Line 600 has its die-hard fans and opponents among drivers. The pleasant thing is that it has a minimum of stops, but it also brings less pleasant matters. The first is the frequent jams by Globus. Because of them, it often runs along a slightly different route via Ostašovská street (on the route of line 14). The second is the high occupancy of people who often make a mess. The line is genuinely notorious for this. The third point of interest is the big difference between the services ending at Globus and at Bauhaus. The shift operating the Globus services has a 15-minute break here, which is usually enough to make up a delay. The shifts running to Bauhaus, however, have only a 5-minute break here, and that is often not enough. Fortunately, within one shift this is driven at most a couple of times in a row, after which there is either a transfer to another line or a break with one round skipped. At Fügnerova there is a 5-minute break between services in both cases, but it depends a lot on the traffic in the centre. A smaller jam was captured in the following footage too. It was, however, a very calm day (Sunday); the reality is sometimes much worse.
As we extricate ourselves from the fairly airy space of the Fügnerova terminal, we find ourselves in the somewhat darker 8. března street, lined with fairly tall old apartment houses, but also with the grounds of former printworks recast into new flats. Soon we pass the Liberec little chateau by literally centimetres and suddenly find ourselves in another airy space dominated by the Plaza shopping centre and the largest Liberec junction, Šaldovo náměstí. With the bus we split off onto a dedicated road shared with other lines, including tram lines, which directly adjoins the Plaza. After overcoming the Šalďák, the most complicated junction in Liberec, we again plunge into a narrow dark street between tall houses that remember much. One of them is the old post office, still the main Liberec post office today. We briefly glimpse the F. X. Šalda Theatre and the town hall, but quickly disappear at the stop under the bridge on Sokolská street. Beyond it we can again briefly glimpse the modern regional research library and, downhill, leave the city centre at greater speed. In doing so we pass an abandoned restaurant that counted as one of the best (Šnyt, originally Ambiente), the Avicena service centre, but also, for example, the interesting building of Lesy ČR (the state forests). We drive straight through the traffic-light junction, which only lines 28 and 600 do. It is a considerable speeding-up of the route to Růžodol, when we avoid the sections of upper Liberec centre that, for example, lines 12 and 23 drive through. We quickly whizz along Sokolská street in no-man's territory and already appear on the bridge over the Nisa, which at the same time sends us into Londýnská street. The former tram route led this way, though we no longer come across any reminder of it here. It led along the serpentines of Dožínková street past the same villas that are in place to this day, all the way to the Letka restaurant. That too has a rich history. Růžodol I is one of the busiest stops in the public transport network, but it also represents a small square with shops and apartment houses. Not far from here is the F. X. Šalda Grammar School, which generates a large part of the demand. Line 600, however, is not concerned with that; it just quickly whizzes past.
Just a little further on we reach a junction called, after its shape, the Snowman (Sněhulák) — it is several roundabouts in one. This space too has undergone enormous changes over the last decades. From a peaceful street heading to Stráž nad Nisou with a few houses around, disturbed only by the nearby railway, it has become a very busy junction next to the main through route of the city, and at the same time the entrance to the shopping and industrial zone.
At the Snowman we pass under road I/35 and right after it the railways towards Frýdlant and Hrádek nad Nisou, which run side by side here. The short hill we often climb more slowly than we would like, because traffic jams on the approach to the shopping centre are the order of the day here. Let us notice that the street separates the shopping zone from the village and recreational development in the form of allotments. What a calm place it must have been compared with today. I am honestly sorry for the remaining allotments, which have the rail and road exits from the city on one side and the largest shopping zone in the city on the other. At the first roundabout we take the first exit, by which we already get into the zone of the Géčko shopping centre, dominated by the Globus. It is worth mentioning that, to avoid the frequent traffic jams, drivers sometimes choose an alternative route from Růžodol along Zelná street on the route of line 14, coming out above the Decathlon by a little wood called Opičák. And when the situation is even worse, they even drive along the service area behind the shopping centre.
Roughly half of the services end at the Globus. The remaining ones must go back across the whole car park out of the OC Géčko zone. They must additionally pass the NC Géčko stop. The services that end at the Globus deliberately drive a longer route bypassing this stop. Soon two more roundabouts await us, with several shopping boxes around. Their greyness is disturbed only by the ubiquitous visual smog. Few notice that by the second roundabout we pass an inconspicuous little wood called Opičák, which serves as a peculiar oasis of original nature in this area. When I visit it, I really have the feeling of being in a wild forest somewhere in the mountains, even though I am within sight of the brisk shopping bustle. Beyond the Opičák the shopping boxes gradually turn into purely industrial ones, but all the more boring for it. Only on the left there still remain a few hectares of meadows and fields, across which the airport and the Ještěd ridge are visible. I think, however, that it is a matter of years before these too are built over. Along K Bauhausu street we turn off — where else but to the Bauhaus, where our journey ends in the car park.
Contributors: Boveraclub (historical records), Liberecká podniková (videos, proofreading), Tomáš Krupička Sr. (local facts) and others.
Project idea · Source code (GitHub) · Blog.