Day 2

Germany-Czech Republic

We spent the night an hour north east of Regensburg, a UNESCO World Heritage City that became our first destination of the trip, thanks to a friendly stranger at the airport. Tomtom led us to a quiet caravan park that sat at the junction of some country roads and railroad tracks- but doubled as a pig farm, goat farm, restaurant and bar.
The second morning woke us up with rain and roosters- after a nice long lay in. We we're on the road with Costas behind the wheel. Costas narrates while he drives, including conversing with Jane, our Tomtom voice. Furthermore, he's not only watching the road, but the sprawling countryside for deer or "exoctic" bird species...like, say, a pigeon.
"Let's hunt it," he says.

By mid-day we crossed the Czech border- a relatively anticlimatic event, but certainly noticeable in terms of the built environment with a shift from Bavarian German-style architecture to frequent uniformly sized apartment blocks- often a dark grey, but some revitalised with bright colours. Within 10miles of th border I spotted piled car tires to the side of the motorway- and beyond them loops of narrow, weaving tarmac.

"GO KARTING!!" I squeal

I am traveling with three boys- two of which have easily spent 75% of our car time nattering away about cars- chassis, frames, columns, engines, features, prices.... Costas talks about hunting and birds and Cyprus (a bonus given that Cyprus will be our stomping grounds for a week of the adventure). Suffice to say all were keen for checking out the track. As we approached the huge concrete building adjacent to the track, there wasn't much commotion.

We came across two older men dressed in work overalls and toques,

"Do you speak English?"

The reply was something in Czech, but sufficiently negative looking that we took it as a no.

Paul motions with his hands to show 'driving' and points to the track. The two men point around the corner, where we find a garage door open, Czech music blasting, and a tan, rough-skin man in his 40s sitting on a crate working intently on the kart frame in front of him.

He looks up as we walk in,

"Do you speak English?" we ask.

He shakes his head and looks down. Paul and I look at each other a bit confused. The dark-haired man, looking like he has lived his life in the sun at go-kart speeds and grease on his hands slowly stands up and saunters towards us- but then past us- and points to a sign on the wall. The price list. Phew.

Our best readings of the Czech prices translated to a reasonable rate- the guys all working to interpret the engine sizes- crucial info...apparently.

We give the man the go-ahead and are each assigned a car.

As a kid, I loved go karting because it was the closest thing to driving a real car I could get as a kid and young teen. At 12 and 13 years old I'd slowly make my way around the track, at times slowing for a turn and pretending to indicate my turn. Suffice to say I've grown up a fan of go-karting, but this is of course, in the North American context. This Czech karting track was without question the fastest I'd ever been on- with the fewest...shall we say...safety features. On my first turn I spun out so hard that my entire body lifted from the kart- thanks to the lack of seatbelt.

Costas with his kart

Following our adreline pumped karting tour (which has since consumed some solid road trip conversation time), we set on for a new destination. For the record, I came dead last.

Cask chairs @ Pilsner Urquell

Plizen, a famous brewery city and home to the Czech beer Pilsner Urquell, was our next stop... only we arrived to discover that tours ended 30minutes before we pulled in. The pints of this Czech pilsner were still pleasantly hopp-y and we enjoyed a few at shockingly cheap prices in the brewery restaurant before Paul kindly took the wheel as DD.

Costas' childhood trips to the Czech Republic had him pitching for a stopin the city of Karlovy Vary- about one hour north west of Prague. Costas described it as a "beautiful city in the valley with hot spring spas, where you can drink all sorts of medicinal waters." Remember this description.

It sounded good to the rest of us, so we set a route to camp near this city and head into town for these "spas" first thing in the morning.

We found an overly-accessorised campground outside Karlovy Vary (playgrounds and tennis courts galore- right next to a bustling airport, no less. For dinner, we enjoyed szchezuan stir fry and our collection of Bavarian beers from Germany as the night got progressively colder. So cold that water in my camelback froze.

Following our rainy night at this site, I was up early and had some spare time to kill as the boys faffed about....

Paul just opened the car door while I blog in the front seat of the car and says, "Bonita look, I followed your instructions- I brought my party pants!" he says, pulling down his shorts an inch to show me neon green underwear.... or "pants" according to the Brits.
And onto Day 3...