Cycling from Prague to Vienna - advice please
 

Hi
I'd like to cycle from Prague to Vienna (and maybe even Budapest) this summer. The only info I can find about the Greenways trail is by a group offering tours. I'd rather do it independently and wondered whether anyone out there has done this and could offer some advice. e.g. is the route easy to find and on quiet roads; is there a good place to hire / buy cycles in Prague; is accommodation en route easily available; am I advised to take a tent; etc.
Thanks in anticipation.
Libbyah

Trento Bike Pages is an excellent collection of touring reports. Go to http://www.trentobike.org/ and you will probably find something.

From Vienna to Budapest there is a bike path along the Danube. Get the Bikeline guide. Unfortunately their website is only in German http://www.esterbauer.com/

Prague To Vienna with Topbicycle Tours
 

Would like to know if anyone has used Topbicycle tours.com for a Vienna to Prague trip?
Am planning such a trip this August. Any advice?

Beachguy in Florida

A good report is here. We rode the part of the route in May 2004 from northern Moravia to the south to the Austrian border, then along the border to the west and then to Prague. There are a lot of marked bicycle routes in Czech Republic almost 20000 km over the whole country. “Greenways Prague - Vienna” is number one. Though, it is possible to choose some parallel routes.

We bought a cycling map atlas 1:100000 for 20$ at the start point of our route. I think this is no problem to do in a bookstore there.

We had not any problems with accommodation in Czech, though it was in May. Campground was 4$ for two of us, we were the first visitors in the camping in the season, and we occupied a tiny wooden summer house with a table inside. Locals were very friendly to us, they don’t speak English, and German is the second language mainly. So, we used a phrase-book and spoke the Czech-Russian-Ukrainian mix of Slavs languages, it was amazing. Czech Republic is a hilly country, especially at the south boundary area. Some pictures and the map of our tour are available on my homepage; the text is in Russian only.

Another our big impression was that the countryside looked like almost unpopulated because almost nobody was in the yards or in the streets of the villages. No one walked in the forest. Is wild camping legal or not I could not find out, because nobody knew about it there. So, our campsites were very well hidden. Of course, we did not camp in the national parks, where it is prohibited and we never used a campfire (we never use one in Russia as well).

Local hotels were pretty cheap, we used ones approximately 25$ for two person. For this price we had a two-person apartment in a village house with the personal kitchen, the personal shower and toilet, there was the TV set also. Nice breakfast that was made by the mistress of the house was included in rental. This paradise was in the village Lukov near to Znojmo - the province capital. They are near to the border of the national park “Podyji”. Approaching to the central area, things go a little worse. We had found out that an accommodation service for a reasonable price is much better in a province in Czech Republic. Meal was pretty cheap: 1 liter of apple juice was 0.5$ for example. Czech beer… no comments, enjoy! Moravian wine was outstanding as well!!!

I love Czech Republic!!!

Thanks for the great Information, Alex.
Beachguy

I have no useful info to add, except a confession that I caught my cycling bug in Austria while biking between towns in Oberoesterreich at the tender age of 12 on a borrowed Steyr-Puch 10-speed. One day I'll return and bike at least one of them again! It's a beautiful country.

The Bikeline books and maps are great and if anything a bit more detailed than you might need. I rode the Passau to Vienna stretch of the Danube and it was easy to track and avoid traffic. Towns were close enough together to make lodging and food easy to find. We met people who had come from the Czech Republic and others going to Budapest. All of it sounds wonderful if you happen to avoid the spring floods and damages they cause.