Day 9 - Boats, Libice and Vlačeks!

Monday we had lessons in the morning which went well, followed by a trip up the river to the village of Libice and Cidlinou.
We boarded the boat Král Jiři at 3:30, which took us on a nice gentle trip up the river, under the rickety boat and towards the village. It dropped us off at a restaurant placed randomly among the forest along the bank of the river, right at the confluence of the rivers Cidlina and Elbe which was a very pretty view.

After being hurried off the boat we walked 2km upriver to the village of Libice and Cidlinou, which is one of the oldest settlements in Bohemia. There are some very exciting foundation stones that show us that the Slavic people first came in around 900AD, and for many years was the centre of Slavic rule in the region. Despite the clear excitement in the interesting stones in the ground, I was pretty keen to get back to the nice restaurant on the river and have a sit down!
Being ignorant I'd misread the information about the day so thought that we were, somehow, travelling back to Poděbrady from the mysterious tiny settlement of restaurants by train - but surely this couldn't be!

Oh no indeed it couldn't. Instead we were picked up by a vlaček, aka a road train! When it came trundling around the corner ringing it's bell I temporarily turned into a 5 year old again and was SO excited!

The vlaček!!

Our journey home took us back through the forest, and it was all going swimmingly until about half way back - 4km or so in - I asked Michael where his bag was and he realised he'd left it at the restaurant... Cue everyone trying to stop the vlaček so he could get off and run back! Two or so hours later he eventually rocked up at the kolej with his bag safely back in his care. Very funny, and classic Michael.