The kids spent the weekend up at the cottage with their grandparents, their great grandmother, their aunt and uncle and 3 cousins, the youngest of whom was celebrating his 2nd birthday. The wife and I stayed home and worked, and just went to pick them up this afternoon.
Middle of Bloody Nowhere, aka Konětopy
It was a lovely day for a drive and on the way up traffic was light.
One thing you should know about Prague. Although it is a big city, it is populated mostly by villagers. People grow up in small towns all over the Czech Republic and then come to Prague to go to University or to get a job. On weekends they all go back out to Smallville and Prague is pretty much left to the tourists. So, the freeway leading out of Prague Friday afternoons is packed, and coming back into Prague Sunday afternoons is always packed.
Today was no exception. As we drove up we saw the clot, a line of autonotsoverymobiles about 5 kilometers long, heading in the opposite direction. So, we were expecting it on the way home and got off the freeway one exit before we would have run smack into the back of the pack, thinking we’d be clever and take a nice, relaxing drive along the back roads.
At first, things went beautifully. At the bottom of the exit ramp, we had a choice. We figured it wouldn’t matter if we turned right and then left or left and then right, either way we’d be paralleling the freeway. So, as the bulk of the traffic went right, we went left and had the road pretty much to ourselves.
We turned right into the lovely town of Luštěnice, or what we thought was Luštěnice. What a lovely little planned community, we thought, as all the houses looked exactly alike, little vacation bungalows (which may be what they were). The road went in, but all roads out dwindled into forest paths very quickly and we had to backtrack. Then we got to the real Luštěnice, a more typical Czech collection of brick and crumbling plaster homes set too close to the street, but at least there was a road out of it.
It was a very pretty drive, heavily forested for much of the way which was fortunate because every time we came out of the trees, the glare from the sun in the west nearly blinded us, making driving quite dangerous.
We crossed back over the freeway and saw a sign that said Prague, but we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. After driving through 4 or 5 villages with unpronounceable names and getting stuck behind a tractor and a cart full of grass, we finally asked a couple of young men directions in the town of Konětopy.
“Prague?” They looked at us as if it was the strangest question in the world and then directed us back to the freeway.
I felt as if we’d accidentally stumbled into Brigadoon.
www.gurukalehuru.com 
Chicago was like that, and so is NYC: getting out without a major hassle is a matter of time and place. I leave NYC around 7:00 at night, after the “stoopid” has tapered off. I prefer driving at night, anyway.
As to your misdirections, and in all earnestness, wasn’t your wife with you? Isn’t she from the area? Do they have GPS over there, assuming you have one? Did you have a map?
I can’t imagine not knowing where I’m going, or having means of finding out, particularly if this is the first time I’m heading over the river and through the woods to grandma’s house. I’m all for taking the road less travelled, but not without a map, a compass, and a solid identification of landmarks.
Getting lost can be fun. At the very least, interesting.