To Litoměřice

It’ll be a big day in the saddle today - 70kms.

Early breakfast was available and what a good breakfast it was! We packed and were on the road shortly after 8:30 for a chilly but picturesque downhill run back to Hřensko. Lovely forest on either side of the road gave way to the picturesque little town brightly coloured in the early morning sun.

We set off eastwards once more along the Elbe (the river is called the Labe here in Czechia) looking very pretty this morning although at various points along today’s ride it was worryingly low.

The bike path at this point is on the other side of the river so we rode to the ferry crossing at Dolní Žleb where, on seeing us arrive, the ferry captain emerged out of his cabin on the other side, wandered down to his ferry and chugged across to pick us up. It was a relief to get out of the traffic and onto a beautifully asphalted bike track on the other side.

So it was very pleasant riding into the city of Děčín with its castle high up overlooking the river.

We crossed a big bridge here festooned with hanging pots of geraniums and had a solid ride of 25 kms to Ústí nad Labem, lots of short steep hills along the way which were quite testing at times.

The Střekov Castle dominates the city skyline and it would have been interesting to visit it but my legs groaned at the thought of climbing an enormous hill.

We bought some morning tea at a corner shop in a riverside neighbourhood that looked very much like it was on the wrong side of the tracks, and rested on a bench looking out over the river. The bike path is very well used - cyclists whiz along regularly, as well as skate board riders and in-line skating is very popular here it seems; some of these guys whizzed past us, leaving us in their wake! Are we THAT slow?!

A short time later, we approached a huge river lock at Střekov where some sort of works were in progress forcing us to carry the bikes up a series of stairs and down the other side, then a further detour through a short tunnel finishing off with more stairs up. Interesting ...

It was a hard slog from here - another 25 kms to our destination. It is a hot day today. MF1 said later that it reached 27 deg C! With about 10 kms to go, we stopped for our picnic lunch along the river and enjoyed the break. The riding at this point was very bumpy, some of it on roads, some on riverside bike path that was unsealed, gravelly or sealed but lumpy with tree roots pushing up through the surface.

MF1‘s Sygic map app located our penzion via some steep cobble-stoned streets and we were pleased to arrive but only had time to unload our bags before charging off on our bikes to visit Terezín about 3.5 kms away.

The Terezín Memorial (Památník Terezín) is a small 18th century town, originally a fortress, but converted into the infamous Jewish ‘ghetto’ (concentration camp) for over 139,667 Jews during WWII; 33,818 people died here and 86,934 deported elsewhere like Auschwitz.

Although it was late afternoon by now, the memorial closed at 6 pm so we had a useful 2 hours to look around. It is a big area so I don’t know how we would have done it without the bikes; sometimes it was a good 5 mins or more riding between locations. There were few people around now too so towards 6 pm we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

It’s a strange place: it operates as a town rather than a museum although the museum buildings and exhibition halls which are housed in the ghetto school, or the barracks for example plus the ghastly crematorium, the railway siding where people arrived by train or were taken away - these all took up much of the area but in between was a penzion and a cigarette shop and a hotel for example. But I don’t think many people lived here; all the doors to everything were shut by 6 pm and the place emptied out of people.

It was a sobering visit of course, but very interesting and a first for MF2. Some excellent art work, but moving. In fact, some artists were brave enough to have their work smuggled out so that the outside world would know of the true horrors of the place. Of course, they often paid the price, with their lives ...

Back to town, we scarpered up to the main square (after getting some supplies and much needed water from a big supermarket) before the light disappeared too much. It is a very pretty town, one of the oldest Czech towns; it was founded around the 10th century and there are many beautiful buildings.

We enjoyed a drink here then back to our penzion for a much-needed shower before returning to the main square for dinner. Finally (!) to bed; my body is feeling it.

Cycling distance: 70kms