Dueling Backpacks

Day 425 (August 27, 2019) – Ostrava, Czechia After driving around the western and southern portions of Czechia, we were continuing our trip northeastward to Ostrava and into Poland. There was very little mentioned in our guidebook of anything east of Olomouc , so when we left town we were sort of making things up as we went. We had a bunch of maps and knew where the towns were so we spent the day hopping from town to town and making our way to Ostrava.

Day 423 (August 25, 2019) – Olomouc, Czechia We left Mikulov heading southeast, just skirting the Austrian border before making a pit stop in Valtice to visit the Valtice Castle. Valtice was a tiny little town with a single main street, a church, and a big castle with extensive grounds. 

Day 421 (August 23, 2019) – Mikulov, Czechia S hortly after departing Telč , we arrived in Třebíč. Our plan was to stop for lunch, but we still had leftover pizza from the night before. We parked the car in a parking lot and ate the rest of the pizza while sitting in the car. The weather was kind of icky that day, filled with gray and cloudy skies, but we took a walk all around Třebíč. The town would not have seemed much different from all the others had it not been for a self-guided walking tour that we followed, which ended up being a nice experience. All around Třebíč were big maps showing a walking route to take that passed by all the important sites. The residents were very proud of the town’s history because it had been a place where both Christian and Jewish communities had peacefully lived together for hundreds of years.  

Day 418 (August 20, 2019) – Telč, Czechia Continuing our Czechia road trip, we left České Budějovice for T ř ebo ň, a small town on a lake. We had a great lunch of vegetable soup, meatloaf, and mashed potatoes in a small restaurant in the basement of T ř ebo ň Castle. The meatloaf was their menu of the day and about half the price of anything else so we couldn’t refuse. It was a good choice though. They even put a bottle of ketchup on the table, which we hadn’t seen in the longest time. Europe has a habit of charging for every little side of sauce ordered, so this  ketchup  bottle on the table seemed very generous of them. The restaurant decor was entertaining, decorated completely in the whole medieval castle theme with wooden benches, animal furs, and antlers decorating the walls.

Day 416 (August 18, 2019) –  Č esk é   Bud ě jovice, Czechia We left Pilsen for Č esk é Bud ě jovice but stopped at P í sek to grab lunch and walk around town. P í sek was smaller and a quainter than Pilsen. It’s most known for an old stone bridge that passes over the Otava River. The bridge is famous because it's one of Czechia's oldest, originally built in the 1200s. Travis has relatives who were originally from P í sek, so we spent most of our time there running around town taking a bunch of pictures.  

Day 413 (August 15, 2019) – Pilsen, Czechia We wanted to explore more of Czechia than just Prague , so we rented a car for two weeks and drove around the country. The rental car was surprisingly inexpensive, costing us less than $17 a day (a lot less than when we rented a car in New Zealand ), and it allowed us to go wherever we wanted when we wanted. No waiting for trains or buses. The freedom felt a little strange at first, but we quickly got used to it.

Day 411 (August 13, 2019) – Prague, Czechia We had a blast in Prague, but it’s hard not to. We were there for a full seven days and we never ran out of things to do. We also breathed a small sigh of relief to learn that Prague offered us a bit more affordable living and travel than Germany. We were paying the same nightly rate for our Airbnb accommodation as in Berlin, but unlike the dump we had in Berlin , we had a beautiful, enormous apartment. Huge windows, plenty of space, a nice bathroom, a separate bedroom and living room, and a well-equipped kitchen. It wouldn’t have been a bad apartment to live in.

Day 404 (August 6, 2019) – Dresden, Germany Our two-night stop in Dresden was another opportunistic stop for us. Our train tickets from Berlin to Prague included a free 48-hour layover in Dresden if we chose to take it, so of course we did. Two days was a pretty short stop for us, but it was enough time to wander all around the city and get a feel for it.

Day 402 (August 4, 2019) – Berlin, Germany Our first impressions of Berlin weren’t the greatest. Honestly, our first thought was that Berlin was kind of a dump. We got off the metro near our apartment and there was graffiti everywhere, a small, unkempt park with severely overgrown grass, pages of newspapers floating down the street in the wind, and a group of disheveled people taking shelter under the train station, which reeked strongly of urine. Berlin exuded grittiness, at least around the neighborhood we were staying in. It was a bit of a shock after coming from Stockholm and Wroc ł aw , which by comparison seemed so pristine and polished it was like they had jumped right off the page from a fairy tale book. Not a speck of trash was to be found on any of their streets. Although to be fair and to put this in perspective, Berlin probably looked no different than downtown Philly, so you can interpret that how you want.

Day 396 (July 29, 2019) – Stockholm, Sweden I’ve come to greatly enjoy meeting up with friends on this trip. It’s always nice to meet new people, but there’s nothing quite like reconnecting to the people who you’ve shared a history with. The purpose for our visit to Stockholm was pretty simple. We were there to hang out with our friend Ewellyn for the weekend, one of Travis’ past coworkers who now works in Stockholm.

Day 394 (July 25, 2019) – Wroc ł aw, Poland Our first introduction to Wroc ł aw was in Sighnaghi , Georgia. We were staying at a guesthouse along with a very large and very outgoing Polish family who were on vacation. As we were talking with them over a few glasses of Georgian wine, we mentioned that we were going to be in Poland in a few weeks staying in the city of Wroc ł aw. After a few seconds of visible confusion on their faces, one of them said, “ah, yes (unintelligible)!”

Georgia is a hidden gem. It’s solidly on my list of favorite destinations from our trip so far. Georgia is in an area of the world that seems often overlooked. In fact, the only reason we considered going there was because our friends Nick and Jenny  from Australia recommended we visit (so thank you for the recommendation!). It’s not quite Europe and it’s not quite Asia. It’s the Caucasus region and it’s a bit of both. Had I known of my interest in the area beforehand, I would have been curious to visit neighboring Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well. Perhaps on a future trip.

Day 386 (July 19, 2019) – Kutaisi, Georgia Kutaisi was the last stop on our Georgia trip. We arrived by marshrutka from Batumi . We had another typical Georgian apartment for us which was characterized by the building exterior looking dilapidated and seemingly about to fall down, but the inside being surprisingly nice and comfortable. Kutaisi is Georgia’s third largest city, after Tbilisi and Batumi . There weren’t that many sites to see, but it was a really nice town to spend a few days in. I call it a town because it really didn’t seem big enough to call it a city. We could get everywhere on foot.