Many people don’t get why are we so addicted to car travels. But when you only seen the world from the car window, you immediately understand, that there is no better way to fall in love with it. Czech from this side is all about amazing pastoral views, that give you harmony and piece, neat villages with a mandatory breweries, where elderly people ride segways, and here you finally understand what really matters in this life, also about marvelous trdelnik smell and 160 km/hour to skip extra calories:)
I suppose, people should visit Czech exactly for this – rashy, always too short, but oh so emotional autojourney. And thanks to Skoda I could share my this summer journey with Alesha.
This year is really special for Skoda. They celebrate two important dates: 120 years of brand (that was originaly named Laurin&Klement after its founders, by the way) and 110 years of the first car (not that it was made for 10 years, firstly founders were focused on producing bicycles). To celebrate this, they invited several journalists and bloggers to an actual Historical Tour through Czech: we drived oldtimers (even that exact Voiturette of 1905!), learned the history of the brand in Mlada-Boleslav museum and looked through car concepts of different years, that never turned into a real cars. How cool is that? And now let me tell you how it was!
Our journey began early in the morning. We landed in Prague that was covered with rain. But we hardly had a chance to notice it, cause our wonderful 8 Skoda’s were already waiting for us outside the airport. We have chosen a cool diesel Superb in a beautiful plum color (that is on the first photo!). You will yet see it in our video-test-drive!
I’m sure there is no better place to learn more about Skoda than in Czech. And not because the brand comes from here:) But because it’s an actual pride and sight here! There are lots of those cars on the roads, different posters are hanging all over the cities somehow connected with the brand, regular oldtimers exhibitions are held in different castles, many people collect cars of different ages and even at the airport you can easily notice several Skoda models.
So the first challenge was to get through Prague traffic (that is honestly close to Moscow one!) to Skoda home town – Mlada-Boleslav. Today, there is a museum here, but originally this building was used as a factory.
We had a quick luch here and finally started our serious job:) I’m sure, you remember, how sorry I felt last summer to not being able to shoot everything I wanted and how jealous I was to the more talanted bloggers! Thanks to Alesha this year was my personal compensation. We shooted speeches, parallel rides, flew with the quadrocopter, woke up earlier, went to bed later, made interviews and tonns of photos…. We actually have so much to show you, that we probably have to think about a personal TV-programm:) How many minutes are you really ready to watch, by the way?
Our second point was Louchen castle. This one looks so modest outside, but is really one of the best known Czech castles. Whish is actually very hard to become, when you have 2 500 competitors! 10 marvelous labyrinths are situated here. Some of them are so huge, you better never enter them without a guide or a map.
Mlada-Boleslav and Louchen are just 20-something kilometers far from each other. So we obviously had to choose the longer way of 70 kms to have a chance to enjoy tiny Czech towns and huge fields with dropped there giant hay rolls.
If I only had to tell about my own very best place on Earth, I would have definitely chosen one of those villages. So picturesque and cozy are they with all those elegant fences. I can easily imagine, how a housewife from one of the houses above the hill walkes every morning towards a friend to get some milk for breakfast and chats with all the passing by on her way. That is the place where even 30 km/hour limit doesn’t irritate you:)
And that is how parking for 19 test-drive participants looks like:)
We stayed here for a night and began our oldtimers test-drive at 8 in the morning already. Historical tour, remember?:)
We of course immediately went for Octavia:) It’s just stronger than me – I have some kind of special connection with this car… My first car was a white Ovtavia, last summer I also used it and even this year had a chance to drive 4×4 white Octavia while Alesha was shooting our plum beauty from the window. I always feel like home inside it! So the choice of Skoda Octavia produced in the late 50-es was more than an obvious option. Just imagine, the owner and his family really used this one as a personal car till recent moment! They made more than 100 000 kms on it! Though he appeared to be an owner of 8 oldtimers, so probably when you switch them you can save them from damages:)
Cars from the past have that unique and nostalgic atmosphere. It can go up to 80 km/hour (128 in some models), but there is no need to hurry when you’re inside. You’d better enjoy the views around that suddenly receive sepia color and some scratches of an old film. That is so amazing and cool!
Honestly, we loved this car so much, that we will probaby make a separate post about it later.
After having enough of oldtimers we took our modern Superb and started our way back to Prague.
If you only knew, how much I want to return to this city for several days! Prague is so amazing, historical and inspired. It looks like an organism with its own ambitions, thoughts, life rhythm and soul. There are always way too many torists there. So many that you can even get caught in passengers traffic jam. But anyway Prague is not for everyone. I think, it’s more of a place for such an intellectual tourism: for those, who have seen a lot, love to think over and who is not living after the scenario.
We have chosen amazing The Augustine hotel right at the city centre to stay in Prague. Its oldest building – augustine church – was built in XIII century! By the way, some monks still live there! I was lucky to have enough time for photos so be ready for an update in “Where to stay at” section really soon!
So, it was our colorful and wonderful journey! Wait for the details:) And here are some more photos!
