From the Mountains to the Sea: Inching our way through Bohemia ...

... this being the region of Czechia we are riding through.

Weather forecast not ideal today: cool, cloudy and showery.

We will be heading north west to pick up the bike trail along the river to Nymburk. It is a small town; Melnik to the west is where we caught the 3 trains the other day to Vrchlabí (to go up to the Krkonoše Mountains). But we won’t be near any mountains; the trip profile for today shows a gradual downhill. We’ll see.

Very good breakfast but we called into the nearby supermarket for some fruit - something not served routinely at breakfast here.

Before leaving Kutná Hora, we want to visit the Cathedral of St Barbara - easier said than done. I asked a young couple walking along and got very good instructions in English but meanwhile the 2 MFs had charged off ahead - in the completely wrong direction. I waited for them to return which took a while...

The young couple had said it was a fair distance away and up a hill and that there’d be lots of signs. They were right re the first 2; not sure about the signs - what are we missing re the language??

Anyway, the hill was an absolute heart-starter - or should I say heart-breaker?! Steep! And it went on forever!

We still fiddled around at the top looking for the Cathedral - I mean, the thing is immense! How difficult can this be!? It was starting to spit rain too.

Anyway, there it was, in all its splendour, just over the other side of the hill, all flying buttresses. Apparently it is the most spectacular Gothic cathedral in the Czech Republic, a land noted for its Gothic cathedrals.

We took it in turns to go inside whilst keeping an eye on the bikes. As we left, David was amused to hear a tour guide saying the beer here is cheaper than mineral water. In fact it is costing a bit under $A2 for a 500 ml glass.

We cycle back out of town the same way we arrived yesterday - past the Philip Morris factory with its smell of tobacco; and over the railway lines again carrying the bikes!

This is what they expect pedestrians to use to cross the railway track !! What were they thinking??

We turn off at Svatá Kateřina a few kms away although I did say we are going via Kolín so what’s this St Kolín you want to ride to? Who is St Kolín I asked (joke!)? I don’t think St Kolín is the same as Kolín, I suggest...

But we went that way and of course the 2 are not the same; furthermore, a bridge was blocked at St Kolín - we weren’t the only ones having a problem here: there was a truck trying to make a delivery and the driver looked very frustrated! At least we could get through on a cycle path we back-tracked to!

Lost again!

We had good road to Kolín beyond that (the proper Kolín) but we hit (literally) some railway lines as we approached the town and on the 2nd one my pannier came off. Luckily no cars following behind at that stage or I would have ended up with a squashed pannier!

Kolín is a very pretty town with a lovely main square and an immense Gothic (!) cathedral looking over it (St Bartholomew). Sadly it did not open until 3 p.m. and as it was by now 2 p.m. (we had stopped just before the square at a very nice cafe for coffee and delicious honey cake with icecream - yummy!), we decided to keep going. Anyway, it was starting to rain and it was very cold; I put on an extra top.

We had a bike track after exiting the town for a short time; it then deteriorated into a really crap track through woods by the river; the only redeeming feature was that the trees offered some protection from the rain.

It was a relief to hit asphalt again and we had a pretty ride (although very wet - the rain was really coming down) on excellent bike path into Poděbrady after Velký Osek (where we changed from train 1 to train 2 a few days ago on the way to Vrchlabí). Poděbrady is a spa town and is quite stylish.

We had coffee here looking out onto the huge equestrian statue on the market square.

We finally got to eat our picnic lunch (late - 4 p.m.!) keeping warm with the blankets the cafe had draped on the chairs (a la Muriel’s around the corner from us at home).

10 kms to go to our stop for the night at Nymburk - excellent bike track and very pretty along the river with trees in autumn colours and so we fanged along, the light fading. We probably got in about 5 p.m. but the clouds and the shortening days contributed to the gloom of the late afternoon.