The Czech Republic

Since most of our tours focus on the Czech Republic, here are some facts about the country:

… it has 10 million inhabitants and is roughly the same size as the American states of South Carolina or the lower peninsula of Michigan. It lies in the very center of Europe and borders Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and Austria. The countryside is diverse and consists of rolling hills and plateaus surrounded by low mountains. Geographically, much of the Czech landscape is similar to the northeastern United States.

Evergreen (mostly fir but also pine and larch) and mixed deciduous-evergreen (oak, beech, birch) forests are spread throughout the entire country, and mountain ash, apple, Lombardy popular, and linden trees as well as apple and cherry trees line the roadways. Major agricultural crops are wheat, potatoes, barley, hops, sugar beets, and fruit (apples, pears, cherries, apricots).

The Czech landscape is a real hiking and biking paradise - hilly enough to provide pleasant scenery and a moderate challenge, but not so demanding as to require a high level of fitness.

Just a Few Interesting Facts:

• There are more castles per square kilometer in the Czech Republic than anywhere else in Europe.
• Hiking trails and marked bike trails cover all parts of the country, making it one of the most extensive networks in the entire world.
• Czechs have the highest per-capita consumption of beer in the world.

Czechs are crazy about sport, and Czech athletes are world famous. Hockey is the national sport, and more players in the National Hockey League come from the Czech Republic than any other European country. Famous players include Dominik Hasek and Jaromir Jagr. The other major sport is football (soccer), and the Czech national team performs at a world-class level. Czechs also excel in tennis, and are second only to the USA for the number of citizens that have won Grand Slam titles (for example Ivan Lendl and Martina Navratilova).