Gallery of Jim Blilie's Photos:

World Bicycle Tour, 1990-1992

The Big Show

Part 28:  Czech Republic

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010, All rights reserved

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning

all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas

and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts

of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues

from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance

which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can,

begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."  (Often attributed to Goethe)

  This page is under construction.  I'm still working on a text for each segment of the

trip and scanning in some negatives and maybe a few more slides hidden here and there.

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These are THE BIG SHOW of my slides from my trip around the world with Jeff Mellor, 1990-1992.

There are many more slides in this set than on the main world tour page:  About 2600 total.  I spent

some time in late 2009 going through all my slides from the world trip and I selected many for scanning.

The results are on this page (slide shows).  Many of these have been seen only by me and many of those

I hadn't seen since 1993.  The trip itself is outlined below.

These are scans of my Kodachrome 64 (and a very small number of Ektachrome 100) slides

From Jim and Jeff Mellor's bicycle tour around the world from Nov-1990 through Oct-1992

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010 All rights reserved

I used a very nice, yet inexpensive scanner, the  Epson V500  I like it very much.

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Czech Republic:  11-Sep-1992 to 18-Sep-1992, 238 miles

These are photos of our tour through the Czech Republic.  We road across the country from

north to south, from the Polish border to the Austrian border, via Prague.  We spent a couple

days in Prague.  Prague lived up to our high expectations as one of the most beautiful cities

in the world.

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For the slide show:  

Click HERE.  Then:

Click on the first picture (upper left picture) on the black photo album page and then

Click the "play" button at the upper right of the view panel to start the slide show.

Enjoy.

At the border	Beautiful roads and little traffic
Wonderful fall weather	Wonderful fall weather	Wonderful fall weather	To Prague
Friendly fellow cyclist	Soviet-style blocks outside of Prague		A nice "camping" cabin
The Prague city line	Into Prague	Into Prague	Lunch in Prague	Prague scenes
Prague scenes	Prague scenes	Prague scenes	Prague scenes	Prague scenes
Prague scenes	Me at Wenceslas Square	Into the old town	The old town center	The old town center
The old town center	Me in the town square	Memorial to Jan Hus	Prague scenes	Prague scenes
Cobblestone repairs	Jeff in the town center	The place we stayed	The Vltava (a.k.a. Moldau) River south of Prague
		Some other cyclists who I can't remember ...	Another hotel	Fall coming down
Camp cooking	Real Budweiser in Cesca Budjejovica	Misty morning		To Linz Austria
		The border	Continental divide

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Outline of our trip:

From Nov. 15, 1990 to Oct. 6, 1992, with a five-month break for the winter of '91-'92, Jeff Mellor

and I traveled around the world through 26 countries, mostly by bicycle.  While in the "developed"

world, we bicycled 1000 miles per month, camping each night.  In Asia and Africa, we traveled by

train and bus and used guest-houses.  We encountered 16 different foreign languages, of which we

needed to learn at least the rudiments.  We rode a total of almost 11,000 miles on our bikes, camped out

at least 350 times, and climbed several mountains including Pt. Lenana (16,350 ft.) on Mt. Kenya in

Africa.  We took a three-week, 220-mile hike around the Annapurna Range in Nepal, which included

a 17,700 ft. high pass.  I took 13,000 photographs and wrote 1000 pages of journals.  No experience

in my life, except my university education, can compare with these travels for the depth and breadth

of learning or for the perspective gained.  It was one of the peak life experiences, up there with

marriage, children, university education.

Our trip was through these countries:

[Hawaii:  The Big Island, a 2-week shake-down within the US, started Nov 1990]

Fiji, about 10 days riding around Viti Levu from Nadi to Suva

New Zealand:  Auckland to Wellington via Coromandel Penn. and a loop around the Southern

Alps from Christchurch and back

Australia, from Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra and Mt. Kosciusko, around Tasmania, bits and

pieces inland mostly bus to Darwin

Singapore

Malaysia, from Singapore to the Thai border

Thailand (no bikes; we sent our bikes to Denmark from Bangkok, not wanting to ride in Thailand,

Nepal, India, Kenya, or Egypt)

Nepal (no bikes)

India (no bikes; just passed through Delhi and Bombay since we were running way behind)

and then on to a long tour of Europe:

Denmark

Germany

Netherlands

Belgium

France

United Kingdom

Then a winter's break at home in the USA from Oct 1991 through March 1992, then we flew

back to Lisbon Portugal in March 1992:

Portugal

Spain

France

UK, we rode from Plymouth to Land's End then from Land's End to John O'Groats at the tip of

Scotland and via ferries to the Orkneys, Shetlands, and on to Norway over the North Sea (with a

detour from Holyhead in Wales over to Ireland and back)

Ireland

Norway

Sweden

Germany (former East Germany)

Poland

Czech Republic

Austria

Germany (Bavaria) and home in Oct 1992 from Frankfurt am Main

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010, All rights reserved

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Time and mileage table:

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Background image is Jeff, overlooking Prague, Czech Republic, Sep 1992

Last updated:  8-Sep-2010