Saturday, February 17, 2007

Walking Around Prague - And I Mean AROUND!

Because no one bought me the fitness equipment of my dreams I had to resort to other crazy ideas today.

I was invited to "Trpaslicon", which is a convention primarily for fans of Red Dwarf TV show and other kinds of British humor (I still have no idea why they invite me each year because I don't watch Red Dwarf at all, I just tell them interesting stuff about upcoming films). Because the weather was nice, I decided I will walk there. From Vysočany to Litochleby. If you have Google Earth installed, just click here to see the path I took around the eastern edge of Prague city. With dogs, of course.

p_2007-02-17_12-54-40.jpg

I relied on my GPS and on the vague idea that there is a highway going in the approximate direction of where I want to go. However, highways are not always the best terrain for people walking with dogs so I had to solve many interesting logistical problems on the way! It was about 8 kilometers by air, probably about 12 in reality. My legs feel good.

This reminds me of much more crazy route I took 12 years ago. Back then, I wanted to get from Šenov Film Festival home to Prague, the weather was super-nice and I decided I'll walk for a while and then hitch a ride. I started shortly after lunch from Šenov. However, when I decided I'd rather not walk any longer, no one wanted to pick me up. Of course, as the dusk approached, the chances of being picked up decreased more and more. I didn't want to use train or bus, I just walked on and on, hoping that someone will have mercy.



In the end, I was picked up by some good soul at 5 AM the following day, near Mělník. Yep, that's about 80 kilometers walk. Needless to say, during the following few days I really understood what "doesn't feel his legs" means.

UPDATE: If you understand Czech, you should definitely read this!!!

4 comments:

jimmac said...

Holy cr*p. I thought my 150km on a BIKE was extreme. The longest distance I ever walked (as a kid, never beaten though) was on a 15km mark. 80km is ridiculous!

Now that's something to be bragging about, rather than banging a 19year old chick :)

Anonymous said...

What kind of GPS tracking gizmo do you use?

Unknown said...

Pretty cool Czech story. I don't know many programmers which are able to go 80km.

Anonymous said...

Great story from the mid 90's. I know this route. The part before Svor is called Šébr and today you'd get killed by a T.I.R. truck there (they pass definitely more often than one in ten minutes, even by night).