After fretting about my level of fitness and my ability to do the cycling less than a week ago it’s odd that I am now feeling sad that today is the last on a bike. And there’s not even much in the way of difficult terrain. It’s 46km mainly on good cycle paths and a little on roads.

The plan is to cycle from Pirna, stop for lunch in Dresden and spend the night, the last in Germany before heading back to Prague, in Meißen, a town famed for, well, we’ll get to that soon enough.

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.

• Yummy Version 1.0.2 – New version of my Delicious client for iPhone now available. Mail bookmarks and some bug fixes.
• The Fear – “Here is a complete list of what Apple must do to increase developers’ trust in the App Store system: 1. State the rules.
  2. Follow the rules.”
• Say “No” to 42 days! – Sign the petition against the bill that will give the British Police the ability to lock people up for 42 days without charge.

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.

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.

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.

• Protect The Human – My favourite charity launches a new website.
• Artist Builds Temple of Science – “For people who are not practicing scientists, science is a place where certainties are promised and delivered — even if five years later another contradictory certainty is presented.”
• The Cringely Plan – You can argue with the details but Cringely is spot on with regard to what Governments are best at influencing. Directly bailing out Wall Street or The City of London is not it.
• waffle → Goodwill – The new MS ads don’t really work: “most of the Apple ads bring up either real problems that Vista users experience, or real improvements that Macs deliver. Microsoft doesn’t attempt well enough to fix those Vista problems … and they’re not pushing the things Windows can do that Macs can’t. Pointing and saying ‘he’s lying; just read this promotional copy and see for yourself’ doesn’t seem like a good response.”

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.

As with any “Spontaneous” picture, I could pick out a bunch of flaws in this image, yet I love the expressions on the boys faces. I found this situation in a market in Aqaba, Jordan.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “The Extraordinary.” I’m entry number 264.

I’ve noticed a trend. Every time that I come back from travelling and write a blog about it I start with the words “only a fool would…” Spend a whole winter in Norway? Check. Three countries in one weekend? Count me in! Christmas in Iceland? Absolutely.

This time it was cycling from Prague to Meißen, nearly 230km or around 45km a day. If you get on your bike regularly that might not sound like much, but I’m what you’d call a fair weather cyclist. And the weather in the UK this summer has been neither fair nor summery. So as I sat on the plane at Heathrow I was both nervous and excited. I would get to see a lot of great towns and scenery en route, but I’d have to work for it.