wwA bike tour in the Czech Republic and Austria / © 2005 by Brian Wasson

Travel Resources/Suggestions for More Info

Note: Also check out the resources page for our Tauernradweg trip. It contains more in-depth information about traveling in Germany and Austria (some of it is duplicated on this page), including more information on trains, Internet and cell phone use, etc.

Train Travel in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic

NEW! The information about trains previously contained on this page has been moved to a separate page just about traveling by train with bikes in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. I've also added a lot more photos and useful info.

Guidebook Recommendations

There are many good guidebooks for western and eastern Europe. We mainly use the Lonely Planet series and Rick Steves' guides. Rick Steves' books are more narrowly focused, and are best for highly touristed areas. He does a good job of explaining major sights, and usually provides some sort of annotated walking tour. We like his coverage of Prague, Cesky Krumlov, Salzburg and Munich.

However, his books are basically useless once you get away from the main touristy areas (which is kind of the point when bike touring). For these areas we recommend the Lonely Planet guides. They generally have at least some info on even the smallest town. However, in the Czech Republic, there are some really small villages, which are not covered.

For this trip I photocopied relevant pages from our personal copy of Rick Steves' Czech Republic book and left the book at home. When we were done with a particular section, we'd throw it away or give it to another traveler. This is a great way to keep the weight/bulk of guidebooks down when bike touring. Hint: with Rick Steves' books, it is possible to reduce the pages on a photocopier and get 16 pages of the book on one double-sided photocopy.

The Lonely Planet guide covered both the Czech Republic and Slovakia. So, I took a razor blade and cut the book in half, taking only the section that pertained to the Czech Republic. We had traveled often in Austria and Germany, so we only took a few photocopied pages pertaining to Salzburg and Munich hotels from Rick Steves' books. Again, Rick Steves is good for the major cities, and Lonely Planet is best for the countryside.

Language Issues

We bought a phrase book for the Czech language and took it along. While not absolutely necessary, it came in handy several times, especially in the smaller villages where nobody seemed to speak either English or German. We had a distinct advantage in that we know some German, which is widely spoken in the Czech Republic (especially in Bohemia). I'd say 90% of the time when someone did not speak English we were able to use German. If you are planning a tour in the Czech Republic and either Germany or Austria, you might be better served learning some German rather than Czech. However, it's always a good idea to learn some key survival phrases in Czech, if only to be polite to people you meet en route.

For more information:

• LocalLingo.com: a site that helps you learn Czech. We didn't use this much, but the links to audio files are really helpful for figuring out how to pronounce those difficult Czech phrases.
• "MyCzechRepublic" has a good list of basic, useful Czech phrases; again, with audio files for pronunciation
• "Essential Czech Phrases"

German Words for Bike Parts

I came across this handy mini-dictionary for bike parts somewhere over the past five years. Unfortunately, I did not document its source, and so it's impossible to correctly reference it.