Poděbrady, King of Bohemia, was born here in 1420. Today, it houses a languages college, a pension and a music club, among other things.

I traded my voucher for a glass of something white and crisp and then walked my bike along a greenway to the train station as the seat now felt like a Medieval torture instrument.  

It was over an hour back to Prague, so I settled into a cushy chair and made sure my bike tire poked out just enough in the entryway so I could keep an eye on it.

I may have been okay with the seat being pilfered, though. 

With Chasing the Donkey, Pack Me To, A Southern Gypsy, The Fairytale Traveler and Ice Cream & Permafrost for the Sunday Traveler linkup.

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Hunting for 'shrooms

I checked off an item on my bucket list this Autumn. Was it learning something substantial, like Mandarin or the oboe? Nope. Was it completing a new physical feat like, say, an Ironman? Heavens, no. Was it reaching a state of higher consciousness, a-la my favorite poets, the Transcendentalists? *Head shake*.

No, the bucket list item that I checked off with zeal was going mushroom foraging in the Czech wilds!

I told my dear friend Mrs. TyVole that I'd long wanted to hunt for houby (mushrooms) like every red-blooded Czech seems to do in the Fall. It's literally a national past-time here. But I'd been afraid to do so because A) I had no idea where to look and B) I figured I'd pick something violently poisonous.

So Mrs. TyVole kindly enlisted her lovely mother, and we all set out into woods 30km outside of the outskirts of northeast Prague. It was a soggy Sunday morning, which was good since apparently mushrooms love wet weather.

And the woods were magical from the get-go.

True, the mushrooms were rife, but everything I picked was either something the ladies knew was unsuitable or something they didn't recognize.

Mrs. TyVole and her mother wove in and out of the mist, identifying mushrooms and imparting wisdom such as, "The crazy Czechs have been out here since 6 a.m. If you see obvious mushrooms, they aren't good." So we looked for 'shrooms that were a bit more hidden. When they found a good one, they'd slice it open with a knife to check for worms.

Underneath some pine I found this "Fly Agaric" mushroom, which is highly psychoactive; I remember reading about it on a Czech horticulture website. But it's beautiful, no?

 Now and then, we'd hit a road and follow that for a while. The setting was enchanting and I enjoyed just wandering, mushrooms or no mushrooms.

The colors, the textures, the earthy smells... straight out of a Hans Christian Anderson story. Gnomes and fairies could have popped up and it wouldn't have surprised me an iota.

Finally, we hit some fungal winners. After hunting for a good few hours, each of us was able to pick enough gems to provide for a solid mushroom entree dinner. Score!

At the conclusion of our hunt we were thoroughly chilled and quite grubby - and toting rather light cachets of mushrooms. So we settled into a 1950s motorest for soup.

Coincidentally, the motorest was near the former home of one of my favorite Czech authors, Bohumil Hrabal. A good Hrabal quote: "I was always lucky in my bad luck."

I agree - some might consider our small harvest bad luck, but for me, it was enormously rich.

*Consult the Czech Mycological Society for mushroom hunting assistance and check out this Prague TV guide for photos. Don't forget a sharp knife, a clean basket and a big appetite.

Linking up for #traveltuesday with Jessie, Camila, Amy and Jessi!

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A Day at the Races

BW's turned into a gambler. A whole 20kc gambler*.

We traversed to Velke Chucle - Prague's horse racing track - with friends and their parents a couple of weekends ago. 

Our friends Scot and BB are getting married next summer, and that weekend was their parents' first time meeting each other. The catch: the Scottish Mum and Dad don't speak Czech and the Czech Mama and Tata don't speak English, so - what the hay - a racetrack is a happy common ground. Who doesn't like horses and money? BW paid attention to the horses and I ate potato pancakes. Win! 

BW and his 20kc* bet didn't win, but BB did - a whopping 130kc*.

It was a fitting reason to get out of town and spend some time in the sun. And it's pastoral - lots of locals with picnic lunches and green space and dogs trotting around and . Vyborny!

*20kc = 1USD

You can get there on your Open Card. Entrance to the races is 120kc

A blur of tails and legs and small men

A content crowd

The setting was easy on the eyes

On the right is Josef Váňa Sr., the Czech Republic's most decorated jockey

BB and her folks

The stands from the side

Kids had a play area...

...while adults had a betting area (with nothing in English)

Full stands

A winning horse

More of the action

Even Jayda got into it...

...and made some friends

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In search of a burger

After spending well over a month in the US, BW and I are, ahem, sporting a little more of ourselves. In other words, my pants don't fit. 

Don't start in with McDonald's stereotypes and such because we're American. We don't do McDonald's. Rather, we ate things friends and family lovingly prepared for us - like raspberry coffee cake and mint sugar cookies - because we were home. And everyone we visited wanted to go out to eat - a lot. My molecules get pudgy just thinking about the cannelloni, pancakes, crab legs and reubens we shoved in our maws. 

Since returning to Prague, we've been doing a lot of fish/veg dishes/soup, but when we got invited by the TyVoles to Burgerfest, we couldn't say no.

In the end, we actually only spent about 5 minutes at Burgerfest; it was sweaty-hot, packed and requiring 30-minute waits in line for burgers. (But I did hear that it was fun later in the more temperate evening, with musical performances and shorter lines.)

Before leaving the grounds, though, I snapped some photos. Burgerfest was held in the Výstaviště fairgrounds, which hosted the General Land Centennial Exhibition in 1891.

A building I'm eager to come back to on the grounds is the Lapidarium, which houses Czech statues from the 11th to 19th centuries, some of which have been on Charles Bridge.

And Průmyslový Palace's Art Nouveau design is lovely up-close.

We ended up going to a restaurant called Palanda for burgers and waiting an hour for our food - ironic, no? I was so hungry I dissected and scarfed my red-wine-and reblochon burger down before thinking to point my camera at it. It was tasty. But the fries were my Achilles Heel - oh, ye gods, they were perfectly julienned, fried and seasoned. 

Afterwards, we had coffee around the corner in a small square - and the young TyVole, miniMacklemore, left to go run a 10k in the center of town. Yes, after eating a giant burger. Teenagers. The rest of us enjoyed the coffee and greenery and company.

Linking up with Nicole and Van.

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