The Longest Day

Leaving Tabor in the morning I hopped on the autobahn and continued east through Moravia. The Czech highways are constructed from concrete rather than paved liked an American highway and it was an extremely bumpy ride at 70 mph. The right lane also had the rather unpleasant feature of having uneven ruts formed by the heavy truck traffic. These can be terrifying on a motorcycle because you have to have to go in and out of them when changing lanes and they can be almost impossible to see . I've never heard of anyone having an accident because of them, but I can't say that makes riding on them any less scary. The ruts obviously made the left lane quite appealing, but it was necessary to constantly change lanes because of cars overtaking me at 90-100 mph. Not wanting to pass entirely through eastern Czech Republic I decided to make a stop at the small town of Stamberk. Stamberk is famous in the Czech Republic for the unusual wooden construction of its houses, it also has a castle with a large tower set on a hill overlooking the town. I can't say I found the houses very impressive, but I regretted not having more time to explore Moravia as it seemed very beautiful and there are apparently some impressive castles scattered throughout the countryside.

I'll confess that I found the Stamberk houses so unimpressive I don't even have any half way decent photos for them! You'll have to use Google or your imagination.

What had started as a beautiful day immediately took a turn for the worse as soon as I entered Poland. It began raining steadily and off to the south in the distance I noticed lightning. Thinking it was far enough way I decided to press on. About fifteen minutes later, I saw a very close lightning strike and less than two seconds later heard thunder. They say your odds off getting struck by lightning are miniscule, but I've developed a healthy respect for it after getting caught in a violent storm with terrifyingly close strikes during a patrol at Ranger School at Fort Benning that struck two students in another squad. Thinking it can't be too safe to be on a giant hunk of metal when lighting was striking all around I took the first exit and made a hasty dash for some cover inside a store and tried to wait out the rain, or at least the lightning. The rain showed no sign of letting up so I decided to press on. Southern Poland is not a fun place to ride a motorcycle, its heavily populated and the road network is not capable of handling the traffic. I had no alternative except to take a two lane road congested with cars and heavy truck traffic that passed through towns and villages every mile or two with backups of at least ten minutes at every light or roundabout. This basically lasted all the way from the Czech border to Zakopane, my destination for the night. It took almost five hours to go less than 200km and I didn't arrive in Zakopane until nearly 8pm, too late too see anything. Zakopane is a resort town located in the Tatras Mountains that straddle the border of Slovakia and Poland.

The town itself was definitely not for me, much too developed, although the mountains seemed beautiful. In summer its population swells from 25,000 to 100,000 and the sidewalks are as crowded as Manhattan's. I pulled in absolutely exhausted, having done over 550km, half of it in the rain and in heavy traffic. Definitely overestimated how much I could reasonably do in one day and Zakopane was not what I was looking for, but fortunately my excellent hostel (Goodbye Lenin) was located in a quiet setting outside of town and I met some friendly travelers and was able to relax over a beer. I thought about staying another night in Zakopane and taking a day off to do some hiking, but waking up to another gray sky made the decision for me. I would head to Krakow.

First I had to make it out of the parking lot. This proved more difficult than expected. To my left was the hostel, to my right a car, to my front a steep drop off leading into the forest, and I couldn't reverse because it was inclined. I decided I would edge forward and try to slip around in front of the car. Definitely not a smart decision. Thinking I had just about made it the rear wheel slipped in the mud and the bike slid a few feet down the drop off. Now it was stuck in the mud on a steep incline and completely impossible to ride out because of trees. The only option was to muscle it back up the incline. I took off the bags and attempted to lift it. Nothing. Went inside and asked one of the workers if he'd mind lending a hand. We managed to do a bit better and get it upright, but it still wasn't moving uphill. Went back inside and rounded up another person and the three of us finally managed to push it up. Unfortunately I didn't think to take any photos of what I am sure is only the first of many embarrassing drops on this trip. In fact I don't have any photos from Zakopane I think because between the weather and the traffic I was beat and in a bit of a foul mood.