A family travels castle to castle, by foot and bicycle, on a new route linking timeless villages in the Czech Republic.

By Cindy Ross, 11/98

MIKULOV, Czech Republic -- The gentle countryside and sleepy towns of the southern Czech Republic are rooted in an unhurried time unspoiled by progress. This is the land of medieval ruins, renaissance castles, rococo chateaux and pilgrimage churches. Some sites are restored, some in ruin, but all have stories to tell. Dozens of them are accessible from the Czech Greenways, a network of trails that runs from Vienna to Prague through south Moravia and south Bohemia, regions largely unknown to outsiders during Czechoslovakia's 50 years of communism.

The Czechs' conversion to democracy in 1990 has brought privatization of land; can development be far behind? The greenways -- posted trails that go mostly through forests and farmland -- represent an effort to balance economic advancement with environmental protection.

My husband and I heard about the greenways in a chance encounter with one of the founders. We are avid outdoors folk with little experience traveling abroad. But the enthusiasm of greenway promoters persuaded us to join them in a spring ride inaugurating the hiking-biking trail in 1996. In four weeks, including stops of several days, we covered 200 miles mostly on our own, with saddle-sore friends joining us here and there.

The greenways make up six linked segments; the route we took followed trails established a century ago by the Czech Hiking Club. The greenway system is the brainchild of Lubomir Chmelar, a Czech whose family was set adrift by World War II and who wound up raising his own family in New York. The idea of a walking trail connected to cultural heritage sites came to him on a walking pilgrimage in Spain in 1990. A year later, with the help of some U.S. foundation money, he was in Czechoslovakia developing the project.

This is not just a hiking trail. The founding organization, called Czech Greenways/Zelene Stezky, is also a civic movement to engage Czechs and local governments in preservation of historical sites and promotion of tourism. Then there is Friends of the Czech Greenways, an American support organization. The United States and Czech groups work with two travel agencies that make all greenway tour arrangements, from hotel reservations to bicycle rentals to logistical support on the route and special-interest guides. Some of the trails pass lakes and rivers that offer canoeing and other water sports; all of the trails are paralleled by roads and local rail service.

The service that was indispensable to us was the van that carried our stuff between hotels as we were trekking with our children, Sierra, 5, and Bryce, 3.

We began our odyssey in Vienna, packing the children into a pint-size bike trailer and cycling north. In the charming south Moravian town of Mikulov, just across the Czech-Austrian border, we swapped our bikes for walking shoes. The first leg of our hike was up Mikulov's Holy Hill. The path was dotted with little grottoes depicting the Stations of the Cross. For 300 years, we were told, believers have made pilgrimages to the chapel of St. Sebastian at the summit. But for me, the religious experience was hiking on the crest of the Palava Hills, being above the tree line and able to see for miles and miles.

Mikulov is the gateway to the easy-to-hike hills and their unusual limestone formation. The Mikulov castle grows right out of the limestone on a precipice far above the town.

After an easy eight-mile hike in the hills, we interrupted our return to Mikulov with dinner in an ancient cave that had been converted into a tiny restaurant and wine cellar. The rough limestone walls and ceiling glowed from the candlelight. Picnic tables were covered with red-and-white checked cloths and plates of crispy potato pancakes and pungent rye bread. We drew glasses of the dark red local wine from a barrel and stepped out into the garden to watch the sun set over the town below. Beyond the town stretched gentle, rolling Austrian farmland -- land that Czechs could not visit until the fall of communism.

After Mikulov, we biked west to Podyji National Park to see one of the few places in the country where the people did not dismantle the Iron Curtain with sledgehammers. At the end of a concrete road, the barbed wire fence and gun tower were intact. We climbed the tower's 60-foot ladder, pushed open a trapdoor and surveyed the landscape. We could see across the false border of the fence to the real border between Czechoslovakia and Austria a mile away, with a no-man's land in between.

On our next stop, the sightseeing pendulum swung in the opposite direction, and we found ourselves visiting Castle Vranov. This medieval border fortress clings to a cliff above the Dyje River and was rebuilt in the Baroque style in the 18th century. We enjoyed the lavish architecture and art of Vranov, but an exhibit of a different sort awaited us in the nearby castle of Bitov: a bizarre stuffed animal collection left by a prince with a passion for taxidermy. In addition to the usual stuffed birds and wild critters, the collection features a parlor with 75 dogs arranged on a rug, cats dressed in costumes and squirrels dancing the tango and playing cards.

There is no shortage of castles on the greenways; from the Middle Ages to well into the 19th century Czech lands were some of the richest in Europe. It is possible to visit several castles a day, some of which are bare ruins, while others, like Castle Vranov, are exquisitely restored and furnished.

The route we'd chosen was generally level. We covered about six to 10 miles a day on foot, using child carrier backpacks when necessary. On bikes, we covered 15 to 25 miles a day, pulling the children behind us in the collapsible bike trailer brought from home. The children held up great, walking as often and as long as their small legs allowed and napping in the carriers when they needed to rest. For snacks, we carried rolls and fruit preserves left over from breakfast.

We stayed in modest hotels and pensions in a dozen towns along the greenway. The pension owners we encountered were studying English in anticipation of more tourists. Younger Czechs, like most young Europeans, study English in school. Overall we found the Czechs to be very friendly and eager to make things easy for us.

The gorgeous town of Telc was one of our favorite places, and not just because it is an architectural gem. Our children were singing at the top of their lungs as their dad pulled their bike trailer up the narrow cobblestone streets. Curious women popped out of their doors and hung out windows. The bike trailer was a marvel, and so were we. Not many from the United States have been in this part of the old Czechoslovakia, and in that first week or two of our trip we met no other Americans.

Renaissance townhouses topped with fanciful gables lined the huge, quiet square, their stuccoed walls painted in pale ochre, peach and mustard. In the center of the square was a monument built by plague survivors 400 years ago in thanksgiving to God.

That night, I leaned out the window in our hotel overlooking the square. The silence and sense of peace in these Czech towns -- the scarcity of cars, the muted street lamps -- worked like a lullaby.

Up until this point, we had been traveling west in southern Moravia and experienced close to 150 miles of the greenway. We were becoming very comfortable in this fascinating land that seemed stuck in time. Many of the towns we passed through were literally dead-ends during the communist half-century because all local roads stopped at the border with the West. While being passed by had a down side, no doubt, it helped keep these old towns well-preserved. Only recently have Westerners started to trickle through.

After south Moravia, the greenway took us to pond-studded south Bohemia. There are about 6,000 fish ponds in this part of the country, many of which are linked by a canal that was hand-dug in the 16th century. These ponds produce tens of thousands of carp annually. We were lucky enough to pass one of the ponds near Trebon just as it was being drained to harvest the 3-foot-long fish left stranded in the puddles.

In Bohemia, the beverage preference changed with the landscape. Pilsner beer was invented and perfected here, and some breweries date back to the 1400s. The rich brew we sipped at a pub in the town of Cesky Krumlov was a far cry from the watered-down beer served back home.

Besides beer, the pride of Bohemia is Cesky Krumlov, an exquisitely well-preserved medieval town nearly surrounded by a loop in the Vltava River. Its castle is the second largest in the Czech Republic, having several courtyards and about 300 rooms. Our children were rapt watching the two bears that live in the castle's moat.

From Cesky Krumlov, the greenway route heads north toward Prague with about 100 miles remaining. Between Bechyne and Tabor, along the Luznice River, we walked a newly restored stretch of a 100-year-old trail. The reconstruction was impressive, with its causeways, bridges, rock steps and extensive sidehill (banked) trail. The trail wound through a forest whose floor was packed solid with tall, orchid-colored phlox that filled the air with intoxicating perfume. Knowing that the end of the trip was drawing closer made us savor the experience all the more.

On one of our last nights on the greenway, our hosts roasted a pig for us. After dinner we lounged around a crackling fire on the pension's patio. Frogs in a nearby pond croaked along with Czech music being played on accordion and saxophone. Our hosts entertained us with beer-drinking songs. Our children danced on the lawn like little twirling sprites, as comfortable in this world as in the one back home.

The full moon rose over the treetops. And, for one more night, we lost ourselves in the old ways of the new Czech Republic.

Getting around: Hardly anyone we met in the southern Czech Republic spoke English, though many spoke German. We relied on pantomime, and on the services of the United States and Czech travel agencies that made all our arrangements. Only the truly adventurous, or German and Czech-speakers, should try a greenways trip solo.

We stayed in about a dozen small hotels. Two that stood out were Hotel Celerin, a Renaissance townhouse in Telc.; tel. 011-420-66-962-477; and Mlyn na Pradle, a 17th century mill in Bechyne; tel. 011-420-361-961-056. We stayed with friends in Mikulov but had excellent dinners at a hotel they spoke well of, the Hotel Rohaty Krokodyl; tel. 011-420-625-2692.

A travel agency's 10-day tour, including these or similar hotels, breakfast, bike rental, van transportation and other services is $759 per person (airfare extra).

For more information: Friends of Czech Greenways, 515 Avenue I, 1-B, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11230; tel. (718) 258-5468, fax (718) 258-5632, can refer travelers to agencies that specialize in Czech greenway itineraries. Or contact the Czech Tourist Authority, 1109 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10028; tel. (212) 288-0830, fax (212) 288-0971.

(Cindy Ross, a free-lance writer and photographer who lives in New Ringgold, Pa., and her husband Todd Gladfelter, are the authors of ``Kids in the Wild -- A Family Guide to Outdoor Recreation,'' Mountaineers; 1995.)

(c) 1998, Cindy Ross. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.