14-29 deg C, fine and sunny the whole day with a slight headwind for some of the way
Ride: 74km; moving time: 4h29
Greg total: 915km
Wendy total: 899km
Walk G: 7km; total: 268km
Walk W: 4km; total: 247km
It is so nice to be riding ‘downhill’, ie. with the river, not against it. This is our second day following near the Elbe, but we haven’t seen that much of it as we’re often just inland from it.. However when we are alongside of the river it’s very calm and smooth as glass with wonderful reflections. The 74k ride was a bit on the lumpy side today and it took a fair amount of effort to keep moving. Throw in a couple of detours and a heck of a lot of fellow cyclists and we’ve got to admit it was a relief to see the end of it.
We had a water stop about an hour into the ride, then another at Litoměřice. About 11:30am we ‘stumbled’ across a path-side eatery that we thought only served beer and ice cream. When we used Google Translate on the menu board, we saw that one of the specials of the day was goulash soup, we jumped at the chance as breakfast today was a bit fancy but light on substance!
We stopped again about 16km from our hotel for a rest on a hard park bench under some lovely cool shady trees overlooking the river. Before we knew it, seven other couples had claimed the other benches and we were all doing the same, escaping the heat.
We finally arrived at our accommodation for the night a little before 3pm. It was self check-in, so we didn’t have to wait. We were emailed a code to get into the front door, and a code to get into the lockbox outside our allotted room - easy as. After putting the bikes to bed in their own shed, we unpacked what we needed to, put the batteries on charge and tried to have a rest. However a noisy aircon had other ideas.
So we gave that idea a miss and went for a walk to fetch dinner. We ate that in our room before Greg went for another wander. Wendy blogged, and tried to get someone to fix the aircon. But seeing it’s a Sunday there’s no chance of that. We’ll get used to it eventually. Decin has some lovely old buildings, some have been refurbished or very well maintained, but alas others are deteriorating at a rapid pace. They are all very large so it’s going to cost a fortune to get them back to their original state.
After a longer than expected day in the saddle, we were keen to see the light fade so we could too.
A motorised glider came into land in a paddock/landing strip next to the bike path
Fisher person (there’s 100s of them) on the banks of the Elbe River next to the glider landing strip
Some murals we saw at Litoměřice
Lunch venue at a bike path-side eatery near Libochovany, we had a bowl of goulash soup each
One of the nice paths today, there were a few others that were not very nice for the bottoms!
A different looking bridge
Room 11 - The Avengers at Penzion via Ferrata. We are the only room to have a balcony, small as it may be, and with an aircon that makes horrible sounds every 30 sec or so. Being a Sunday night, Buckleys chance of having it even looked at. Owners very apologetic.
We booked this 4-Berth room for the balcony and the aircon, but are only paying the 2 person rate
Our balcony and the view from it
Small but functional bathroom
Where the bikes are sleeping tonight, in their own little house
Děčín Castle
Ride route and stats
Our hotel
Our room = all 3 windows and the door/balcony
A climbing wall adjacent the hotel
Some of the buildings
This one needs a little TLC if you look closely
We suspect they are preparing this one for a Reno.
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