Wednesday 20 July 2011

Czech Mate

Radebeul  -  Schmilka               67.9 kms        340’ ascent
We made a much better effort at getting away this morning having managed to buy a map locally and dispensed with food altogether! The tracks were well signed, well surfaced and we made Dresden without a hitch. The route continued along the river and avoided the centre of the city, which from our point of view was a very good thing. What we could see was beautiful – good enough for photos. Having nothing to eat was going to be a problem at lunch time but as luck would have it, we came upon a small food market on banks of the river and supplies acquired. 
As we rode further south, the scenery changed dramatically from the wide flood plain of the last couple of days, to steep sided gorge. I don’t know why we were surprised, but we were. Shows how bad our geography is! There was often the dilemma of which side of the river to follow as the track used both banks. Which side is best? It did seem as though lots of folk were riding in one direction, catching a tinsy winsy ferry and riding back on the other bank. And why should they not, except that they crowded our way! Not to be beaten, we crossed as well towards the end of the day and in a short time found ourselves across the border in the Czech Republic. For some reason this took us by surprise. (Probably because we hadn’t fully studied the route the previous night.) So unprepared were we for this event, that my confident expectation that the currency would remain the Euro was dashed when Alan commented on the advertised price of fuel. It was either very expensive or I was wrong. Guess what! I was wrong! Not a novel situation really.  The tourist office was entirely useless, so tired and totally bemused, we turned round and rode back into Germany to collect our thoughts and study what maps and information we had. What a dopey pair. So tomorrow the blog will be coming from the Czech Republic…………

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