When I landed in Prague for the first time, I knew literally nothing about the town, other than everyone loves it and told me how lucky I was to visit there. As heartening as those exclamations were, they weren’t exactly all that helpful. I was still at the beginning of my life of travel and was slowly working out my process for researching new destinations, so I was completely unprepared for the wonder that was Prague. Fortunately, I had some sense and booked a bike tour through Praha Bike and secretly wondered how early I could arrive at their office without it being too weird. Fresh off of my first international flight, I’m sure I looked like a stereotypical American, but I didn’t care. I was finally here! After securing my train tickets to Auschwitz for that evening, I found my way to Praha Bike and eagerly joined the queue with my future adventure partners.
I soon found out that I was the only American on this particular bike tour. Now, I know that a lot of you might think me as ignorant or foolish to assume that there would be other Americans in our group, but remember this was my first time in Europe. I had sheltered expectations and was just starting to get my feet wet with international travel. I quickly made friends with Liz and Katie, a pair of British girls that looked to be around my age and come to find out, they were also traveling solo and had recently connected! Along with a group from South Africa, we pulled our bikes out of the shop and circled around Travis, our awesome guide from Boise, Idaho (okay, so maybe I wasn’t the only American). He was good-natured and easy to talk with. Travis went over our itinerary, which included a bunch of Czech words that meant nothing to me at the time, and reassured some of the older adventurers that we wouldn’t be biking up to the Castle (read: it sits atop a high hill that would be super intimidating to ride up).
You know the saying “It’s like riding a bike?” Meaning you’re doing something that you’ve done before, but haven’t for a really long time, and the motions/words/feelings come back to you after a while? Well…can I say this about how riding a bike after not doing so for a year…is like riding a bike? The last time I was on a bike was during a girl’s trip to San Francisco. Seems a little ridiculous, but it was true. I hadn’t been on a bike for a few years prior to my bike tour and was a little nervous. Oh not about falling over, but have you ever tried to ride a bike along loosely connected cobble-stoned streets? There were so many times that I feared my front tire would get caught in the grooves and flip me over the handlebars. While I have no injuries to boast of, there were a few intense moments where I had to focus on the ground, rather than the fairytale town that I was supposed to be enjoying!
And we were off on my first bike tour around the Czech capital! Travis took us to various famous landmarks such as the Charles Bridge, the Dancing House, and the Estate Theater. We stopped at famous sculptures and art pieces including Man Hanging Out and David Cerny’s Crawling Babies. We wound around the Jewish Quarter, Old/Lesser Town, and braked in Kampa Park for drinks (my first European Coke).
Forgive the weird filter in my pictures. I shot these with my old iPhone 4 and apparently thought the warm filter made my photos look more “authentic” or something…
Our little posse didn’t have a bike crash to claim, but we certainly had a nervous rider. There was an older lady in our group that I learned to avoid like the plague. I’m not sure if this was her first time on a bike this century or if she was just not a coordinated person, but she had a knack for running and bumping into the bike/person/car in front of her. The first time this happened, I was the fortunate soul who got in her way. I whipped around and in my exhausted euphoria asked her what the deal was. Her response? I needed to not ride in front of her. Huh? We were riding single file down wide streets, so as not to block foot and vehicle traffic, so where was I supposed to ride? Shrugging her off, I sped up towards the front of the pack. No way was I going to let her ruin my bike tour.
As we pulled into Kampa Park about midway through our ride, I heard another from our group confront the nervous bike lady. Apparently, she didn’t think that her brakes were going to effectively stop her in time to cross the street, so she abruptly planted her feet and stopped her bike, causing the gentleman behind her to crash into her. Fortunately we weren’t going to fast, so there were no projectile bodies to be seen, although that would have added to the trip, for sure. Not that it really needed to be more special, but just another fun story to tell.
I can’t adequately put into words what I was feeling as I struck off on my first bike tour. For truly the first time, I felt like a successful traveler. Here I was, a girl from the US riding a bike through one of the most well-known cities in Europe, without any friends with me or a comfort zone to nuzzle into. While all of that was nice, the best part was feeling completely at peace with being a solo traveler. I cycled around the city with the group on a euphoric high that I had never experienced before, eager for more.
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