They say that a change is as good as a rest. But when that change is simply moving on from one site to another, it doesn’t always feel like it.
With play being interrupted by rain every day, since Bran in Romania, we’re feeling like a couple of sitting ducks. Today’s 220 mile journey doesn’t help. Our longest ever. Maddingly made worse. Mile after mile of roadwork lane restrictions. Slovakia taking up the old concrete sections. Not for the first time we feel for the static lorry drivers. Like a line of lured lemmings, waiting their turn to commit hara-kiri, they tail back way beyond the distant horizon. Their raw reward on the two lane motorways over here. We admire their staying power. Wonder what the suicide rate might be.
Just maybe, we’ve reached the rainbow’s end. The sun’s out. That’s a change. A hot and dry end to our marathon. Five-ish. We make it onto Camping Oase Praha. Just south of Prague. A little pot of gold of a site. Table tennis, swim and sun. The perfect tonic. Refreshingly good.
This morning’s drive continues in the dream theme. Quiet country roads wind us through Central Bohemian Region and some lovely Czech villages. We’re waxing lyrical of how everything reminds us of home. But neater. Not paying attention to any road signs. We don’t know what they mean anyway. Missy rules OK? She knows best . . .
A little further on and we suddenly get shaken out from dreamland. Get thrown head first into a nightmare. Brains unable to quite fathom exactly which reality it’s functioning in. Auto-pilot mode powers down. The road runs out. We pull up directly in front of a huge motorway bridge construction site. We can’t quite believe how or what we’re doing here. We’re familiar with the French Route Baree and the German Umleitung. No idea what the equivalent Czech is. Did we miss it?
We’re reluctant to do an about turn. I step down. Go take a closer look. Get a handle on our predicament. To the right a new road leads from nowhere to nowhere. We’re about a year too early.
To the left a parked white van. Three men inside. All fluent in Czech. Notice my camera. Think I’m asking for permission to take photos. Exercise their full English vocab. “OK”, plus a nod and a thumbs up. I adopt a pro-active approach. Do my best Marcel Marceau, minus the pane of glass. Try to make my message apparent rather than transparent. Hope they don’t think I’m playing charades and expect a turn. A hat-trick of heads nod in unison, like marionette triplets with loose strings. Harmonising Captain Scarlets issue the order – “S.I.G.”
200 yards further on and the road is clearly cordoned off. Fortunately, they’ve very kindly left us an exit.
We make it in good time to Waldcamp Pirna, south of Dresden. We’re melting. Mid-thirties. Pitch-up and head for the ‘Nature’ lake. In need of a quick cool off. Surprised to find a high number of bare bottoms and bosoms on display. Along with their attached genitalia – men only, I presume. I have nothing against the naked body per se. It’s just that in 99.999 per cent of the over 50s population it’s not what it was in the first place. And none of these ‘seniors’ ever came close to first place. None a sight for sore eyes. All a sorry sight. All maybe with no sight – or a mirror. Sad blots on the landscape. Or should that be bots?
