Welcome back everyone! Unfortunately there hasn’t been so much to report on lately. René and I had two paragliding courses lined up, a SIV (acrobatics) course jointly taught in Czechia and Austria as well as a cross-country course taught in Italy, but the weather all the way across Europe has been terrible for the past couple of weeks so both courses were cancelled. We’ve been relaxing in Vyšní Lhoty, going for long walks and seeing friends, including my dearest friend and co-worker from New Zealand, Jiří. He’s home visiting family, same as us, and as it happens his hometown is just 45 minutes drive from Vyšní Lhoty. What were the odds I’d end up with a Czech boyfriend and a Czech best friend, and that all three of us met in New Zealand (pretty much as far away from Czechia as you can get), and that the two of them came not only from the same remote region but from villages just 40km apart? It almost defies belief!

Anyway, on the odd days when the weather’s been good for flying we’ve been out there giving it a shot. Specifically, we’ve been going cross-country – my first forays into the section of the sport which has always attracted me most. Not only is cross-country particularly appealing to me, it’s also a requirement of my advanced pilot’s license that I complete cross-country (usually abbreviated to XC) flights – either one 30km flight in NZ, or three 20km flights in NZ, or one 60km flight overseas. So on the two recent days with XC potential we headed to the hills with the aim of flying as far as we possibly could.

This post is dedicated to my best friend Mia, who wrote to me saying she was loving my blog but really wanted to see some of the videos from the flights I was doing, and suggested that I set up a YouTube channel (seeing as WordPress won’t allow me to post videos). It’s a brilliant idea and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it, so you all have Mia to thank if you enjoy the videos!

11 May: Skalka, 28km

Our first XC attempt in Czechia was on a beautiful, if slightly windy, spring day. Having a prevailing wind can be a blessing or a curse for XC flying, depending on your goal. If you’re hoping to go for a big loop and end up where you started (the most challenging kind of XC flight, called a FAI triangle), then a prevailing wind is the last thing you want, as going one way will be very easy but coming back will be extremely challenging. However, if you’re just trying to go as far as your possibly can (in the lingo, “open distance”), then a prevailing wind will help you fly fast and far, as long as it’s not too strong – if so it’ll blow the thermals away, and thermals are the most important prerequisite for XC flying. Luckily for us, on 11 May the prevailing wind was strong but not too strong, and the air was unstable (meaning hot in the valley but cold in the sky – so the hot air rises up quickly, creating fantastic thermals). Perfect for us! The wind was westerly, so we headed to a site called Skalka, as it was the closest launch facing into the wind. I’d never flown there before – it was a very steep half-hour hike to the top and my lungs were burning but it was a small price to pay for the flight I was about to have!

The launch was absolutely packed – I’m always astounded by the number of paragliders on launch here, sometimes as many as forty or fifty pilots trying to prepare their gliders (keep in mind these range from 20-45 square metres of fabric each). Hardly room to swing a cat! But René and I managed to find a little bit of space, clipped into our harnesses and got in the queue for the launch area. He went first – a perfect launch as usual – then it was my turn. The wind was fairly strong coming up the hill, meaning it should have been a nice straightforward launch. Unfortunately, one of my wingtips ended up with a cravat (meaning the wingtip was tangled through the lines) when it was spread out ready for takeoff, and due to the way it had been spread I couldn’t see it. So I brought the wing up, and the right tip was all messed up. But there were a lot of pilots on launch and I really didn’t want to have to put the wing back down to fix it unless I absolutely had to – looking at the cravat I assessed it, assessed the amount of space I had to the right of the launch (knowing the glider would want to turn that way if I launched with the cravat), and decided that as it wasn’t a large cravat and I had adequate space to my right, it wasn’t a serious enough issue to warrant aborting the launch. I would fly, counter with the left brake, and then fix it immediately once I was in the air by pulling on the stabiliser line, a line of the glider designed for fixing cravats mid-air. As soon as I began to launch all the pilots behind me started shouting, clearly under the impression that I hadn’t noticed the problem, but in no time I was in the air, and within five seconds I’d gotten my hand on the stabiliser line and pulled it until the cravat came out. Problem solved!

At least two dozen pilots were thermalling nicely to my left so I went to join them – all of us circling counter-clockwise like we were caught in a gigantic slow-motion tornado. The thermals were strong – at my maximum I was rising 4.6m/s – and so punchy that I had two asymmetric collapses (where part of the wing loses pressure and deflates) because I wasn’t paying enough attention. I held on tight and rode the thermals up until I got to the height where my fingers were numb, then set out on glide to the next hill, across a valley several kilometres wide. Generally speaking, thermals form on hills and ridgelines – it’s possible to find them in the flatlands, but they’re usually weak and difficult to ride. So for XC flights where it’s necessary to cross valleys, the aim of the game is to get as high as you can over one hill and then “jump” as quickly as you can across the valley to the next one. This one was a very wide valley and my low EN-B (low intermediate) glider is made for safety, not for gliding long distances. I began the jump 1500 metres above the ground, and when I finally got to the other side I was just 250 metres up. This put me in a position where if I didn’t find a decent thermal within 3-5 minutes, I’d have to make an emergency landing on the closest field. Luckily, when I was so low that the ridgeline was almost above me and all hope seemed lost, I found a decent thermal and managed to ride it 1200 metres back up, all the way to cloud base and even spent a bit of time in the lower layer of the cloud. In the paragliding world, that’s what we call a low save!

From there I went for the next jump – this valley wasn’t so wide and I made it across with plenty of height, although it was so cold that even with my two pairs of gloves I had to take my hands off the brakes and put them under my legs to try and warm up. You’ll never know cold pain until you paraglide at high altitude – your hands get so cold that they don’t feel cold at all anymore, but instead like someone’s been hitting them repeatedly with a hammer. The warming up process from that kind of cold is even more painful then the cold itself – I’ve never cried midair but I’ve cried from pain on landing when I took the gloves off! Anyway. I flew over Vyšní Lhoty, where René and I are staying with his grandparents, and saw their house like a tiny matchbox in the village. I thermalled over the hill next to the village, Prašiva – René and I often walk it or take our campervan up to spend the night there, and it was very cool to see it from a different perspective! From there I pressed on towards Javorový, where the flight park is, hopping across little valleys as I went, and finally catching up to René. Unfortunately at around this time my GoPro ran out of battery so I missed out on video of the last part of the flight. I managed to get to Javorový hill, but as soon as I did I found myself going into a headwind – for some reason that neither René nor I could figure out afterwards, the westerly suddenly turned into an easterly, and we both sank out of the sky like lead balloons. I made it to the flight park landing field and managed a graceful landing; René wasn’t quite so lucky and landed in a field a few hundred metres away.

Total distance: 28.96km

Total time: 1 hour 28 minutes 

Flight data and 2D tracklog

3D tracklog

YouTube video

The 3D tracklog is absolutely the best thing since sliced bread. If you only look at one of the links, look at that one! Make sure to click “stats” on the right-hand side to see interesting information like my groundspeed, altitude and climb rate.

18 May: Straník, 22km

Our second XC was from Straník, in Slovakia. We’re staying right in the far east corner of Czechia, close to the borders for both Poland and Slovakia – Straník was maybe 1.5 hours of driving, if that. We didn’t want to drive there ourselves – flying open distance XC causes huge logistical issues, in that we could be 20, 40, even 60km away in a different country while our van would still be sitting in the paragliding launch carpark! So René called around and found some people who were driving there – they picked us up from the town of Frydlant nad Ostravici, about 20km from our house. When we arrived, the wind was so strong that I resolved not to fly – it just didn’t seem possible to get off the ground. A few pilots flying EN-C (advanced) or EN-D (competition) gliders were managing it, but they were struggling – and one out of every two attempted launches would end with a pilot being dragged by their glider. But we watched for a while and René pointed out the wind was coming in cycles and that if I picked my moment right I should be okay. So we set up and I launched first – I was fairly confident with my ability to pick the right moment, but wanted him to reassure me it was safe. The launch was actually pretty easy, and before I knew it I was soaring back and forth across the hill. Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to gain much height – the strong prevailing wind was blowing a lot of the thermals away. As well as that, with at least 50 pilots in the air simultaneously in a very small area, I spent most of my time trying to avoid collisions rather than focussing on finding a thermal. Even when I did find them, I couldn’t turn in them as there would be 3 or 4 pilots directly behind me and if I turned I’d fly straight into them. Spoiler alert, mid-air collisions almost always end in the death of both pilots – you really don’t want to take chances with that. Definitely not the best conditions – I ended up landing half an hour later, but decided to head back up and give it another shot.

My second launch is one of the launches of which I’m most proud, out of all the paragliding launches I’ve done in my life. As I hiked to the launch site, I was passed by several pilots walking down with their gliders, and when I got to the launch itself I realised the wind had gotten even stronger than it had been earlier. Only tandem pilots were launching, no solo pilots – and as they often told us in paragliding school, tandem pilots will launch in conditions which are extremely dangerous to less experienced pilots. While I waited two solo pilots attempted to launch – both were dragged badly, one of them right off his feet. But I watched the windsock and streamers, and decided if I picked the right moment I’d be okay. So I carefully set out my glider, held the brakes so tightly that the glider was completely crippled, and when I thought the time was right, I went for it. And sure enough the glider raced over my head, I pulled just the right amount of brakes at just the right time, and with two steps I was off the ground. I was so proud!

There were even more pilots in the air than on my first flight, and I came very close to some of them – close enough to feel real fear of a collision. But this time I moved back a bit from the ridge and managed to find a thermal which I had space to turn in. I followed another pilot all the way up, drifting strongly with the wind, away from the landing. As I was thermalling up I hadn’t decided whether I wanted to go XC or not. If I didn’t then I could go back with René’s friends in the van (leaving at 3pm), but if I did attempt it but didn’t manage to fly back to Czechia I’d be stuck in Slovakia, with no Euros (just Czech crowns), and also no knowledge of any Slavic languages, and somehow needing to hitchhike back home despite not knowing the language, potentially as far as 70km. But eventually my choice was made for me – the prevailing wind was so strong and I’d drifted so far that I had no choice but to continue on.

My goal was to get to Javorový – it was 60km away, so if I managed it I would complete the requirement for my advanced pilots license. But it wasn’t to be. The prevailing wind was so strong that after I left my first thermal I didn’t find another one – they were all blown away. Furthermore, very worryingly, the conditions were overdeveloping to the east. When the thermals rise high enough they turn into clouds, and if it’s a hot day with unstable air then the clouds can get bigger and bigger and bigger until they take on a life of their own, forming enormous thunderclouds which suck in the air around them at speeds of up to 40 metres per second. This is the cause of the late afternoon storms that often occur in spring and early summer. The word for this process in the sport is overdevelopment, and as you can imagine it has the potential to be extremely dangerous – the fastest a paraglider can go down, in a spiral dive, is about 10 metres per second, so if you’re too close to a cumulonimbus you stand no chance against it, and once sucked in the strong winds and freezing temperatures can soon prove deadly. I’d never flown in the vicinity of a serious overdevelopment before this flight – not one but two clouds were overdeveloping badly, just a few kilometres east of me, and moving steadily in my direction. Furthermore I knew they’d soon join together into one enormous cumulonimbus, with exponentially more power than the two clouds had had separately.

I was flying north, over a series of ridges running east to west. I had planned to fly over the eastern ends of the ridges, as they were higher (so more likely to produce good thermals), but with the two storms moving my way from the east that was no longer an option. So I stayed over the western end, watching the storms carefully, constantly checking my direction on the ground to make sure I wasn’t being sucked into them sideways – if that were to occur, I’d spiral dive down immediately. I didn’t end up being sucked by them at all, thank goodness, but with the wind strengthening all the time I also didn’t end up finding any thermals – they’d all been blown away.

With the strong prevailing wind I managed to glide a very decent way, landing in a large open field next to the main highway. As it turned out, René had landed just a few kilometres away, in one of the side valleys, and had his thumb out trying to get to the main highway. I managed to pack up my glider just in time before the heavens opened and it started to pour. Luckily I got a ride in less than 5 minutes, with a nice Slovakian man based in Switzerland named Ondrej. He had been visiting his parents in Žilina (the city which the Straník launch overlooks) and was on his way to visit his grandparents in Ostrava, the major city 20km west from Frýdek-Místek, so was able to give me a ride all the way there. He was delightful man with excellent English and by the end of it he had invited René and I to stay with him if we ever made it to Saint Moritz. From Frýdek-Místek I got the train back to Frydlant nad Ostravici, where we’d left the car, and drove it home. René ended up waiting a long time in Slovakia for his ride, but eventually he got one, and made it home at about the same time as I did. All in all, not a bad day!

Total distance: 22.72km

Total time: 59 minutes

Flight data and 2D tracklog

3D tracklog

YouTube video

NB: Unfortunately the tracklog data for this flight is slightly corrupted for some reason, showing me sometimes flying at groundspeeds of up to 180kmh! World’s fastest paraglider, coming through…

So that’s it for now! This weekend René has a two-day first aid course in Olomouc so I’m taking the van and heading to Poland to visit Auschwitz and Krakow, and I’ll write all about it when I’m back.

P.S: If you’re interested in seeing the video from my short XC flight at Bassano del Grappa in Italy, that is also available on my YouTube channel.

René and I have just finished up an incredible trip to Praha. What was intended as a quick 3-day stay to avoid a nasty storm coming through our town turned into a 5-day stay where we saw just about everything Praha has to offer and took two trips into the nearby countryside to see notable landmarks there as well. I really ought to have been writing while I was there as I’m sure I’ve forgotten so much already but there simply wasn’t time with all of the fun we were having!

Saturday 4 May: Arrival in Praha

We left Vyšní Lhoty early on Sunday. One bus to Frýdek-Místek, then a train to Ostrava, then a train to Praha, brought us to the capital around mid-afternoon. It was absolutely freezing with rain coming in sideways like icy daggers when we arrived, but thankfully our friends Aja and Seňa (with whom we would stay the first two nights) didn’t live far away. This lovely couple stayed with us in Queenstown earlier this year, and it was wonderful to see them again. That evening we went for a walk around Praha with them, taking in the sights. The apartment buildings were all so beautiful and ornate, it was almost unbelievable – decorated with classical statues of naked women, while birds and vines framed every window. We got our first views of Praha – including the famous Prague Castle and St Vitus’ Cathedral – from one of the parks we wandered through.

Eventually we ended up in the local pub where we sampled a number of excellent Czech beers, then went back to Aja and Seňa’s apartment to drink some more excellent Czech beer, and then we slept like rocks after a long and exhausting day.

Sunday 5 May: Walking the Tourist Trail

On Monday we set off with the intention of seeing all the most famous sights of Praha. The sheer volume of tourists in the central city is intense – at times it was hard to move. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the Praha Marathon was taking place, so many streets through the city were closed to the public as part of the track. But everywhere we looked there were stunning old buildings towering over cobbled streets and it was just beautiful.

Our first stop was the famous Wenceslas Square, the heart of Praha. At the top, enormous and majestic, sits the recently-restored National Museum. This was shot at and damaged considerably by the Soviets when they liberated Praha in 1945, believing the building to house Nazi-controlled broadcasting equipment. The renovations, including new gilding of the dome, were only completed a couple of years ago. Just below the museum sits an enormous statue of St Wenceslas, the patron saint of Czech Republic, on his horse. The square isn’t quite as busy as Times Square, but it’s not far off!

In Wenceslas Square we saw a wonderful busker, playing a keyboard with a horse-head mask. I took a couple of photos of him; when he noticed he pulled out a mirror and pretended to adjust his mane, which I found hilarious. When I put 10 crowns in his cup he whinnied so loudly and realistically that everyone in the vicinity turned to stare. René and I were in stitches.

Next on the list of must-see places was the old town square, home of the famous astronomical clock. I don’t know how you read the time from it but it sure is beautiful! The marathon was running pretty much through the square and as René and I both despise crowds we made a hasty exit.

Next up was the Charles Bridge. It was covered in buskers, stalls selling Prague souvenirs or offering caricatures of tourists, and of course, plenty of the tourists themselves.

Across the bridge we wandered up the main street. Again, very beautiful; again, full of tourists.

As we were walking up the main street, we ran into a couple of familiar faces. Andrzej and Natalia were a Polish paragliding couple staying at the site next to ours in the Bassano del Grappa campsite last week – what were the odds of seeing them in Praha?!

We stopped for lunch on a park bench nearly at the top of the hill and had our usual snack (bread and hummus) overlooking the city. Then we ran into Andrzej and Natalia again, and then we finally made it to the Prague Castle. This isn’t so much a castle as a smaller city inside Prague! In addition to an entire marketplace, it also boasts a post office, three churches (that I could count) and multiple restaurants. Honestly, from the inside it just looked like another part of Praha – the same cobbled streets and buildings that were actually much plainer than many I’d seen in the city. It was my first time in a “castle” and it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting! But c’est la vie. We had the option to pay several hundred crowns for tours of St Vitus’ Cathedral or one of the many exhibitions or tours in the main castle, but decided that we were happy just wandering around the outside for free. FYI for NZ readers: 1 New Zealand dollar is worth 15 Czech crowns. The trick is to divide the number of Czech crowns by 10 and then subtract one third of the remainder. My mental arithmetic has been improving in leaps and bounds since we arrived!

After that we wandered over to Petřín, the park next to the castle. This is rimmed by the so-called Hunger Wall, commissioned by Charles IV (one of the most important Czech historical figures) and built from 1360 to 1362. When a famine hit in 1361, it started to be called the Hunger Wall, as its continued construction provided livelihood for the city’s poorest residents. Petřín is also home to Petřín Tower, an Eiffel Tower lookalike boasting some of the city’s best views (but too expensive and touristy for us) and also a cable car just like the one in Wellington! I’d never seen or heard of a cable car of that style anywhere else in the world and seeing it was like seeing an old friend unexpectedly.

We wandered slowly down the hill, eventually coming to the suburb of Kampa. We were to meet Aja and Seňa here for coffee, but as we wandered we also came across a traditional májka erection. This is a Czech tradition in which a small pine tree decorated with streamers and then bound to a long pole is erected on the first of May, and then chopped down on the last day of May, to celebrate that summer has arrived. Because they’re Czechs, both the erection and the destruction of the májka are caused for plenty of drinking, as well as traditional folk dancing in beautiful costumes. When we arrived there were a couple of people in traditional clothes, but most of the dancers were simply passers-by who had been drawn in by the music and atmosphere.

Coffee with Aja and Seňa was a welcome break to our tired feet. Afterwards we wandered back towards their flat, seeing more beautiful buildings on the way.

We picked up dinner things and cooked for the four of us as a thank-you to them for their hospitality. We were intending at that stage to spend the next night with René’s cousin Standa and then head home the next day, although it didn’t really work out like that!

Monday 6 May: More of Praha and meeting Standa

The next morning we headed out early with all our things on our backs, intending to meet Standa that evening. I had my heart set on seeing the Klementinum, a complex which houses what purports to be the most beautiful Baroque library in the world. René and I got our tickets for the guided tour and it didn’t disappoint. Unfortunately they won’t let you take photos of the Klementinum Library, but there are plenty on Google!

The library was open to the public until World War II. First it was closed by the Nazis, then by the Communists, but thankfully it survived both epochs, and is now accessible only to historians with the necessary authority, dispensed by the Minister for Culture. Tourists are permitted to stand just inside the doorway. Nonetheless, it was an incredible feeling to drink in the splendour of that beautiful space.

During the tour we also climbed the Klementinum Astronomical Tower, originally the place where high noon was determined daily by use of a camera obscura and signalled to the citizens of Praha by the waving of a large handkerchief. Today it gives beautiful views of the city from 52 metres above the ground.

After the Klementinum tour I finally bought myself a trdelník, a “traditional” Czech pastry which really only became a thing about 20 years ago for the tourists of Praha. There were stalls selling them just about everywhere we went but I hadn’t had the chance to buy one; I spent most of the first day trying to pronounce the word and René joked that I wasn’t allowed one until I could say it, and I struggled but got there in the end! The pastry is wound around a metal bar and then slowly cooked over charcoal and coated in cinnamon sugar. René and I enjoyed ours with melted chocolate on the inside. It was delicious but (on account of the melted chocolate) probably one of the messiest things I’ve ever eaten.

René had been in touch with Standa throughout the morning and after the Klementinum tour we went to meet him. He lives in a beautiful apartment just around the corner from Wenceslas Square – right in the very centre of Praha. He let us into the apartment so we could leave our packs and ease our aching shoulders, then gave us keys and disappeared to attend a previous engagement. René and I lounged around the apartment – I think it’s the most wonderful apartment I’d ever seen, the exact place I’d want to live if I were to live in a big city like Praha. Just two rooms, but light and airy with white walls, white mesh curtains, and chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings. I was very jealous!

Social butterfly Standa had a party to go to that evening as well, hosted on a boat cruising up and down the Vltava River, and he managed to swing tickets for René and I. I’d been thinking how wonderful it would be to see Praha from the water but knew that I’d hate to be trapped on a boat with a bunch of tourists. So this was a very fortuitous twist! It was a costume party, although we came in the only clothes we had. We had bought a small bottle of slivovice (traditional Czech liquor made from plums) to smuggle on board, knowing the cost of drinks there would be exorbitant, only to find that security guards were patting everyone down and searching bags before they could get on the boat. So we found a party-goer dressed up as a fat man with a pillow under his shirt, and he stuck the bottle under the pillow and found us again when we were on board! For the rest of the night we had a wonderful time drinking, chatting, dancing and watching the view.

When we got back to the dock Standa continued on to the afterparty and René and I got a kebab and then collapsed into bed.

Tuesday 7 May: Visiting Nelahozeves

We had our train back home booked for 9:47 on Wednesday morning. Standa had been saying the previous day that we simply must stay longer, so that we could take a trip to Karlštejn Castle together, 30km from Praha, but we’d been equally insistent that it was time to get back to Vyšní Lhoty. But waking up the next morning, with a poor weather forecast for home and Standa still insisting that we should stay, we changed our minds. So the train tickets were cancelled and we cooked a lovely breakfast together of scrambled eggs, toast, coffee and juice. Standa’s idea was that we go to Karlštejn the next day, and spend that afternoon in and around the village of Nelahozeves, home to famous Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s birthplace as well as the beautiful Nelahozeves Chateau. So we bundled into the train together and were soon at the tiny village. René and Standa took some time to pose with a statue of the titular character from the famous Jaroslav Hašek novel, The Good Soldier Švejk.

We walked along a beautiful path beside the river, stopping for a quick beer on the way, before arriving below the chateau. Nelahozeves Chateau was built in the late 1500’s and is one of the best-preserved instances of Renaissance architecture in the world. The frescoes on the outer walls of the chateau, although damaged, were just stunning.

Unfortunately we had arrived too late to participate in a tour, but we enjoyed looking around the courtyard and read all of the information that was available on the various signs. We also ran into the two tour guides leaving work, and they told us the brief history of the chateau. It has been owned for nearly all of its life by the extremely wealthy Lobkowicz family, who also own a number of other castles, chateaus and palaces around Czech, including the Lobkowicz Palace next to the Prague Castle. William Lobkowicz, the current heir of the family, was around the chateau while we were there – we’d noticed a man in an expensive suit when we arrived, and wondered what he was doing there. Turns out he comes to the chateau every day from Praha, in a chauffeur-driven car, to oversee the management. The three of us spent a lot of time wondering what his life must be like – being that wealthy, and part of a family that owns 11 castles.

Afterwards we looked in on Dvořák’s birthplace, but as it was almost 6pm by this time it too was closed. So instead we wandered upriver until we came across a traditional Czech pub. We had dinner here, which was a mistake – when we asked about vegetarian options we were assured the bean soup was vegetarian, and were happily enjoying it until René bit into a piece of sausage. René and Standa both complained to the staff about this and were yelled at for it – the staff said they should have known that they would just take the sausage out of the soup. Vegetarianism isn’t a big movement in Czech and clearly it’s not well understood. It’s hard to explain what it’s like for a strict vegetarian to eat something that’s had meat in it (even if you don’t actually eat a piece of meat itself), but I felt dirty and ill and betrayed. To say that their actions were unethical doesn’t even come close. I’d never experienced something like that before.

By the time we arrived back at the Praha train station René and I were exhausted. I noticed, particularly in those last two days of the trip, that every day we were waking up more and more tired, regardless of how much we’d slept. I think the overstimulation, so many new and interesting and beautiful things, and so much walking, really drained us over time. Standa had a party to go to again but ultimately he was too tired as well, so the three of us stayed home and watched a movie.

Wednesday 8 May: Karlštejn Castle

The next morning we were up bright and early to take the train to Karlštejn Castle, a Gothic castle founded in 1348 by Charles IV, the same Charles who built the Charles Bridge and also founded Charles University in Praha, the first university in Central Europe (this was also founded in 1348 – it was a big year for him!). I’d seen the Prague Castle (which in my mind hardly counts as a castle) and the Nelahozeves Chateau but Karlštejn is a proper castle – the kind where fairytales are set.

Karlštejn village was very touristic. We bought a postcard to send to Babička and Dědeček as well as some traditional Czech potato chips, as the main road slowly wound its way towards the castle. We also stopped for lunch at a little pub – the boys ordered the soup but after the day before I wasn’t feeling very trusting! And finally, we reached the castle.

René and I got tickets for the most extensive tour – the only tour to include the famous Chapel of the Holy Cross – while Standa, who had already done every tour at Karlštejn, decided his time would be better spent at the pub. So the three of us headed back down the hill a bit to kill time drinking a beer before the tour started. Czech beers are usually served as 50% foam, 50% beer, which is very different to what I’m used to – at my Queenstown waitressing job I’d get in trouble for serving any beer with more than 10% foam! As Czechs are aware of this, beers for tourists are usually poured at a slightly better ratio (60:40 or 70:30) and although I hated all that foam at first, I’m honestly starting to like it now!

Our tour began at 5pm. The tour guide’s name was Martín and both his English and his knowledge of the castle’s history (and Czech history in general) were excellent. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take photos while inside the castle, which was a shame as there were many beautiful things to see. We spent some time in the Church of the Virgin Mary on the second floor of the Marian Tower, where the walls were covered in 700-year-old frescoes of holy figures and of Charles IV himself, and which contained the tiniest pipe organ I’ve ever seen in my life. We also saw the adjoining St Catherine Chapel, the walls of which were completely covered in semi-precious stones – this was Charles’ special place for prayer and meditation.

We heard about the attempts of other nations to capture the castle through the centuries, although none of them had ever managed to take it. The stairway leading up the Great Tower was also covered in beautiful frescoes, every part painted – even the ceiling. And the crown jewel of the tour (almost literally) was a visit to Chapel of the Holy Cross, on the second floor of the Great Tower. Here, behind four doors with 19 locks (the keys to which were all kept separately), were originally housed the Czech Crown Jewels and the Imperial Regalia. The walls are completely covered in semi-precious stones as well as 129 Gothic panel paintings, the greatest collection in the world, depicting holy figures, saints, bishops and popes; and the ceiling is pure gold with a pattern of stars, representing the holy realm above. As soon as I stepped into the room I was overwhelmed. I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life; it gave me goosebumps. If you are ever in Czechia, you must go to see this chapel. Photos cannot do it justice; to be in that space was, for me, a life-altering experience.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross was the last spot on our tour, which is a good decision on the part of castle management because after you see that nothing else can possibly impress you. Standa was waiting for us when we got out, and we enjoyed a final beer and told him all our thoughts about the incredible tour. And then it was back to Praha.

The next morning we were up early to catch the train back to Vyšní Lhoty. Standa walked with us to the train station and we said very fond goodbyes. The trip had been absolutely incredible, we saw and did so much and it was especially wonderful to be able to spend so much time with Standa – he was the most hospitable of hosts. It’s René’s aunt’s 50th in a couple of months time – an excellent excuse for a gathering of the extended family – and we assured him that we’d see him there.

In three days René and I go back to Italy, this time to Pieve d’Alpago for a cross-country course. I’m hoping that while I’m there I’ll be able to make a 60km flight, a requirement for my advanced pilots license which I’m desperate to achieve. Stay tuned 🙂

René and I have just returned from Italy! We were there with his Czech flying school, El Speedo, for a thermalling course – him as instructor, myself as assistant instructor. We had such a wonderful time and saw and did so much, it’ll be hard to pick the highlights for this post! But I’ll give it my best shot.

Friday 26 April: Driving to Italy

The journey from Frýdek-Místek to Bassano del Grappa is around 12 hours of driving. El Speedo chooses to do this overnight as during the day it’d be about 16 hours with all the extra traffic. So René and I were picked up from the designated spot at around 6pm on Friday night, and the long drive began. We split it three ways – Tado, the other instructor, took the first four hours (the Czech leg), René the second four hours (the Austrian leg), and I took the final four hours through Italy. The Austrian highways were bigger than I’d ever seen – four lanes each way and deserted at that time of night. The street signs pointed out exits going towards Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and of course Italy – very surreal to me! We drove through so much beautiful scenery, especially in Austria, and I was sad not to be there in the daytime. The van was a 9-seater and I’d never driven anything so big in my life, especially at 2 in the morning, especially on the other side of the road, on winding Italian country roads! But I managed it alright. When we arrived (at 5 am) we set up our sleeping bags in the field next to our campsite (the camp registration being closed at that time of night) and fell asleep instantly.

Saturday 27 April: First flights

The weather was flyable on Saturday. Shortly after waking up, René was walking to the campsite, and I ran to catch him up. When I did, I looked up and saw a building that stopped me in my tracks. The phrase that came to mind was “aggressively Italian”, and really that sums up all of the buildings in the village.

We checked in to the campsite, set up our tents, then loaded all the gliders back into the van and headed up to the first launch – there are several on Monte Grappa so I’m referring to them by the order in which the road arrives at them. Monte Grappa is insanely steep and the hill up involves 28 hairpin bends – for any readers familiar with the lower Crown Range road, it made that look straight by comparison. Standing on the launch felt like standing on the edge of a cliff! My job involved taking plenty of photos for the El Speedo website, which I was happy to do.

There were so many gliders in the air all the time – the most I counted from landing was 81. It meant the launches were very crowded! One thing that really surprised me was the level of incompetence on the launches. On the one hand there were pilots doing their line check on launch, which for a busy site is a big no-no – in that situation pilots should do line check beside the launch, clip in, then mushroom the glider and carry it to launch so it’s all ready to go and they’re not taking up valuable launch space. And on the other hand I saw more pilots than I could count completely fail to brake their gliders (causing frontal collapses and therefore failed launches), inflate their gliders asymmetrically (also causing failed launches), inflate with cravats or line-overs (again, failed launches), or just be dragged by their glider on launch because they didn’t think to hold the brake lines even though the wind was strong. There were pilots flying EN-D (competition class) gliders and still making these amateur mistakes. One pilot even managed to get their glider stuck in a tree before they launched. I was amazed.

I had one lovely flight – the thermals were strong and punchy, typical springtime conditions, and it wasn’t hard to stay up. When everyone had landed we went up for a second flight. Although the course we were teaching was meant to be a thermalling course, that first day it was a lot like an elementary course – for many of the students it was the first flights of the season, and only a couple of them had much experience anyway. René had to talk each pilot through launch, and they usually required multiple attempts. We had three older pilots with us as well, including brothers Marek and Jacek. 75-year-old Marek had a bad fall on launch that first day, dislocating his shoulder – mercifully, not too badly. Flying was over for us for the day as René drove the brothers to hospital.

I took advantage of the free time to do some housekeeping at the campsite and go for a walk around the village. As I said, all of the buildings were aggressively Italian – cream or yellow walls with terracotta roofs, wooden shutters over the windows with planting boxes full of flowers or herbs on the windowsills. There were livestock and olive trees everywhere and the roads were narrow and winding.

Towards the evening, we drove the van to Iper Toscano, the “hypermarket” in downtown Bassano. Hyper doesn’t even begin to describe it – I almost had a panic attack from visiting it, I was so unprepared. Imagine the biggest supermarket in New Zealand, then triple it in size and put in six times as many people. Imagine aisle after aisle packed with bottles of Italian wine for NZD$2, 10 litres kegs of wine for NZD$10, whole fruit pies for 99c, and half a kilo of parmesan for $3, and every aisle also packed with people jostling to get the items they need. The cheese section in particular I found overwhelming – the sheer volume and variety, not to mention the prices.

With René still at the hospital with Marek and Jacek, I picked out some food for us for that evening’s BBQ and hastened to the self-checkout. I felt I had to get out of there or I might collapse or something – the scale of the shop, its obviously foreign nature, and the number of people were too overwhelming to me.

The BBQ was lots of fun – we had roasted brie and delicious fresh bread. People were mostly speaking Czech or Polish but I’m pretty much used to it at this point. And then, with stomachs full of good Italian cheese and wine, we slept.

Sunday 28 April: Venezia

On Sunday we awoke to pouring rain, flashes of lightning and thunder so loud it made my ribcage rattle. René had to get up early to drive Marek to a doctor’s appointment and I enjoyed staying in my sleeping bag, warm and dry, listening to the storm rage against the tent. But eventually I had to get up. Rain when you’re camping is one of the worst things – you know that once you get wet, you’re not going to get dry again for a very long time. We had a quick briefing under the marquee next door and decided that, with the weather forecast showing rain for at least the next 12 hours, the best choice was to head to Venezia. We took the train – apparently parking in Venezia is an absolute nightmare, which doesn’t surprise me seeing as it’s probably one of the only cities in the world with no roads through a significant part of it.

When we arrived to the Venezia station it was pouring harder than ever and absolutely freezing. We’d just walked outside and no sooner than René could say “we should buy umbrellas”, we had an umbrella hawker fall upon us, offering them for 5 euros. Thus armed we headed into the storm. Trying to keep my camera dry and take photos while holding an umbrella was as much of a nightmare as it sounds. But even as we got wetter, colder and more miserable, the beauty of Venezia was absolutely undeniable.

Eventually the cold and wet overcame us, and we stopped for pizza and coffee at a tiny cafe. To our intense pleasure, when we emerged the rain had stopped. I had been appreciating Venezia with 50% of my mind earlier, with the other 50% being occupied with worrying about how dry my camera was and cursing how wet my feet were. With the rain having stopped, I could appreciate it with 100% of my mind. My God, it was so beautiful.

We left having spent around 4 hours in the city, as we had to get back for our dinner reservation. I really felt that I’d barely scratched the surface and I desperately want to go back – ideally this year, but if that’s not possible then definitely soon.

It was still raining in Bassano. We had a dinner reservation at the aggressively Italian restaurant next door and enjoyed the warmth and dryness immensely.

The food was excellent – pizza, of course – although the service was probably some of the worst I’ve ever had. They didn’t even supply wine glasses with our wine, we had to drink it from the water glasses! But we still had a wonderful time.

Monday 29 April: The weather cheers up

On Monday the clouds were still threatening rain and the wind was too strong to fly. We went to the plateau at the top of the mountain, to a hippie farm/cafe hybrid that René loves. The owners were unfortunately out but we had fun meeting the animals and René gave a thermalling theory talk. It was very interesting to be there: only half of the course attendees speak Czech, but luckily Jacek works as a translator for Czech, Polish and English. I had the pleasure of watching him as he translated what René was saying into Polish in real time. Very impressive!

Afterwards, we went to the second-highest takeoff. The wind was just coming right and everyone got into the air for a flight. I took my camera with me and took some lovely photos from the air.

All in all, it was another lovely day.

Tuesday 30 April: Tree rescue

Tuesday was an excellent flying day, with incredible thermals – perfect for a thermalling course! To my irritation, I was the only pilot who didn’t fly – I spent the day driving, while Tado and René had a flight each and the students had several. But that’s life.

Grzegorz, one of the students, managed to get himself stuck in a tree near the farm we’d been at the day before. This irritated René as, during the briefing the previous day, he’d explicitly said that no-one should be flying over that area as there was always rotor there and also there’s no place to land. So of course the next day Grzegorz is at the top of a 25 metre pine tree there, with no cellphone reception, no radio reception, and a chainsaw going nearby so no chance to shout for help. He detached his harness from his glider (number one rule if you’re stuck in a tree – don’t detach your harness from your glider) and luckily managed to climb down successfully, then went to the road and managed to get enough cellphone reception to text René. So we went to meet him with the tree rescue kit and René climbed to the top of this pine tree on these tiny spindly branches with no safety system should he fall. Then when he got to the top he roped himself to the tree, and spent an hour and a half sawing through branches to get the glider free.

I was very happy to have René safely on the ground again when it was over. We went to Iper Toscano again that evening and you’d better believe we got a couple of bottles of nice red wine to relax with!

Wednesday 1 May: Cross Country

Wednesday was the final day of the course. Like the previous day, it was perfect flying conditions; unlike the previous day, I actually got to fly in them! I did my first ever serious cross country attempt, following René along the ridge. We thermalled up to over 2000 metres above sea level – a long way, given the launch was only at 820 metres! In fact we thermalled all the way to cloud base, which is generally speaking as high as paragliders can go, as that’s where the thermals condense into liquid and stop rising. It was my first time ever to fly there, and it was so beautiful to watch the clouds forming all around me. There was deep snow on the mountains below us and it was so cold I thought my fingers would freeze off. We could see all the way into the Italian and Austrian Alps, all the way to Venezia, and all the beautiful mountains and hills and villages in between – to say it was stunning doesn’t even begin to cover it. I made a short highlights reel that you can view here.

Then René turned around to head back to Bassano to land, and so did I, and he (on his high-C glider) penetrated effortlessly into the headwind, and I (on my low-B glider), sank out of the sky like a lead balloon – at one point I was sinking at a rate of 3 metres per second. I limped my way to the flatlands and managed to catch a couple of weak thermals, allowing me to get a bit closer to landing than I otherwise would have been, but still landed a few kilometres away from where I was supposed to be. I managed to hitchhike back without too much trouble though, with a lovely Italian woman about my age, who said I was the first hitchhiker she’d ever picked up. She dropped me right to the landing field; then it was back to camp to pack up the tents, then to the gelateria for a celebratory gelato (René and I had cremino, a subtle hazelnut gelato with a nutella swirl – absolutely delicious and the creamiest icecream I’d ever had), and then we started driving.

This time I got my wish to see the beautiful Italian and Austrian Alps. I was open-mouthed – such remote valleys, in New Zealand pretty much inaccessible, but here filled with enormous highways elevated above the ground, leading to huge tunnels. And the mountains were so steep and forbidding – I loved it.

This time I took the middle driving shift – about 9pm to 1am. Due to the earlier time, easier roads (I got the Austria section) and the fact that I was much more familiar driving the big van, I found this journey much easier to handle. René drove the final section, and I slept with my head on his lap the whole way back to Czech. We drove the van right to Babička’s house, said fond goodbyes to Tado and all the others, and then fell into bed where we proceeded to sleep until midday. The End!

I’ve written this on the train on the way to Prague, so in a few days I’ll have all that to write about. Stay tuned 🙂