Cabrio ride hints : from Passau to Český Krumlov

Originally my drive home from IntSaab 2012 in Spa, Belgium was planned differently. I wanted to do all the 1100km back home in one day on highways. But through the weekend I calmed down from the regular daily life stress and realised, that I should do it the convertible way.

I decided to repeat the fabulous drive through southern Czech Republic and Moravia. Something simillar to this way or this road. It's nearly a whole day ride and there wasn't too much time for experiments. So the last day I left Spa around lunch time and drove through Germany to Passau. The german autobahn and my 275 hirsched horsepower is a good combination. Passau, close to the Czech border is a good start.

The newly discovered part (for me) leads from Passau, crossing the Šumava National Park, leading to Lipno barrage and continues to Cesky Krumlov a beautiful town, an UNESCO world heritage site. Google maps offered three different routes, I chose the one below on the map. With the not very complete Saab built-in navigation maps I had to clicking around a lot but it was worth the effort. But better use the analogue way (paper map) or some more recent GPS gadget.

It's this way :

Larger map

The german part has a lot of narrow roads through the woods and between small villages. Less tourism and less cars on the road. From Passau it's up-hill, sometimes the road signs showed something else than I expected, but this is not a problem.

In the hills of the Šumava National Park is the german-czech border. This was once a very closely watched and nervous border. Today, in the Schengen time, the things are completely different. Hopely it remains so.

The czech part has roads in much better condition than expected, however much more full because this is a touristic area and it was summer holiday season. Also because of the trucks which want to mind paying the highway toll. But again, the V6 engine helps here. The Lipno barrage area is beautiful as the whole southern part of Czech Republic whatever route you take. Just stay out of the highway.

Than I continued direction east another ~450 kilometers. At the start in Passau it was 18°C in the morning, in the afternoon close to my home it was 38°C. Several hours later the news reported thunderstorms, so there was luck in the game. Well also luck is sometimes present and always needed.

Just hoping, this is not the last drive in that area. It's very recommended.