Day umm 4, to be spent driving uninsured through the Czech Republic. I wasn't sure at this point why the hire car company doesn't cover Czech in the insurance but oh well.

Very soon after crossing the border, things were starting to look very, well Czech-like. And much like when Katie and I did a bit of Central Europe last New Year's, every man and his dog stares at you drive past in your flash car (also not used to tourists in these parts maybe). I can understand them staring when you park your car, get out, and take photos of their houses, but not when you're simply driving past! I've done Prague before but that's all I'd seen of the country.

Nice wee Czech village in the middle of nowhere (known as the 'podunks' in America I learned).

70km/h to 50km/h to 30km/h, all within pissing distance - not confusing at all.

Some of the roads were bloody fantastic to drive. Narrow, hilly, winding; passing cars coming to within a pubic hair of your own (I still hadn't clicked why the insurance doesn't cover us here hehe).

Overlooking what was our first of three stops in the country...

...Litomerice (or Liquorice - gotta remember these complicated placenames some how).

This is one of the oldest Czech towns, founded in the 10th century, and today has a population of 25,000. This is the main square of the town. Not bad, not bad at all.

That, is a sweet doo!

We were rather interested to see a shop selling rollerblades when the cobbled roads and pavements aren't exactly conducive to skating, but hey, a Czech's gotta make a living!

Czech food!

After a quick meander we left Liquorice for stop number two, where we left the Gutless Wonder in a parking building which had a few cars in it that looked as though they'd been sitting there for a decade or two.

Karlovy Vary, this place blew me away - absolutely beautiful spot! I picked our Czech stops in advance but we really knew nothing about them. Good tip if you rock up to a place knowing nothing of what's worth seeing: go find some postcards and go find whatever's on them - if it's postcard-worthy it's probably worth seeing, and that's exactly what we did here.

Karlovy Vary featured in the James Bond film Casino Royale. We spent a couple hours wandering around the centre of town, and yeah, I was thoroughly impressed! The buildings, the surrounding hills, the river running through it, the open pedestrian streets - very cool wee spot!

And the 50,000 locals would seem to agree, several of them just chilling out around the town.

Especially this one ;)

Street artist's work of the town - nice!

So nice is this place the urinals even have lemon and lime in them hahaha, nice touch!

The Mill Colonnade, one of the traditional symbols of the town.

Karlovy Vary is famous for its hot springs. In the 19th century it became a popular tourist destination, especially for international celebrities visiting for spa treatment. There are several springs throughout the town (the Mill Colonnade above has 13 alone). All the locals have these drinking mugs which they fill up at the springs, and sip on them thinking it'll help them to live forever or something. We filled our drink bottles instead, but it's something of an acquired taste to say the least hehe.

And stop number three: the tiny village of Loket not far from Karlovy Vary. It has a cute name, and it's a cute place :) Loket also featured in Casino Royale, used to portray Montenegro.

12th-century Loket Castle, one of the oldest and most valuable historical stone castles in the Czech lands apparently.

We stayed here for dinner (wood-fired pizza, yummy!). After that we piled back into the Gutless Wonder, and I soon realised why the insurance doesn't cover the Czech Republic. From here we were to drive some two hours to Nuremberg back in Germany where we planed to stay for night. However, we came across two major obstacles just outside of Loket: 1) the roads around there are brand new and didn't match up with the maps on my GPS (nor the maps in the Gutless Wonder's inbuilt navigation system), and 2) the main arterial motorway out of Czech and back into Germany was closed! I've no idea why it was closed (I'm now wondering if it was even completed) but regardless we spent a good half hour driving round in circles trying to find a main road out of there, and the lack of any diversion signs didn't help. What followed was an hour of me navigating us from tiny village to tiny village in the dark in an attempt to reach the only main road I could find on my GPS that looked as though it could be of any help at all. Good plan, except we came across road block after road block after fucking road block due to extensive roadwork in the area, and it was fast shaping up to be a long night. Every new village I would subsequently route us towards took us down roads that got more and more dodgy by the minute. Completely unsealed and narrow dirt tracks in the middle of pitch-black forest in the podunks of the Czech Republic with no other traffic or people or anything around; just the three of us relying on me, the Gutless Wonder, and my GPS with no insurance or breakdown assistance if something was to go wrong (four punctures were in the back of my mind hehe). Katie then thought this was the perfect time to ask if we'd ever seen Wolf Creek - the true story based on the British backpacker who disappeared in the Australian outback in 2001 with his girlfriend and is now presumed dead. Thanks Katie ;) Eventually, after what was something of an adventurous drive, we reached the main road I'd been aiming for and sure enough it took us the rest of the way. We parked up in Nuremberg at 1am.