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Maybe it’s being born on and spending most of my living on an island, but there’s always something a little special about crossing a land border. Today I would be crossing from the Czech Republic into Germany.

But first I stock up on supplies and check out the main attraction in Děčín, a castle. It dates back to 1305 and, unfortunately, looks like it. It’s had many and varied uses, but the last occupants, the Soviet army, did not leave it in pristine condition. They are busily working on restoring it — from a distance it looks great — but there is an awful lot of work still to do.

Its lofty location allows views of the local area. One part that interested me were these residential buildings.

After looking around, I hopped back on my bike, across the river and towards the German border.

The level of formality at each border crossing varies a lot, sometimes crossings between the same two countries a few miles apart differ wildly. When in southern France, at one crossing into Italy there was an empty hut and a barrier that looked as though it has not been lowered for many years. A few miles south, on the coast at Menton, were huge gantries, border guards with guns and much inconvenience.

Given the level of anticipation it is, therefore, slightly disappointing that I nearly missed the crossing entirely.

The path was daubed with words in Czech which, after a small white line, change into German. At the right side of the path (as you cross from the Czech side to the German) there’s a small white block. On one side it says ‘C,’ on the other ‘D.’

Welcome to Germany.

After the border the river valley seems to widen, the sun comes out and the houses we pass immediately look more expensive than those I had been passing even a few hours earlier.

I stop in Königstein to see the fortress. As you would imagine, the fortress is on the top of a rather large hill. So hilly in fact that a comic tourist bus is not capable of going all the way to the top, meaning that I first have to switch to a smaller bus-train and finally to a gleaming steel lift that looks very much out of place on a thirteenth century castle¹.

The top is significantly larger than looks from the ground. There are houses, parks, wine cellars and magnificent views of the surrounding area. I’m sure I only saw half of what there was there to see, but time was pressing on and I needed to push on to my night-stop in Pirna.

Except for my chain falling off on a fairly regular basis (but mainly on hills), the cycling has become pleasingly routine. I don’t mean the views — which continue to be wonderful in the main — but the actual peddling. At the beginning of the week I had been worried that it would be too hard, but, in fact, it has been fun so far.

It’s less than a couple of hours from Königstein to Pirna.

Pirna is an old and pretty town, with a pleasant market square and a pedestrianised main street with the usual array of shops. I do not, however, spend a huge amount of time here. Instead I prepare for my last day of cycling, which will pass through Dresden and into Meißen.

This is the fifth of a series of posts about my cycling holiday from Prague in the Czech Republic, to Meißen, in Germany. See the index page for more details or subscribe to my RSS feed for updates as they arrive.

1. Apparently there’s a technical difference between a castle and a fortress. I gather Königstein started as a castle and ultimately became a fortress.↩

“I’m feeling… cold?”
“I’m feeling… miserable?”
“I’m feeling… that holidaying in Brighton in April wasn’t such a great idea?”

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Sponteneous.” I’m entry number 186.

I start the day with a quick look around Litoměřice. I return to the main square where I had dinner the previous night. Here the main feature is the town hall which has a chalice shaped watch tower on the roof, apparently used for meetings by local leaders. From the top — which just had to be climbed — there was a three hundred and sixty degree view of the whole area.

(If you’re getting bored of my attempts at panoramas you’ll be please to see that this is the last of this trip.)

The town has quite a history — it’s one of the oldest in the Czech Republic — but I don’t loiter as this is the second longest day of cycling, with 48km to go before my next hotel.

Fortunately it doesn’t feel like the longest day. There are a couple of reasonably steep inclines, but these are offset by long, very flat sections and enormously fun down-hill free-wheels. Even the steep parts would have been a lot easier had my chain not kept falling off.

One unfortunate thing about long cycling days is there are not a lot of photo-taking opportunities, so you’ll have to take my word for it when I saw that the scenery was fantastic.

Děčín itself — my night stop — is not the prettiest town that I’ve stopped in so far, but there’s a nice bar right next to the river which makes an ideal spot to write postcards and watch the sun set.

Tomorrow I will cross over the Czech border into Germany, a fact reflected in the menus provided at dinner later. Despite taking German at school I have very little idea what I am likely to be served, something I again seem to share with the waiters.

This is the fourth of a series of posts about my cycling holiday from Prague in the Czech Republic, to Meißen, in Germany. See the index page for more details or subscribe to my RSS feed for updates as they arrive.

In some respects this was a difficult day. Not so much the cycling I’m happy to report, but I did start the day with the worst hotel breakfast that I’ve seen in a long time. I couldn’t get out of the hotel and onto my bike quickly enough. Later in the day I would visit an old concentration camp, which was not entirely fun either.

But first I had a look around Mělník itself. Once away from the hotel, its breakfast and the busy major road that it was next to, the place had a certain charm.

The first port of all call was the church St. Peter and Paul and the nearby castle. The above panorama is looking out just near the church. You can see the Vltava River — the one I followed from Prague — meet the Elbe, the river that I’ll be tracking for the rest of the week. On the far left (and you can’t really make it out unless you really know where you’re looking) is a canal.

This is the centre of a major wine growing region and so, although still early, I found myself tasting some wines in a very dark wine cellar. I wasn’t complaining.

Leaving the wine cellar into the bright sun light I headed out along the Elbe towards Litoměřice, stopping only for a quick lunch in Roudnice. Well, I say “quick” but by now we’re all familiar with the way that Czech restaurants work!

Back on the bike, it only took an hour to reach Terezin, a former fortress turned concentration camp in the second world war. Every time I see something like this is affects me more than I expect, from Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, to sites in Vietnam to this. The sheer clinical inhumanity is still almost unbelievable.

Although Theresienstadt (as it’s called in German) was not an extermination camp, many of its prisoners died due to malnutrition or disease. There’s a large cemetery just outside the fortress to commemorate those losses.

In silent contemplation I press on to Litoměřice where I’ll spend the night. Tomorrow I’ll be having a look around before pressing on to Děčín.

This is the third of a series of posts about my cycling holiday from Prague in the Czech Republic, to Meißen, in Germany. See the index page for more details or subscribe to my RSS feed for updates as they arrive.

As the first day of cycling there’s an argument that today should have been easy, just to get everyone into the habit. But no, on a week where the average length of ride is 46km, today would be 50km. And that’s 50km with two steep up-hill bits, not 50km all flat or down hill.

Or at least it would be once the bikes arrived. Although scheduled to appear around 8.30, the mini-bus transporting them failed to come until well after ten meaning that I didn’t get under way until after eleven.

As luck would have it, the riding was easier than I had feared. After a small amount of riding on roads, I got to the Vltava River, turned right and followed its path. Most of the day would be by its side, with a few detours to avoid dangerous (or overly steep) parts of the track.

After London and Prague, it was good to get away from the big cities. Pulling up to a junction there are no cars and beyond the road it’s pretty flat as far as the eye can see, which means that I was very lucky to find the hill I just had to climb.

Similar luck extended to the flat tyre and the rain that started just as it was being replaced. I sheltered in a bus stop until it passed which was, fortunately, not long.

In the afternoon things went better. Shortly after lunch I passed through a town and this building which is very much in the style that I would expect of a Communist era block of flats. Unlike what I saw in Prague, this building was not in great condition. Smashed windows and graffiti were everywhere.

I then return to the river and continue until the turning for Melnik. Here I find the second major hill of the day. I make a valiant attempt to cycle all the way to the top but lack enough traction (and lung capacity) to complete the task and end up walking until the fields at the top.

From here is was a straight-forward roll straight into Melnik, or at least the outskirts of Melnik where the hotel was. Tomorrow I have a look around the town itself and head on towards Litoměřic.

This is the second of a series of posts about my cycling holiday from Prague in the Czech Republic, to Meißen, in Germany. See the index page for more details or subscribe to my RSS feed for updates as they arrive.

I actually had plans to visit Prague on my previous visit to Continental Europe but the various transportation options didn’t quite work out, meaning that this was the first time that I’d made it to the Czech capital.

My visit here was the bread to my cycling sandwich. I started and ended my trip here, so the pictures that follow were taking on two consecutive weekends, over three days.

The hotel was five stops on the metro system from the city centre, so the first stop of the trip was Kobylisy station. Impressively large, bright and clean compared to what I’m used to in London.

Alighting at Muzeum, I found myself in Wencalas Square. When I arrived it was forty years since the ending of the Prague Spring, when Russian tanks rolled in to end a more liberal reformist politician. Outside the National Museum was a tank with large speakers making rumbling noises. Nearby were posters, mainly in Czech or Russian, from or about the time.

At this point I had really just arrived and did not know Where Stuff Was, and so randomly chose to head south. The first thing that struck me was that it looked more affluent than I was expecting, more so than Warsaw for example.

The second thing that struck me was a tram. Well, nearly. Everywhere you go there were trams and tram lines.

South, it turns out, probably wasn’t the best option. I head towards the river and stumble across The Frank Gehry Fred and Ginger Dancing House before heading back up towards the Charles Bridge (Karlův most).

The bridge itself was a bit of a disappointment in all honesty. I’m sure it looks great, but between all the building work, artists, vendors and large throngs of tourists it was difficult to make much of anything out up close. Oddly this was the exception. There were clearly a lot of people around, but Prague generally kept a much more laid back vibe. Certainly the service in restaurants and cafes was so relaxed that at times it became non-existent!

I cross and head up towards the castle. This side of the river is older (very much like Budapest) than the other. Still, it’s all relative. I forget who said it, but it’s worth noting that Prague’s new town was founded in the 14th century.

The view from the top is impressive. The whole town can be seen from here, the churches, bridges and the Vltava, the river that I’ll be following by bike for the next few days.

Also in this area I managed to see the changing of the guards outside the palace. It was probably the quickest, least formal change over that I’ve seen in a while. I never thought that an ex-Communist country would be less formal than a Nordic country.

The weather on my return at the end of the trip was better. It was nice to see many of the same sights but in bright sunlight rather than oppressive, grey cloud.

I was impressed by the astronomical clock, although the sequence played out on the hour was a let down after the beautiful dials and carvings.

The last day I just spent bumming around. I went up the clock tower and, generally, sat around eating and drinking. As I mentioned earlier, the latter two activities take some time here and the results were variable. We’ll see more of this as the week progresses.

Overall I really liked what I saw of Prague. It’s compact — definitely walkable — with a lot to see and a relaxed atmosphere.

This is the second of a series of posts about my cycling holiday from Prague in the Czech Republic, to Meißen, in Germany. See the index page for more details or subscribe to my RSS feed for updates as they arrive.