Our apartment has been great: spacious; David had his own space on a mezzanine level. Kitchen with everything including kettle, making it easy to boil water.
Quick walk before breakfast to the main square again. Overcast and cold - 12 deg C today; the temperature has really dropped. But still sunny. Maybe summer is truly over now?
Slow getaway and mixups with navigation getting out of town. Argh!
Finally got going properly and had a mix of bike paths, sealed and unsealed, plus roads some of which were busy! Great bike track (but with strong head wind!) into Pardubice along the river - popular! - and the locals were out in droves. Beautiful historic centre here and we had a very expensive coffee in the main square, breaking my rule: don’t have coffee in the main square!
Back on bike track then road with traffic quite aggressive at times. I usually sit at the back and turn to look over my left shoulder to give drivers approaching from behind the ‘death stare’. Lots of Škodas here in Czechia - it is a Czech company.
More navigational errors getting out of Pardubice - we ride the same section 3 times plus a nice forest section through to a dead end in an industrial area - not particularly useful. Finally, back to the river for one last try; the yellow Eurovelo No. 2 signs that we have been following here in Czechia really eluding us here; the route was actually up over a single-lane bridge - on the other side there was the bike track snaking away, in all its glory.
Off-piste through forest into Přelouč hanging onto the handlebars grimly on the rough single-track. We had lunch at a pub in town here; I think the staff were nearly finished as it was 1:30 pm so we were very lucky; we hadn't seen anything else open and we were tired and hungry. We ordered 3 kofolas and 3 rajská knedlík těstovinas (tomato beef dumplings). We are sure getting our fair share of Czech dumplings!
Afterwards, we rode past a couple of ponds, then busy, busy road through to Chvaletice where we turned off to Kutna Horá, well-known for its silver mining (13th century) and the Sedlec Ossuary (Kostnice).
The roads and tracks along the way have been littered with plums and apples, as on the other days here in Czechia. We pass back and forth by the Elbe river, the railway line at times following the same route; we hear and see trains often - obviously a very busy transport network.
Coming into Kutna Horá, we passed a big factory - Philip Morris. Smoking is BIG in Czech. The bridge into town was closed and the pathway pedestrians were following ended up at a set of gigantic stairs - we were going to take our bikes up there? I don’t think so! So we carried, shoved, pushed them over the railway lines - up and over metal tracks at least 6-8 inches high... Another exhausting obstacle to add to our challenges!
We visited the Sedlec Ossuary - aka the Church of Bones. Weird. Also, the Cathedral of Assumption of Our Lady and St John the Baptist was interesting.
We managed both of these before closing at 6 pm. It is cold! Really chilly. We were also by now very tired and as darkness closed in we found our hotel (literally: it is a pub) where we are staying the night. It has food so we will not be venturing out tonight thank goodness - we enjoy our showers and look forward to a couple of drinks and dinner! The waitress said - ‘no beef, no pork, sorry!’ That only left chicken - and chips!
Cycling distance: 87 kms (including mistakes ...)
Oh dear - a tough sounding day!
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