Van Life - Czech Republic // S05E09

We are eastbound in Europe on our attempt to drive our vintage combi around the world. In this episode we are making the most of the last weeks of sunshine and crossing into the country with the most castles and one of the best records for safety in Europe, the Czech Republic. However in 2020 safety is not guaranteed and things can change quickly as you're about to see. Unfortunately we can't stay and we're going to move on. We are driving around the world. You guys are invited too so subscribe and buckle up. It's one heck of a ride. Since we escaped from the strict Moroccan lockdown in North Africa we spent the past four months trying to make the most of summer 2020. To do that safely and responsibly we've been hunting out the most remote locations in the safest parts of Europe but as you know in 2020 things can change quickly. So we've just arrived into the Czech Republic and we found this really nice camp spot which is completely isolated from everybody. Looking forward to exploring like this area. Ben's just come back from his toilet break. Look what I found. That is a bolete. These are the same mushrooms that we that we learned about in Alaska right? The mushroom that we found in Alaska and we learned about and we cooked our meal are very prevalent in Europe and so I think we should go find some. Remember that same spongy part? You pull the gills off like that? Yeah. And then you can eat all this? This is a really good one. Let's go see if we can find some more. We've got our bag to collect the mushrooms in. Alaska's going to take her bowl it looks like. There's no way we're going to fill our bag now. I found one. Apparently we just read that Czech Republic is I guess famous for mushroom picking or that's a lot of people go out and mushroom pick. Especially around this time of the year there's lots of mushrooms to be found so I think we've got a good chance of getting more than one. Is that the same type? It looks a bit different doesn't it? Yeah in Alaska we took a lot of mushrooms that we thought might be edible and we checked back and found out that they weren't so we're just going to be ignoring mushrooms that we know definitely are not the ones that we can eat Yeah they do look quite different. They do look quite different. There's also wild raspberries all around here as well. I think these are wild raspberries. These are actually really good ones. That was definitely not edible though. It looks dangerous. No we're not having that one. I think we've been beaten to it. I did read just online just now researching mushrooms that competition is fierce here in Czech Republic so I think we might have been beaten to it. We found heaps of them. Two. I'm still not sure we can get a meal. They're massive. Seems to be that they're under trees like under little bushes and stuff where people are probably not spotting them out in the open. So there's one right there too. Two right there. Look there. Whoa yeah. Nice. That's a good one right? Yeah. Look at him. Yeah definitely. He's a lovely one. I'm now a little bit more inspired to try to find some more. I was just heading back having only scored about 10 raspberries and Alaska rolling in a massive pile of deer dung. Thanks for that Alaska. Alaska's searching with us. Sniffing at everything. She's like the humans they must know something of interest here in the forest. I've got to find it but she has no idea what she's looking for. She's being very enthusiastic in trying to help us bless her and we could use some help. Whoa he's massive. Hell yeah. Nice. He's huge. Probably a little old. The good thing about getting the younger ones is you know less chance there's bugs in them. This guy is probably preferable but that's definitely the biggest one of the day so far and maybe I think we're going to call it a day. Think we have enough to cook something with? Yeah. A lot of mushrooms. Last time we found puccini mushrooms were in Alaska and we cooked a really nice wild mushroom risotto so this time I think we're going to just make a mushroom pasta with all these mushrooms and just as simple because the belete mushrooms have a really like strong nutty taste so I think I'm going to keep it simple just have parmesan, olive oil, garlic and use the mushrooms and that should be enough. Salt and pepper. Last time we did this Leah I was pretty nervous about the meal. Yeah. And you were too. We just didn't know what would happen and if it was really safe. How nervous are you this time? I'm pretty confident that we know like these mushrooms are very like easily identifiable and there's not hardly any at all that's similar to this that are poisonous so it's very safe to pick these type of mushrooms so learning more about them I think. I'm not as nervous as last time. Okay good. I think I'll get some firewood and several days to catch up on some work and plan our onward travels. For some reason the internet signal was astonishingly good up here. Pre-pandemic the historic city of Prague had been high on our bucket list but like many major cities in Europe Prague was seeing an explosion in COVID cases and since entering the country just a few days earlier had since become a red zone. So unfortunately Prague is off the table. So we pointed our compass northeast to discover more rural parts of Czech and searched our Compicrude interactive map so that we could meet up with a local and learn more about the Czech Republic. Meet Viktor and his family and their VW T3 synchro. Yeah 55 percent. Thank you. You're welcome. Are we supposed to drink this in one go? Not really. Not this one. Just sip it. Yeah just sip it. Holy moly. That's strong. Tastes like apple flavored petrol. It's not that bad actually. The taste is pretty good. Said you've got to prepare for going east. I know. I know. I have to man up a little bit. Such a beautiful spot here. So blessed to be by this pond and have such a lovely campsite. Unfortunately we can't stay because the fishermen guard has said it's not a camping area so we're gonna move on. But it is such a lovely spot with apples growing all around and fish in the pond and you know a nice quiet place. I think we're gonna have to have something to eat, wait a little bit and then head on and try and find somewhere else to stay tonight. Wow what is in that? Those are pickled sausages. Pickled sausages? Yes. We've never had that. And for us it's actually good to help us with the alcohol in our blood. I was guessing you never... I mean not everyone likes it so give it a try. I'll definitely have it because otherwise I can't drive. But there's something that we never give to foreigners. It's nice. You should try. Why not? Because they think it's weird. It is. But it's nice. Victor you need to get your engine fixed. It's too smoky. I have to close the vents on the combi when I'm following you. We relocated to this campsite. It's nice. There's other people here but at least we're not going to get moved on and we're going to be trying some more local delicacies. Fermented grapefruit juice and what's this one? It's called tlachenka. Tlachenka. Yeah it's pork jelly basically. Pork jelly. Yeah. I don't like it. You don't like it but it's your favorite. Yeah. We were thinking that we will bring you something that you can take with you but you can't take it with you forever so we brought something to eat because that you can use. Okay. What do you mean by that? We can eat this. We've been given some beef stomach soup. Beef stomach soup. Say thank you. Thank you. Welcome to Czech Republic. Thank you. But this is what I brought. I think Alaska will love it the most. So this is your favorite dish? It's a favorite snack but it's the weirdest thing you can get in Czech Republic. Oh one of the weird ones I would say. This one. I just eat it with bread. Some people eat it with the onions and vinegar but I like the taste of it as it is. Alaska loves it. Alaska would you like it? She's waiting for it. It doesn't need bread in this case. This is a nice one. And this is a local Coca-Cola right? Something like that. It's made of herbs. So this comes from like 1960s when they were unable to buy the Coca-Cola license so they had to figure out something how to replace that by local ingredients and this is what they come up with. We were the east block you know. We were not supposed to buy something from U.S. Like USA was like a biggest enemy of ours so we couldn't really drink Coca-Cola because that was from U.S. The benefits of meeting up with locals is not only like being able to try all the food that we would never have even known about if we didn't speak to a local, meet a local, but they're also like able to show us places that we wouldn't have gone to on our own too. So this morning we're going to be looking on a map and Victor is going to be helping us decide what to do today. We're going to go on a little day out and yeah just see this area and see what's around here. So he's going to be our guide for today and we're going to do something really fun. Yeah meeting with locals is one of the best things about traveling. I think it's the only way to experience the country I think really well. So we're very lucky. Is it on power now? Okay. It's like a normal two-way radio. It's nothing special really. Finally got a car fine in the Yes we're receiving you over. Perfect. Wow it's so beautiful here. I love this drive. I don't I don't understand what you say but you like so. No just keep driving. As cool as it is we're not sure that this vintage technology is reliable or even necessary but it wasn't long before it did come in handy. Victor we're breaking down so we're going to need to pull over. Fortunately this wasn't difficult to resolve. The throttle position sensor just got a little stuck. Okay always good to have a Kombi Life breakdown. Especially when it's easy to fix. Lucky you understood us on the radio huh? I didn't think you could hear us. Because pull over is like. Yeah. Like if you scream stop it will work as well. We're getting a lot of people flashing their lights at us and every single car on the road requirements to do so but and I'm not sure whether they're flashing us because we don't didn't have our lights on we do now but or if they're just flashing because they like the Kombi. Certainly everybody loves the Kombi here like we haven't seen any other old Volkswagens on the road at all for a long time and yeah the Kombi is going down well with the locals. Victor why is everybody driving with their lights on? Because it's required. Is it law? Yes it is. Can you tell us what this is that we're looking at now? That's a gate a natural formation of the rocks it's called Pravčická brána and it's a big site of this area since like I think like 19th century a big tourist attraction as well. So you need to get a bus to see it right because it's way up the top so instead of getting the bus up there we just thought that we'd look at it via the drone. We weren't exactly sure what to expect from this location but from the drone's perspective it was certainly impressive. You might recognize this scene from the movie The Chronicles of Narnia. If we had the time we would have certainly gone up for a closer look. However we were lucky to appreciate a long distance glimpse from the drone. Getting it back though was easier said than done. We can't get the drone back now because we've flown it really far away so listen out for it all 90 meters of distance. That was the most intense drone flying we've ever done, Ben's ever done. But the view was worth it right? Let's just take a second for this absolutely stunning gorge. We've got to show you this. This is beautiful. The whole region around Horensko is stunning and we especially like the gorge where you can hike right along the riverbank. It's a beautiful slice of Czech and typically very popular with tourists. Victor, I've got to say thank you so much for bringing us here. We would have driven straight past this place if we hadn't had your recommendation. I told you. Thank you. You shouldn't skip this. Gorgeous. Finally some nature that you wouldn't expect in Europe right? Thank you for being our guide. I do my best. At one point the only way forward is via a narrow boat which on a normal day would be a welcomed way of travel. But we were not so thrilled about being crammed in and not being able to properly socially distance ourselves. We were a little stunned to be honest. Some countries that we have visited have a vastly different approach and this situation would just not be allowed. And perhaps these differences in our approaches will play some part in how hard each of our countries are hit by the inevitable restrictions in the coming months. But hey, nobody is enjoying social distancing and it seems that collectively everyone everywhere has let their guard down by this point. Me included. From here our plans were to head deeper into the Czech Republic for more rural combi crew adventures. But as the coronavirus situation worsened in the country, there were talks of the Prime Minister declaring a state of emergency and borders being closed. It quickly became evident that we have some tough decisions ahead. But that is a story for next time.