Pelotome –
around Czechia on a bicycle.
“I lit a match, and read half-past ten on my watch. What was that dull glitter not far ahead ? It was not wolves, but the wire fence that divides two great empires. On a rough stone near it I deciphered, by my fingers, on one side the word SACHSEN (Saxony), on the other BOEHMEN (Bohemia).
The fence was about ten feet high, and in a tumble-down condition ; the gate, through which I passed, a child could open. Surely no frontier could be crossed with less bother, as far as the actual barrier is concerned, than this.”
~ Wanderings: On Wheel and On Foot in Europe – Hugh Callan (1887).
My Life and Times
by Jerome K. Jerome
From £4,75
July 1886 – Published October 1887.
Wanderings: On Wheel and On Foot in Europe.
Setting out from Glasgow on the 3rd July, 1886, and catching the steamer to Hamburg, Hugh Callan details his 1,500 mile, high-wheeler, 33 day journey “on wheel down Europe from the German ocean to the Aegean Sea”, passing from Dresden, through Saxon-Bohemian Switzerland, Děčín. Ústí nad Labem, the Krušné Mountains, Lovosice, Prague, Nespeky, and Benešov, before crossing today’s Austrian border at Gmünd, on his way to Greece.
The second part of the book is dedicated to his earlier July 1885 trip “on wheel up the Rhine Valley, from Amsterdam to Geneva, and back by Antwerp,” while Part Three follows his six week walking tour “‘on the tramp’ in Belgium and France,” in 1881.
- By Hugh Callan.
- Published by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, London.
July 1891 – published in November 1893.
To Gipsyland.
The Pennells return with an account of their summer ride in 1891, this time swapping their trusty tricycle for two safety bicycles (Elizabeth on a Marriott and Cooper’s Ladies’ Safety), in search of the Romani “gypsies” whose culture they had originally fallen in love with in their native Philadelphia.
The book, originally serialised a year earlier in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (Nov 1892 – Jan 1893), makes no mention of their time in Czechia, instead skipping straight to Bad Ischl in Austria.
A more in depth account of their actual ride however, entitled “From Berlin to Budapest”, appeared as a twelve part series in The London Illustrated News with the Czech sections (published 9th, 23rd and 30th July 1892). seeing them cross into Bohemia (Czechia) from Germany over an unmarked border somewhere between Königstein and Tisá. cycling through Aussig (Ústí nad Labem), Lovosice, Roudnice nad Labem, and Prague – “the most theatrical city we had ever seen off the stage.”
Cycling to Slaný, Lubenec, Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary), Elbogen (Loket), and Eger (Cheb), they crossed the border back into Germany and Bavaria, where they would dine with Mark Twain.
- by Joseph and Elizabeth Rose Pennell.
- Published by T. Fisher Unwin, London.
BERLIN TO BUDAPEST ON A BICYCLE
“Bohemia is not the ideal land for the hungry cyclist : long kilometres lie between good meals.
But the smallest Bohemian inn, with its big bare room furnished with rough chairs and tables, and a selection of the royal family on the walls, is immaculately clean.
In primitive, out-of-the-way places you are served with rolls which in London are only to be had at the Vienna Bakery ; and when it comes to the beer—Pilsener beer—why, then I wish I were a poet to sing its praises aright.
In Germany I drank beer under protest ; in Bohemia with pleasure.
It is so light that, warm and thirsty after your morning’s work, you can take a great, long, refreshing drink and be none the worse, but much the better, for it, and everywhere it is brought to you cold as ice.”
~ Illustrated London News, Elizabeth Robins Pennell (23 July 1892).