Our ways split

So there we were - it was Monday already and even though we covered 200 km's, the direct distance from where we started was just barely over the half of it - hence my love-hate relationship with bike roads. I realized that at this pace I had no chance of reaching the island of Ruegen, still a couple of hundred kilometers to the north, by Saturday.

The day started with a nice roll down to the Vltava river (Jan was laughing at us that we did not do it the evening of the previous there - we'd have had a wonderful camp ground - but then our stay at the hotel with the merry innkeeper was quite an experience). We were to take a ferry that morning - had we planned ahead. Reaching the ferry, we found out the first one was to leave only in couple of hours. It was here we made the decision to split our ways - Peter and Kalman contemplated on waiting for the ferry - but I was determined to carry on. Remember, the nice roll down the hill - now it was all the way back up, some 5 kilometers of pure torture. But then it all got a lot nicer - it became a fun ride, with a very nice road going next to the river, which turned into a lake - thanks to a dam. It were small towns/villages called Stranny, Belice, VVsoky Ujezd - then there was road around the town of Rabyne - offering a spectacular view of the lake, with small bays filled with sailing boats. As said before, Czechs seem to love to spend their spare time enjoying the outdoors...

After a quick call with Peter I found out that they also did not wait for the ferry, but were on the opposite side of the water - but we did not manage to meet. The road curved around the artificial lake and suddenly I was heading south - not good - only to be followed by a steep hill to the west - even worse. This led me a town called Davle, the meeting point of the Vltava with another river, the Sazava. The place itself was nice, but one could feel the proximity of Prague - the road became busy, trucks, buses and cars passing by. Here Jan came to my rescue: over the phone, he suggested an alternative route which would steer me safe of Prague. Even though I love the city, my goal, as alluded to before, was to reach the Baltic Sea, so there was not much time to spare with sightseeing - and Prague is not a city one just passes through. The only problem was - and this seemed to have been the theme of the day - that the alternative route was heading once again south - and, you might have guessed it - was over a steep hill. Jan recommended to use a Czech navigation system for hikers and soon I was in a deep forest, which is not really advisable for a heavy guy carrying two heavy bags - but somehow I made it through.

Back to civilization, I found a number of brown road signs - indicating something interesting close by - pointing me towards Karlstejn. And soon there I was, just below this amazingly well-kept medieval castle. While I did not go inside, I did risk riding to the entrance (which, by the way, is forbidden - one is only allowed to walk), but nobody seemed to care. Taking a few photos, I rode on, following another river, called Berounka. This led me to a town called Beroun - with medieval clock towers and gates, indeed very pretty. You see - the country is littered with castles, towers, majestic structures from the previous centuries. During the communist times, these were not always kept in shape, but there has been a lot of work done since to rebuild the country and hence there is a lot to see. Again, the Czech tourism office is not funding me for these statements - I was truly amazed at how rich the country is in treasures.

I was getting a bit tired - I remember that I went to a shop to buy some sparkling water and some bananas. Coming out, I realized that the water I bought was not sparking ('neperlina' in Czech) and that I had left the bananas I paid for at the cashier. The young cashier, who spoke perfect English, only laughed at me, saying someone must have taken my bananas. Oh well.

Managing to tank up some craft, I continued towards Lany (which in Hungarian means 'girl'), a very pretty little town. Here the president of the Czech Republic has a nice 'cottage', well, a castle, for himself, and the residents told me proudly he spends most of his summer weekends there. The soldiers guarding the castle were not all too pleased to see me and they would not let me in - surprise, surprise, I still managed to take a couple of pictures.

It was around 8 pm and the town has a lovely beer garden, where I consumed an excellent Czech beer with some cheese to go with it. This made me ride further, passing a museum dedicated to Thomas Garrigue Masaryk (TGM), the first president of the Czech Republic, then getting to a city called Smecno, with yet another castle, finally I arrived at the town of Slany. Being close to 10 pm, I decided to find a place to stay - it wasn't the nicest of all, but it was an amazing feeling laying down on the clean sheets after a nice shower.