Back to Utrecht, via Prague

The caravan leaves European Capital of Culture Pécs at 3pm on Saturday afternoon. It sits behind the car of Remco Timmermans, who offered his third lift during my journey here. The trip from Pécs to Utrecht starts with a trip to Lake Balaton, which now looks more like an ice skating rink than the watersports destination that it is in summer. From there we continue the trip accross the Slovakian border towards Bratislava.

At the Czech border, near Brno, we are stopped by customs and park the car and caravan under a massive X-Ray scanner on a truck. I can imagine: a Dutch caravan at a late winter Saturday night coming from the Balkan might look suspicious. I had never seen such a large scanning device! After the X-ray scan they bring a narcotics-dog into the caravan and around the car, but the only thing the dog finds is a sleepy Dachshund. Thirty minutes later we can continue our journey into the Czech Republic, waved goodbye by the friendly policemen. Finally, around midnight we arrive at the target destination for that day: Prague. I wonder if Prague has ever been European Capital of Culture?

During this caravan trip I have never actually spent the night at a campsite. Unfortunately the Prague city campsite was closed for the night (or the season?), so in good old caravan-hitchhiking tradition we spend the night between a few rows of trucks at a service station. Again, the solar panels at the roof prove invaluable. During my 7 weeks trip I have only once been hooked up to 230V electricity.

Another recommendation: Visit a city on an early Sunday morning! Prague is so beautiful! We spend an hour or two in several locations to take pictures and have breakfast at the central square. From where we start the engine for the final 840 km leg to Utrecht. The satnav system shows an expected time of arrival of 8pm.