Despite living in Prague for the last 5 years I’ve not ventured out of the city and into the countryside as often you’d think. Which is surprising really because I love nature and the Czech countryside has lots of it. Beautiful vast landscapes that I’ve barely witnessed but heard about. I decided it was time to change all that so I booked a short stay on a Czech farm with lots of horses so I was told, although in all honesty horses kinda freak me out a little. They look at you like they’re watching you out of their peripheral vision. If an actual person was doing this you’d think they look untrustworthy, which I can only guess is why I feel the same about horses.

It makes no sense really because I’ve never come across an unfriendly horse. Even while staying a summer on a ranch in Canada. I think it’s just the sheer size of them too. Although ironically I’d love to ride one properly.

The only time I’ve ever done this before was in a desert in Utah. The horse was called Chocolate and kept stopping every ten minutes to have a turd, as did all the other horses. Because we sometimes had to ride one behind the other, all the horses would then walk through it. We never picked up any speed, it was more like a gentle stroll, a lazy shuffle pleasantly plodding through poop.

It felt good to be back in the mean machine, driving on the wrong other side of the road again. It was an hours drive to the farm, assuming we would find it ok. Where would we be without or mobile phone maps ey, we’d have to have those bulky sat navs back on our dashboard or worse, having to use an actual map. Unbelievably I found a map down the side door pocket. ‘Yeah I shan’t be using that.’ I thought.

The part of the farm we stayed on had it’s own entrance and that’s where to park the car the owner said. Even the view from parking the car was great. Once inside it reminded me of an open plan converted attic. Which, I suppose, is exactly what it was, but there was plenty of room in there, and the fact it had a log fire in the centre for extra heating felt like the icing on the cake. It really was a great place to stay and great value too.

Sadly I didn’t get to ride any horses. Instead we just gave them some apples and played a game of hop skip and jump to avoid another walking in turd story.