van der merwes blog site

Today we moved away from the Elbe (and the Elbe cycle trail) onto local bike paths, as indicated on the Phone Maps app. The first section of the route, until Glöwen was alongside the road and easy. Then we turned off onto a bike path to Klein Leppin, and suddenly it became very difficult – on sandy roads through the woods. We decided to try changing our route when we crossed a quiet tar sealed road, which had few cars.

This road was really good for a while but unfortunately it didn’t last. The new road took us through Vehlin, Schönhagen, Döllen and Dannewalde. At Dannewalde the bike path turned really ugly again, with large cobbles and sand for a couple of kilometres to Schonebeck. When we emerged onto a main road (B103), we took it in exasperation for a smooth 12 km run into Pritzwalk. However, I was reminded that it is not really pleasant riding with cars overtaking at some speed every now and then, even if they give you enough space.

Pritzwalk was the largest town on our route, it was after midday so we stopped at a supermarket cafe /bakery for some coffee and cake. From here we were back on our planned route and the roads were generally good – we found cycle paths along roads or shared with cars on quiet roads.

The scenery was largely wheat fields, big sky, lazily turning wind turbines and small towns with neat brick houses. Every now and then we would met a big tractor or harvester on one of the more remote roads.

We enjoyed seeing some gliders taking off and landing on a field at Kammermark. There was a very gentle wind and it appeared to be ideal conditions.

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The one exception to the good roads on the second half of our journey was a few kilometres between Grabow and Frehne, which were very difficult again with cobbles and sand. This is particularly hard on the arms and hands and also not very good for the bikes.

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From Frehne we had a easy run to Meyenburg. In all we rode 77 km from Havelberg to Meyenburg through gently undulating landscape.

Apart from patchy and sometimes difficult cycle roads, another frustration was that the odometer would not reset. Kris tried to re-set it in the evening by removing the battery and now it doesn’t work at all. So we will have to find a bike shop again to buy another odometer.

The hotel in Meyenburg is called the Eisenbahnromantik hotel (romantic railway hotel) and is next to the railway line. There is a large historic steam locomotive out back (Dampflok BR 50 334, first in service on 25.05.1940) and the decor has a nostalgic railway theme. Our bikes are stored in a secure carriage on the train! There is a large cherry tree in the front of the hotel, which has really tasty ripe cherries at the moment.

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The rooms are beautifully decorated and we were upgraded to a huge suite after Kris made a comment about the road traffic noise.

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We had a good time in the afternoon drinking beer and chatting with the staff member on duty who has travelled in New Zealand a lot. We also had a good meal in the hotel restaurant in the evening.

We had another big storm with lots of thunder and lightening in the night – this seems to be a pattern for the weather, after hot muggy days.

There was loud thunder and a lot of lightning in the middle of the night again – the weather pattern seems to be oppressive heat building up during the day resulting in evening thunderstorms. This no doubt contributed to issues with a burst water pipe at our pension early in the morning. The only real effect on us was that we had to wait for our breakfast bread rolls to arrive around 10 minutes late. I felt quite sorry for our hosts as one of the other guests was a bit disgruntled by it all. None the less, we were managed to be the road by around quarter to 9.

Our ride today was 74 km from Kehnert to Havelberg (and another 5 km around Havelberg in evening). Our morning route took us through small villages all along the Elbe – Sandfurth, Ringfurth, Bittkou, Griebe, Jerchel and Buch. We saw more poppies, wheat fields and big round bales of cut silage in some of the fields.

We met an old man on a bike on the dike around 5km before Tangermunde. He lives nearby and was just having a ride around, enjoying the still cool morning – the wisdom he wanted to share was that the world is a beautiful place.

Tangermunde was a highlight, as it is very picturesque.
The cycle road directly out of Tangermunde is less scenic, as it passes by a semi industrial area.

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We then crossed the Elbe to the east side along a long bridge, after which we rode along the dike for around 15 kilometres. The quality of the paths on the dike varied but were mainly good.

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We rode past some sheep penned alongside the dike and were surprised to see two huge dogs guarding them. The dogs began to drag the sheep away from us when they thought we were riding too close and looked quite fierce.

We decided to leave the dike and move onto cycle roads across farmland – the roads became very arbitrary with some quite poor (sandy and difficult to ride on). We saw lots of cycle tourists early on, but not on this section. Maybe most of them were on the other side of the river. There are many alterative Elbe cycle ways, as the road we were on was also signposted periodically as “The Elbe Cycle Way”.

It was very hot at this point, and we had finished all our water. So we paused at Schönfeld (a small village) to ask an elderly couple if they could refill our water bottles. They were sitting on the porch of a little house with their dog – they say it is cooler in the house but they sit out every day.
From here it was not far to Havelberg – on a cycle road alongside a road with cars – not very exciting but reasonably easy.

We passed through Havelberg shortly after joining the Elbe cycle route in 2017. My memory of that day is that it was also very hot and we did not stop for long because it was so unpleasant outside in the sun. I wonder if this town is always baking at this time of year?

Havelberg is a attractive town, situated on the Havel river, near its confluence with the Elbe. Part of the town is built on an island in the Havel. Our pension is just before the bridge to the island. We were very happy with our pension, as we have a little apartment, with a kitchen, bathroom and comfy sofa. We went into town to buy some groceries. We also bought some new cheap shoes for Kris, as his old shoes are so smelly. It was lovely and cool in the supermarket. Once we left and rode around town, we immediately became overheated again. We found a cool-ish place in a restaurant alongside the river to drink a beer. The service was so poor we restricted it to one and came back to the pension to cool off again.

The weather changed quite rapidly at around 17h00 with lots of thunder and lightening, heavy rain and eventually even hail. We were glad to be indoors, and to feel that maybe it would cool down a bit.

Today was our longest distance on the trip so far, 106 km from Zerbst to Kehnert. At the end we still felt pretty good, though with sore knees! We started really early (just after 7 am), getting in a couple of hours before the heat of the day really helped. The route was also almost totally flat – the only inclines being getting up and over various bridges over the Elbe.

Our first two hours were through mostly wide open farmland interspersed with small villages – Niederlepte, Nutha, Walternienburg, until we reached Godnitz and the Elbe.

We haven’t done this part of the Elbe cycle way before, as we joined further north on our 2017 cycle route. There seem to be multiple versions of the cycle route that can be taken on this part of the Elbe (and on either side of the river).

We hadn’t had breakfast at the pension, so we stopped for coffee and a cheese roll at a local bakery and store at Pretzien. Many local people were also dropping by to buy baked goods, some also on bicycles.
We passed through Grunewalde and Schönebeck, which looked like a nice place but we didn’t leave the path to explore. Soon after Schönebeck, we saw our first stork nest of the trip. We remember lots of stork nests alongside the Elbe from our 2017 tour.

Riding past the city of Magdeburg was a highlight of the day – there are great views of the river and grand old buildings from the Elbe promenade, as well as a number of beautifully placed statues and fountains.

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After Magdeburg we crossed and stayed on the Eastern side of the Elbe, until Hohenwarthe where we passed back over the impressive Magdeburg Water Bridge. This is the largest canal bridge in Europe and spans the Elbe, allowing large commercial ships to pass between Rhineland and Berlin.

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We stopped at Wolmirstedt to buy some food for the evening meal, and also had a snack – as we still had a way to go and had to keep our energy up.

After this we moved away from the Elbe, as there were no roads beside the river, through Colbitz. And then along a relatively busy road (with cars) to Angern and finally Kehnert (back on the Elbe).

Our accommodation was in a small town (Kehnert), alongside a small 19th century (1804) castle. We were delighted with our beautifully decorated room. There was also a comfortable shared kitchen where we had our supper, and a fridge with cold beer you could buy (on an honesty box system). The people that run it are also keeping horses, giving riding lessons, and have a huge long term project on their hand renovating the castle and surrounding buildings.

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The typical German hotel breakfasts includes – a selection of fresh bread rolls, cheeses, cold meats, sweet and savoury jams and spreads, tomatoes, boiled eggs, yogurt, muesli, fruit, juice, coffee. When we have a hotel breakfast, it is one of our two main meals of the day – the second one in the evening once we have finished our ride. We find it is not a good idea to eat a big meal while still riding – the odd ice cream or slice of cake keeps my energy up. The breakfast at our hotel in Delitzsch was especially good – it had extra luxuries, such as slices of salmon and little dutch meat balls. However, it was the faces drawn on the boiled eggs that sent me back to my room for my camera this morning!

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Today we rode 74 km from Delitsch to Zerbst. There are several large lakes to the north of Delitsch. We asked for directions from another bike rider (all in Lycra) early on in our ride – at the Paupitzscher see. He helped direct us around the lakes, and even rode with us for a bit. The route he suggested was slightly longer than the one Kris had planned, but probably more scenic. It took us between the two big lakes – Großer Goitzschesee and the Muldestausee.

For most of these rides you cannot see the lakes very clearly, much of the time you are just travelling on good flat paths through a marshy landscape with patchy trees and bushes. We did however get some good slightly elevated views of the Grosser Goitzschesee, which was a highlight.

We were intrigued to see this huge camping ground on the peninsular of the lake. Most people seemed to be packing up and leaving, with cars already queuing and quite a few others coming past us with their camping gear packed on bicycles. Later on we saw that there were also a number of other camping grounds around the lake, including on the other side. A sign informed us that this was the Sputnik Spring Break music festival which took place over the holiday weekend (evidently 10,000 visitors expected).
There was a huge traffic jam of cars further on – quite unexpected.

The rest of our route took us through a number of neat towns, with the road crossing the Mulde river every now and then. The river was dammed and very wide at Friedersdorf (I asked thought we had reached the Elbe).

The reflections in the water on either side of the bridge at Jessnitz were really striking.

We rode alongside the Mulde river on a dike for some time, coming off it just a few kilometres before Desau.
We travelled through Desau (a small city) on dedicated bike paths. It has excellent transport infrastructure – with the central city street design separating trams, cars and bicycles. There are even separate traffic lights for the bikes. This made it really pleasant to ride through the city. We stopped for an iced coffee at a cafe in the centre, as it was getting pretty hot.
The rest of our ride from Desau to Zerbst was not very interesting. However the bike paths were good, being separate and alongside largely busy roads. We were away from the rivers now, moving through wooded areas alternating with wheat fields.

Zerbst is an attractive little town, and our accommodation (Pension Schlosswache Zerbst) is an old Castle guard house opposite the town hall (Rathaus). The nearby castle was destroyed at the end of WWII and only the eastern wing remains, now in ruins.

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As today is a public holiday, all supermarkets are closed. So we had to go and eat in a restaurant. We went to a very nice Argentinian restaurant near out accommodation. It has a large cool terrace and garden at the back and all the patrons were seated outside. We arrived relatively early, and there were only two other couples and a large family group present. We parked our bikes in the bike parking area at the back. There was already another pair of bikes there and Kris immediately noticed a cloth with a symbol (an iron cross and the word “Reich”) on the back “male bike”. This lead to our speculation about who this bike belonged to. We both had our money on the young well built blond guy with a brush cut and pretty girlfriend. The other couple were elderly and fairly nondescript, sitting quietly and hardly speaking to each other (like some long married couples you see in restaurants). Once we had finished our meal we had some more beers and were waiting for the younger couple to leave to confirm our expectations – they seemed very relaxed and kept ordering soft drinks, deep in conversation We were wondering if we could wait them out – how many beers would we have to drink before the young lovers finally left. Eventually the older couple got up, and confidently went over to the bikes, got on and left. So it was the harmless looking old man – and we had been totally unfair to the young couple! They were still there when we left.

Today is Pentecost (Pfingsten), which is a big holiday in Germany. Monday is also a public holiday, but the main day to celebrate and enjoy seems to be the Sunday. We enjoyed seeing the people out and about enjoying themselves as we rode through Leipzig.

The ride (from Zeitz to Delitzsch) was 80 km overall and relatively flat, mostly on dedicated bike paths, making it very do-able. Our hands were just still a bit sore from the long ride yesterday.
We continued following the Elster bike path for the first 40 km or so, which was mostly tarred. It felt good riding along at a steady pace, and even being able to ride side by side a lot of the time (because the bike path was so wide). There were few people out and about early on Sunday morning, mostly dog walkers.
We saw a wood carved man sitting on a bench right near the start of our ride, at Zangenberg. The man is Prof Dr Johannes Thienemann (1863-1938), an ornithologist who established the practice of ringing birds to study their migratory habits.

Our route went through Pegau and then around the two lakes to the south of Leipzig – the Zwenkauer See and the Cospudener See.

We started to see groups of people on bikes at the start of these lake rides (around 10 km before Leipzig). These increased, most coming from the Leipzig direction. At some points we couldn’t pass by slower cyclists due to the number of bikes on the path (kind of like a traffic jam for cyclists). There were whole families with little kids riding their own bikes and even smaller kids tied to the parents bikes, groups of young people, groups of older friends, couples, people with dogs on bikes. I counted three tandems (the only ones of the trip so far). It felt like every bicycle in Leipzig was out and about.
Looking through the trees around the lake we could see parked bicycles and people sitting on the shore or swimming.

When we got away from the lake and onto the canal path into Leipzig, the number of bikes did not ease. Now we also saw lots of kayaks and canoes on the river – and even more being set up alongside the banks. (unfortunately I failed to catch all this activity with my camera – we were so immersed in the hustle and bustle ourselves)

As we have previously visited Leipzig, staying for two nights in 2017, we didn’t try to do any sight seeing. We just wanted to pass through the city. This required a bit of zig-zaging and navigation to get on track going away from the Elster and heading to the north. The inner city infrastructure was reasonably good to navigate through with a bicycle. We moved off the Elster cycle way and onto the Saale river cycle way.

This field of poppies was just on the way out of Leipzig. We see lots of poppies alongside the road, but this was an exceptional display.

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We rode past another lake, the Werbeliner See, just before Delitsch. There were still quite a few other cyclists riding on the bicycle paths with us.

Delitzsch didn’t seem very promising as a destination as we approached. However it began to look better and better and we were delighted when we got to the town centre. There is a small castle and the town is surrounded by a moat.

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We walked around after checking into our hotel and drinking a recovery beer there (it was very hot). We looked at the various restaurants, drank a weisse beer at one of them, ate an ice-cream cone. Eventually we ended up in a Russian restaurant on the town square. It was very popular and we could see why – good food at reasonable prices (the borscht soup was excellent). The Russian saying on the menu (below) seemed to sum up the feeling of our evening.

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Today’s ride from Lengenfeld to Zeitz was satisfying, as we found some good bike paths and it was quite invigorating to do a long ride again – we achieved 95 km.

It was pleasantly cool in the morning and the bicycle paths between Lengenfeld and Greiz followed the Göltzsch river, a tributary of the Elster. The route went through Weissensand, Mühlwand and MyLau. We enjoyed the view of the MyLau castle from the bike path.

We had a bit of a climb through the fields to Reinsdorf and then a long downhill run to Greiz, where we also stayed in 2017. The town still looked just the same, bringing back memories as we rode through.

We crossed to the other side of the river, to follow a different path to the one we took two years ago. The trail now follows the White Elster river and is referred to as the Elster cycle trail on the signage. It took a romantic but slow path through the forest alongside the river. There were good river views and a wood carving alongside the bike path at Neumuhle.

The cycle route moved away from the river to Waltersdorf, Obergeissendorf, Berga and then a long stretch through the quiet wooded roads to Wünschendorf. We bought an ice cream at Gera, where we had also stayed two years ago. The ride became quite ugly after Salsitz, and we approached Zeitz past a large soap factory.

Zeitz has a small baroque castle, and a slightly run down historic centre. There are a number of empty buildings, including right next to our very basic, but friendly, pension. We self catered with a kebab/ pizza and some salads from the supermarket.

Today we only did 40 km, from Klingenthal to Lengenfeld. We have given up following the Czech/German border as the terrain in that direction seems to be getting too mountainous and it is slow going. So we are heading more north, to ensure we can reach Hamburg on schedule.

Although it was short, our ride was not all easy going. We struggled to find good bicycle paths the whole day. We found ourselves sharing the road with cars more often than not, in sharp contrast to the previous day. Thankfully the weather remains reasonably cool.

The first mishap occurred when we missed our turnoff at Zwota to Oberzwota and found ourselves on a long hill climb with reasonably fast moving cars coming past at regular intervals (and not much shoulder to the road). We pushed our bikes up the steeper sections instead of riding really slowly, feeling that it was safer with the traffic. This route was more direct and shaved a few km off our total intended journey. We took the opportunity to turn off from this road near the top, at the small settlement of Kottenheide. Kris could see some minor roads through the woods on his app, so we decided to use these to cut through to a bike path below. The first part of the road was very good. Then we turned off onto another side road and it steadily deteriorated, but we didn’t want to turn back because we have already traversed part of it. This was once a forestry road, but had obviously not been used for some time. There was a small stream running down the centre so we got all muddy, there was long wet grass and patches of nettles (very unpleasant), and then there were also a number of trees that had dropped across the path. I wouldn’t have gotten my bike through without help from Kris. He pulled some of the trees out of the way and lifted the bicycles over one of them. At one point the water/nettles situation was so bad that Kris took the bikes over a little ditch to the side of the path. It eased up after a couple of hundred meters and we were quite elated when we joined back onto a real bike path. This took us into Schöneck, the biggest ski resort in East Germany and the highest located town in the district (at 700m).

From here we travelled to Falkenstein, again finding that the bike routes indicated on the phone app were usually not on very quiet roads. We stopped here for an ice cream from the supermarket (1/2 litre of Belgium chocolate ice cream with huge choc lumps).

After Falkenstein, we got separated (Jenny didn’t see Kris turn off onto a side road), and Jenny continued on the busy road to Ellefeld, where she stopped to send a sms text and wait for Kris. We reconnected and continued on the busy road to Auerbach. From here we did find some quieter roads, through Rodewisch.

We had a funny incident at one point (near Rodewisch) where the bicycle route we were following on the app had to cross a small stream. We found a construction site at the crossing, where they were building a new bridge. Standing at the edge of the site, we were happy to see a small temporary wooden bridge over the stream. How thoughtful we said, as we set off to cross it – pushing the bikes down and up steep banks on either side. When we got to the reconnecting road on the other side, we found that it had been fenced off as a construction site – so we couldn’t get out! Kris was just starting to unbolt part of the fence (taking his bike tools out) when a man (who was silently observing us up till then), started yelling and waving at us from the other side of the bank to come back. We decided not to push our luck, so we turned around. At the bottom we spotted another crossing – a little weir, which was not too deep. We quickly rode through the water and found our way back to the road.

The bicycle route followed the railway track for a while out of Rodewisch. This was fine for a while but eventually disappeared into a large neatly mowed field (which was actually fine to ride on). Soon after this we gave up on supposed bike tracks, and did the last few kilometres into Lengenfeld on the road (which was not too busy).

Lengenfeld is a small neat town and our hotel is right on the central square – so we just cruised right up to it. It is a huge hotel and we are in an economy room right on a top floor – the lift went up to the floor below, with a little route to get to the top floor.
After cleaning up and doing the next day’s route planning, we went and had a beer at the hotel bar, before wandering around the square. Our eating options were an ice cream place, a kebab shop, a bakery and a pizza restaurant. A few people had bought ice creams and were sitting eating them around the fountains in the middle of the square. We decided to eat at the pizza restaurant – it was very pleasant sitting at an outside table and the calzone (folded) pizzas were good.

Today was an easier and more relaxing day. We did a shorter distance – only 43 km (from Aš to Klingenthal). Although there were still a lot of hills, they were reasonably graded (easier for cycling). It was also not quite as hot, with the forecast high only around 20 degrees. We didn’t even drink all our water!

We left really early, around 8am. We did our first 20 km in an hour, as the road was mostly downhill, on roads without much traffic. The main event during this part of the ride was crossing the border into Germany again.

We rode through Bad Elster – past a huge spa. (German towns whose name starts with “Bad” are spa or health towns). The next section of cycle way was brand new and luxurious. The sign says that it is funded by European Union funds for regional development. We saw these signs alongside a number of the new cycle ways between villages in Czech – but this is the first one we can read!

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The cycle way was alongside a railway track again after Adorf, to Markneukirchen. We stopped here, as we saw they had a tourist info office. They didn’t really have any useful information on cycling trails – it is evidently not a big part of the tourist offering in this part of the world. However we did catch sight of the worlds largest violin – in the musical instrument museum alongside the tourist office. This area is known for its violin makers, and a group of them built this beast. It is 4.27m long and the bow is 5.22m. It is takes three musicians to play it – one on the strings and two on the bow. You can see it on YouTube here – https://youtu.be/KetMm_70QmM

After Erlbach we got onto a long forest road (mostly uphill). It was very scenic and pleasant, with a good tar surface (with not too much bike pushing). We didn’t see another bike or car on this road – it was very peaceful.

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We rode past a huge, almost deserted hotel/ ski resort at Landesgemeinde – the area must be very popular in winter. Parts of our forest road were directly on the Czech border. At one point you could cross the border on a little footpath adjoining our road, with only a stone marking the border.

The tar surface changed to gravel near the top. The downhill road to Klingenthal was so steep that we got off our bikes and pushed them for part of the way, to save our brakes.

The town of Klingenthal is mostly known for its large ski jump (which we didn’t see as we were not keen on riding up the mountain). The town centre was very quiet when we got there. It felt like a bit of Klingenthal spilled over the border – we rode across and found a bunch of budget shops and a restaurant just on the other side. It seems that these exist to entice German bargain hunters – with a focus on selling alcohol and cigarettes. There was a lot more activity on this side of the border. The restaurant turned out to be nicer than I thought at first glance. It was busy, with everyone sitting on the veranda out front. We were keen to spend our remaining Czech currency (Korona), so we had a meal (goulash with the now familiar Czech style dumplings). We also bought some chocolate and sweets at the store.

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Our Gasthaus was a traditional German style country hotel – friendly and comfortable. We had a light meal and some beers at the hotel restaurant in the evening.

Today we had planned a shorter route, expecting heat and hills – both of which we got. In all, we did 47 km from Cheb to Aš.
We planned an early start at around 8 am, which didn’t happen when I took my bike out of the lock up and discovered a flat back tyre! This ended up delaying us until around 10.30, while we mucked around with the tire. First we took the tube out and couldn’t find a leak, so put it back on, pumped it up and left. By the time we were at the other end of the town it was flat again, so we took the tube out again, found the leak, but couldn’t find anything causing it on the tire. Kris used the expensive Swab inner tube we bought the day before and it immediately seated in the tire perfectly, with no bulges like the other tube. We decided to go and buy another two of these tubes before leaving – which involved finding the bicycle shop again. Bicycle maintenance is one of the the more frustrating aspects of bike touring.

The paths today were very varied. We had a lovely forest ride just out of Cheb, then a ride alongside a road with cars, past lots of wheat fields, then another forest ride to the border. I almost missed the border it was so obscure but Kris pointed the sign out to me. There was a German policeman sitting in a car on the other side with a dog. He seemed to be looking for something specific – anyway he was friendly enough.

We were following the Grunes Dach Radweg, but the first part after the border was actually also called the Eger Radweg, as it followed the Eger river. Some parts were directly on the river and others took us away through forests or green wheat fields – with quite a bit of climbing to and from the river (which is also the German-Czech border). At one point we started following a track on the wrong side of the Egar river – it became a real walking track – Kris checked his phone and we doubled back to cross at a wooden bike/pedestrian bridge.

It was also very hot – we took four bottles of water with us and stopped twice to ask for top ups from householders who were outside (one working in the garage). So in all we drank 8 bottles of water during our ride.

After Silberbach there were very long straight dirt roads – they did not follow the contour but went straight up and down – really cool going down but hot riding or pushing the bike up.

We crossed the border into Czech again on an forest path with a very small sign. We rode through the town of Aš before reaching our accommodation. It is a typical border town, a little seedy with crumbling buildings, lots of glass on the ground. It also has very steep streets – going down was ok but walking up the other side was taxing at the end of the ride.

We are staying in a Casino around 2 km out of town, basically on the border. We have stayed in all types of accommodation on our tours before, but never in a Casino. It is really reasonable – actually costs less than a youth hostel I looked at in Germany. Our room is big with a huge bath. You have to walk through the casino gaming area to get to it. It is “all inclusive” – which means that we can help ourselves to a buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And beer is included. We enjoyed sitting in the quiet dining area alongside the gaming floor and ate well (including lots of fruit). This would be one of our cheapest days food and accommodation.

Today we enjoyed an easier ride on Eurovelo 4 from Karlovy Vary to Cheb. Most of route was cycling along river, on good quality bike paths with fewer steep sections than previous days, so it was not so hard on the body. The route zig zagged along the bends in the Ohře river and between towns – so we ended up doing 72 km, even though the straight line distance should only have been about 40 km. The first part of the ride was through part of the Slavkov forest.

The bike path goes directly past the impressive granite Svatoš rocks, which are a national monument. Kris had to carry the bikes up a little staircase here and then we had to cross the swing bridge. The swing bridge was moved around quite a bit while I was crossing it!

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Coming out of the forest, we passed through Loket – enjoying views of the bridge and the castle directly above.

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We had an unplanned 3 km detour after Sokolov – we missed a turn off and ended up going up a steep hill around one an a half km. In the end we just turned and came down again. This was the major hill climb of the day (just keeping our hand in).

Kris had another flat tyre on his font wheel directly following our detour and we had a stopped to change it near a small closed up outdoor cafe (on cafe lawn). The cafe opened while we were still there and we got some ice cream and had a conversation with another cyclist who stopped to drink a beer. He is a retired German musician from Weimar, who loves Czech and regularly visits. He cites music and slower pace of life as key attractions of the Czech culture.

It was very hot again but a lot of the route was in the shade and we were able to maintain a reasonable speed – which keeps one cool. In the last 10 km or so we were cruising along at around 20-25 km per hour on tarred flat zig zagging bike paths to Cheb.

Cheb has a very lovely central town square. We located a bike shop and bought a new tube and found our accommodation, which is very spacious and close to the town square. It is not so easy to locate bike shop and hotel as tourist info marked them on the wrong places on the town map!

After showering and cleaning our clothes we spent quite a bit of time planning our route for tomorrow – we decided to hug the Czech border and head north.
We had a walk around the town square and an excellent meal (calzone, tagliatelle, salad, beer) at a place we spotted just off the town square.

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