It’s Monday afternoon at the bar in hostel Blues in Bratislava and I’ve just purchased a €9 bus trip to Brno. I’m talking to the local Slovak girl behind the bar and an Aussie, Dave, across from me asks where I’m off to next. I say Brno and he says he’s going there tomorrow and he’d give me a lift. We commenced to drink beer until well after midnight, after meeting 2 German girls who were leaving in the morning also. I just paid €9 for a funny story.
We left Hostel Blues at 3 minutes after checkout and drove the one-hour to Brno. The speed limit is 130km/h along freeways here and the roads aren’t as good as Australia’s. We stopped into a servo on the Slovakia side where fuel was €1.795/L or $2.184/L AUD. Not cheap compared to the rest of the country, no wonder they all drive small cars.
At around midday we arrived in Brno, after a little detour thanks to the GPS. Dave’s friend Terezie from Czech showed us around for the afternoon. We went to the Spilberk castle; saw Petrov Church and she showed us some cool cafes. Terezie told us, the day before we arrived was the hottest day in Brno and Czech’s history, It hit 40°.
It was a, not so hot, sunny afternoon to be introduced to Brno and Czech people. I went and had coffee with Terezie again a few days later, after she helped me at the police station. In the afternoon I got a Vodafone simcard for Europe & had a few beers and dinner.
For my first night in Brno I had organized to couchsurf with Roxana from Romania. She didn’t get off work till 11 so she organized for a couch surfer to grab me for a beer. It was cool. I grabbed a tram and met her when she finished work. It was a good experience for my first couchsurf! We chatted about Romania and got to bed around 2. In the morning she cooked us an omelet and I left around 2. We caught up for beers at a bar on my last night in Brno as well.
Wednesday I checked into Hostel Fleda and it was shit. After staying in fantastic hostels in Budapest and Bratislava this was a 100% downgrade. There were no lockers, the wifi didn’t work, there was no fan or aircon in the room, and the lights didn’t work down corridor. It was a shitty place, which put a damper on the mood. It’s a bar first then a hostel. But I met 2 cool German girls on the first night who I went to the caves with on the Thursday.
Wednesday afternoon I messaged a Chilean couch surfer named Anibal and we met up for a drink. We ended up drinking at a brewery and ate some dinner there. One of he’s work colleagues from Czech joined us. They work in IT, as it seems most of the expat world does in Brno. AT&T is there along with IBM and some other smaller IT companies. It’s largely a student city as well but it was Uni holidays when I was there so we didn’t get to see the student bars/parties. It was a fun night and around 9pm I got back to the hostel. A short tram journey for 15 minutes is 20Kč or $1. I ended up not bothering to pay. It’s hard to find machines to buy tickets sometimes.
Thursday morning we took the train north for around 20 minutes to the Moravia caves. Because the next bus running to our destination was 3 hours away we walked a part way and hitched the rest. The German girls tried to get a ride but as soon as I put my thumb up we had a lift… weird.
The national park was nice and we probably walked around for over 3 hours. We saw some caves and nice scenery. I wouldn’t take anyone there. It wasn’t anything special but was nice to walk around in the forest.
Friday I went to the MotoGP!!! I had that alive feeling at the bus stop and as the bus arrived at the track! It wasn’t busy, and it seems the gates are a lot bigger and more organized than Phillip Island. I never had to line up to get into the track. They don’t check bags so it’s a lot quicker.
From the gate it was harder to work out where to go. The first thing you do when you arrive at any Gp, is purchase a program. It has all the information for the weekend: session times, maps: including where everything is, riders names and numbers, a little about the city and some fun facts. This is really helpful for the fans, unless the program is only in Czech and German. They wanted €8 for it and it wasn’t even in English??? As I spoke to more and more people over the weekend I wasn’t the only disappointed one. English is the universal language when travelling. Since I couldn’t rely on the program I tried to ask workers at the track how to get to the grassed areas to watch the bikes. They either didn’t speak English or said to leave through the gate and walk around into another gate. This was stupid as the track is massive and it would have taken over an hour. So I had another look around and found my way. The organization of the staff was even worse than Malaysia.
I made it to C area (it took an hour to find it) and watched the MotoGP free practice 1. Hearing the bikes in full force again gave me shivers. It’s always such an amazing sound! All weekend I sat in C area, which they call Prirodni Tribune, or banked areas. They call this the stadium section. From where I sat I would hear the bikes turn right into turn 4 and take off down the hill to the double right of 5 & 6. All this time I couldn’t see them, but heard their gear changes and acceleration. I could see them mid turn 6 and change of direction into the long left-handed turn 7. The bikes were closest to me when exiting turn 7. Then they would shoot down to the 90° left handed turn 8 without changing up gears. Some CRT’s would change up and back down for 8. They would then exit 8 into a 110° right, turn 9. Once out of turn 9 the bikes head down to the bottom of the circuit at the right-hander turn 10. I lost sight of them exiting turn 8 and would see them exiting turn 9 and accelerating down towards 10. It was a fantastic spot to sit and I wouldn’t hesitate to go back there again. We had 2 screens to watch from where I sat, which was 100m from the entrance of Tribune C near the top of the hill. On the Sunday it wasn’t too crowded. People could walk up the hill to the bathrooms or toilets no problem. At the Aussie F1 GP in Melbourne it was more packed.
All along the top of the hill had food, drink and merchandise stands. They had a Repsol Honda tent shaped like a bike with one type of Casey shirt and the rest Pedrosa or plain Repsol stuff. They had a couple of Repsol Honda bikes on show too…. Nice!
There was a Ducati stand with Rossi & Hayden merchandise as well as Factory Yamaha with Lorenzo & Spies. Pedrosa had a stand along with Simmoncelli, Marquez, Tech 3, Abraham and the Brno Circuit merchandise. There was a Die cast model motorbike stand, Marlboro, Red Bull, Streets Ice cream and Lots and lots of beer tents. The food stalls had Burgers, hotdogs, sausages, Street’s ice creams & cigarettes. The Aussie GP’s have more variety. Beers were 50 Kč/$2.50 each at the stand or if you bought them from the girls carrying them around the crowd they cost 55 Kč!! Cheap as!! They sold them in 500ml plastic cups out of a keg! Great set up!!! Burgers were 65 Kč/$3.25 and hotdogs similar.
On the Friday I didn’t meet anyone to hang out with. The hostel was useless to meet people and because it was Friday it was hard to meet any English-speaking people at the track. Lorenzo low-sided right in front of me in FP1 but it was such a slow fall it wouldn’t have hurt. He didn’t seem too pissed really. When he jumped the fence there was already a scooter there, which took him straight back to the pits. The bike stayed a little longer, although made it back before the end of the session. I wandered around the pit area for a bit, checked out the straight, Tribune F and the shops. It was a quiet day and I didn’t stay to watch the last Moto 2 Practice.
When I got to the city I messaged Melike who also invited me to stay on Couchsurfing. She came into the center and met up with me. I had already been talking to an English couple and 2 Aussie guys who were in Europe for a wedding and decided to come to the race last minute. Beers in town were around 37Kč/just under $2. As always in Europe so far, beer is served in 500ml amounts. Melike and I went to a Couchsurfing meeting for expats in Brno later that night. I had a great time. We met people from all around the world.
As I was walking into C are on Saturday morning I met Brian from Ireland. He had a Repsol Honda Doohan T-shirt on and a Stoner cap. I said I have the same shirt… Haha. We ended up hanging out for the rest of the weekend. He was camping 3km from the track. We drank large quantities of Beer together and voiced our opinions about Casey’s triumphs, Rossi’s “problems” and how Honda is the best bike in the World. We had some friendly arguments with some German and Dutch groups. It was really fun because he loves he’s bikes like me and just wanted to have a fun time! It was great!! The crowd was letting off fire works of all types, waving flares everywhere and blowing the horns, which seem to only be at the European rounds!! The bloke selling the horns wanted €9. I left it at that.
On the Sunday I arrived around the start of the Moto 3 race. I grabbed some food and beers and found Brian who had reserved a spot since 8:30 with a German by the name of Andre. Andre had rode 600km on he’s bike to see the race. He prefers it rather than Sachsenring because it is a lot cheaper for the weekend and it’s a good ride over. We watched the Moto 3 race, which was won by a mile. Moto 2 race was great and a close battle with Marc Marquez and Thomas Lüthi.
The MotoGP race was AWESOME. It starts at 2pm in Europe, unlike the Australian race which starts at 4pm. We’d had a few beers by this stage but not enough to be pissed. We grabbed some food and sat down for the Main Event!!
The start was great and there were a few up front for the first laps. Rossi was 5th I think at one stage but was passed by the Honda’s of Bradl and Bautista. We cheered really loud when Rossi was passed! It was so fun!! When Dani overtook Lorenzo for the first time the crowd was pretty stoked. Lorenzo overtook Dani on the last lap right in front of us. It was electric. Gavin Emmett said on the radio there are normally 50,000 fans in this part of the track!! Dani passed Loronzo 2 turns from the end and won the race by 0.178 of a second.
After the race Brian and I sat around for over 3 hrs on the hill and watched the Red Bull Rookies Cup while kicking back with beers.
My bag was stolen when we were chatting with a German father and son. The Old man couldn’t speak English but understood most things. It was funny. Once we realized my bag wasn’t coming back we made our way to the Paddock Restaurant. The night before Brian met Loris Capirossi. We didn’t meet anyone famous but stayed on drinking and chatting. I left at 9pm and had to get a taxi home as the busses were finished. We were literally the last people there. It was really cool.
I spent most of my time in Brno with Melike. She was fun & really nice and had spare time to hang out. She is from Turkey and studying Veterinary Medicine. When I checked out of my hostel she hosted me for 4 nights as well. She cooked some Turkish food and we went out for drinks together a few times. On the Sat and Sun nights Melike had 2 couch surfers. An Israeli guy was riding a pushbike around Europe for a month and a young Belgian bloke Nick who was hitchhiking around for a month. We went out for dinner and had drinks at the student accommodation where Melike was staying. The 2 Turkish girls Shuheda and Buse who we met at the Couchsurfing meeting also joined. They are lovely girls and are studying to be a chemical engineer and chemist. If it wasn’t for the GP there isn’t much to do in Brno for a tourist. It’s more a city for IT professionals and students. I wouldn’t go back.
- $1 = 21 kč
- CHESKA REPUBLICA: Czech’s way of saying their country
- Petrol was 39.60Kč or $1.885 per litre
- Shots here are 50ml and still cheaper than home
- There were bats flying around Roxana’s house.
- One lunch I had a Prosciutto Panini and an iced coffee cost 95Kč or under $5.
- Kebabs here are awesome… $6.
- Cappuccino 38Kč… the same as a litre of fuel.