Day 2
Dinner and breakfast with a view
As planned we slept in Czech Republic.
We followed the Elbe from the border for a while, then we entered a mixed plains and hills area. We stopped in the vicinity of Bělá pod Bezdězem, in Central Bohemia. It makes me think of Aznavour's "La bohême" - can't help. That was our second pick on Park4Night, as the first one was stinking despite being close to what looked like a small lake.
No regrets there. We slept in the middle of nature.
From dinner till well past midnight under a Moon-less sky full of stars, we could hear animals eating the young branches of the surrounding trees. Earlier there were curious small light brown hares with stripy ears (black tip, white stripe, then the light brown fur of the body). Luna missed them all. Must be something about the smells, because she's usually very keen to run after game despite her small size. She has an attitude :)
After dinner I pulled the ngoni out of the van and we played a bit with it. This is a very meditative instrument. Deeply down I felt that we are privileged to make this trip: free to roam a large swath of land, free to cross borders, free to respectfully overnight anywhere, free to have our own beliefs without being hunted down for having them.
This morning we stopped at a petrol
station to refuel. The coffee was amazing. Read me well: it was an amazing rich coffee made on a small percolator by a smiling English speaking cashier who didn't have a barista badge on her own outfit. And I loved the little sugar glazed moist fried pastry with the cream filling too.
And there was paper next to the hoses, and a hand washing sink in the middle of the shop to clean your hands afterward, high enough to refill water bottles comfortably.
There was another couple having a coffee and a chat on the terrace. I told her I liked the message on the back of her top:
Full Throtlers
No brakes.
Empty tanks.
Holy Freedom.
She engaged the conversation in English. That topped it all :)
That's my first postcard of country side Czech Republic.
In one word: lovely.