Elbe Bike Trip 2 with a nasty end
 

For those Fodorites who have not read one of these bike tour reports before you need to know a few things. Every year Mrs Bilbo and I ride a river/canal bike route in Europe hopefully near a wine region. A few years back we did the Elbe Radweg from Hamburg to Magdeburg in 2 weeks so this was trying to finish off that tour. Trouble was the cheepo airlines no longer fly from my local airport to many German cities so this trip was going to fly into and out of Prague. Started early June 16.

Just to give you an idea of costs; ticket cost for person £60, ticket cost for bike £30 per leg of flight. Bikes packed in giant plastic bags means that once the plane lands we can be riding within 20 minutes of baggage reclaim. Prague is famously expensive in the tourist centre where beer can cost as much a £2 a pint. I promise you, we never hit above the 85p anywhere we went in Czech. Saxony German beer is closer to the £2 mark but normally lower. Pensions (B&B) are going to be E35 to E75. Basically everything in Saxony is double what it is in the Czech republic.

The Elbe does not flow through Prague (the Vlatava does) but those great marketing people from Elbe Radweg have tied the two rivers together. You can buy all kinds of great maps for the route (the Bikeline is the best) but we made do with the free book from TI and picked up local maps from TI as we went along. We booked Pensions for the first and last night via the internet before we left the UK and then booked that night's deal while eating breakfast by booking.com or at a coffee stop in Tourist Information.

What do we expect to see? The Elbe was the river where the Russian and USA armies met after the war. In Germany this means that they have been trying to recover from 55 years of occupation and 20 years of being joined to the West. For the Czech Republic a similar story but with a few more racist overtones and even more poverty as the NW European migration of the last 20 years has brought about some major changes. Both Bohemia and Saxony have small wine areas, famously average to poor quality. Beer, beef, pork garlic, potatoes and paprika is the basis for main courses. Dresden will be our biggest true visit city that most Europeans or Americans will have heard of. So a slightly polluted river a few failed factories and then lots of bird life and river countryside.

Tools that worked, Tourist Information were variable in both Germany and Czech. Generally younger people spoke more English and Mrs B's German was invaluable. Tripadvisor and Hotels.com were useless but Booking.com came into its own with lots of choice, though its Android APP is still neither use nor ornament. Booking often had a “cancel any time” deal going which is perfect for a bike ride when a 50km free day may become a 30km slog.

Well, you hooked me. Waiting to find out what happened. Hope it wasn't too bad....

Hopefully not renamed the Elbow bike trip.

Following...

I've ridden Dresden to near the Czech border before - great ride.

Day, slight crisis at LBA as they have re-arranged the tank traps and the parking so it is even harder for people with bikes to get to the front door, luckily terrorists don't use bikes so security is just as weak ;-) .

Czech has a reputation for bad behaviour towards cyclists so the government has tried to provide more bike routes in Prague. Trouble is Prague airport has no copies of the bike map for Prague and the internet ones (while available) are poor or not phone friendly. Luckily I have printed a lot of pages for most of it, except, "how to get out of the airport". Still we quickly get to the first park. Prague is full of green parks and we spend a few hours in them, or on gravel paths by little rivulets, or in gentle meadows, but food, forget it. Finally we go past the Iraqi Embassy and find the Elbe Radweg and an Imbiss, 2pm and my first suasage in a bun and beer of the day. Ordered by lots of hand gestures.

We then cross the river on a tiny ferry and head north. First discovery, Czechs don't say hi as they pass (ahoy would be the word) but not even eye contact. The route detours up a very steep path (thanks to whoever told me about this of Fodors last year) and Mrs B is flagging. "here" steps in when we hit a complicated section which had the builders/bulldozers in an finally our first night Marina Vltava, good restaurant with nice rooms and an ugly aviary.. Still one night was £30 plus around £15 for supper with all drinks, the view over the Vlatava is impressive and the nearby railway (built by Italian prisoners of war) did not wake us at all. German is spoken here. In fact thoughout Czech we find that though people claim not to speak German or English they normally do, if not pointing and writing does pretty well.

Following.

Totallly hooked.
AZ

bookmarking

How fun, bilbo.

This will be a slow process as I'm now stuck on my back in bed, typing is tough.

Day2 really hot, riding. Beautiful countryside, good black top (there is a claim that this section cost the same as a British motorway by the metre, as so much was stolen by Czech politicians) but all I know is it is flat. By midday we have followed the Vlatava Canal and River and finally entered the ancient town of Melnik (vines, medievel buildings, Melnik means “rotten” after the local soil) this is a pleasant visit with good food.

For the rest of the afternoon, now on the Elbe, we work our way up to Steti, a bit rust-belt but they still have a paper mill and we get to stay in the Sports Hotel, which proves large, clean, mainly empty and really nice. Strangely the “sport” seems to mean that the young female staff have to wear short shorts, all very non-sexy and homely. Get to see our first motorised skate board, it looked like a bike motor strapped on the back of a standard board. Similar prices.

Is this what they call foreshadowing? >> stuck on my back in bed, typing is tough<<

Day 3 to Litomerice

Another bright hot day, very few other riders and a great breakfast from the Sport saw us working our way along the river. Part of the route would take us past the deathcamp at Terezin. The place is made more awful by the needs of the locals to turn a buck out of the visitors.

Terezin town itself is built in one of the old fortresses and while we found cake and coffee must have been a depressing place for the “self governing” Jews to be housed. My views change on this every time I see such a place, part of me wants to bulldoze it and part wants me to ensure that people remember.

…................................

Litomerice on the other hand has been a watering hole for many years with some great art deco buildings. The town is a shadow of its former self as was our hotel Roosevelt, but the rooms were clean and the staff did all the right things. But by 8pm the town had gone to bed “reading the bible” I suggested. I have no idea where we ate, but I now took to Caesar Salad with chicken in a big way and gave up looking for good Bohemian wine as the beer was so good.

Day 4 to Decin

After yesterday's rather sad day we start to ride into Bohemian Switzerland, basically the river cuts through some very fine small mountains, with lots of chapels on basalt outcrops, fine basalt towers etc, the various ferries across the river are “swing” ferries operating off a cable in the centre of the river and driving from side to side by using their rudders and the water flow. We pass some 1920s hydroelectric dams/locks along the river and at one point we even have to cross a pipe bridge. In this case this means 2x 16kg bikes up and down a two storey tower and then 30kg of bags up the same thing, while some chemical flows beside us only inches away. I hope Daesh never finds out.

We pass the large industrial wasteland of Usti nad lebum on the other bank and find a good lunch in a modern terrace bar, which has a crew of 8 American kids doing a cycling tour, so cute, no luggage, helmets, florescent gilets. We have started to notice that German cyclists say “helo” when they pass. :-)

After a long day's riding we finally end up in Decin. We booked into a Hotel Kocanda, for 2 nights, down on the river bank next to the local rowing club. This is clearly the place to be (the three bars are packed), some of the staff speak English, they have a good bike store and a reasonably large room. A two night break is good for a few reasons, getting off the bike gives your bottom a chance to recover, walking uses different muscles, getting to see local details is worth the time and getting a few clothes washed.

I am very impressed with your self-propelled itinerary. How many km were you averaging each day? How did you get in shape for the trip?

Sue, for planning purposes we use 30km a day for the duration of the holiday, but that includes days off, days using trains, getting to airports etc. Practically we aim to hit 25km before lunch and 25km after. If we miss a half day for a great castle, no worries, we just need to find a closer hotel.

Our bikes are 22 years old and no special peddles or technology, we aim to be able to repair in the field apart from spokes and chains. Beaten up bikes tend not to get stolen around the world and nothing looks right, Mrs B's saddle begun leaking gel on day one so parcel tapes was used to keep it in.

No training, I go to the gym 3 times a week to make up for an ex-corporate life style, Mrs B.. nothing. Both 56 and a good BMI helps.

I carry all the tools, and throw away old clothes for the length of the holiday.

Foolishly I set up www.mybikeguide.co.uk years back to help others do the same. It makes no money but it gives you all the clues you need to do what we do.

Count me impressed to. Also worried about the bad end...

Bookmarking!

Litomerice: I mentioned that I could not remember where we ate, well Litomerice has a pretty fine main square, a big church and a whole bunch of restaurants built into the square side facing the river. The views from each of them must be wonderful as the square is high on a cliff and the edge of the cliff has been buttressed over the years by houses and, well, buttresses.

Mrs B deselected the most of these fine restaurants and instead took us into a drinking den (how often do we drink before we eat?) and for 30p we share two glasses of en-vrac local wine and watch the locals. Above us was an Italian restaurant and after sinking the hooch we entered with my best Italian to discover the staff were .... Czech. Mrs B's pizza was fine and my gnocchi was ... straight from Tescos (a local, high quality supermarket).

You can imagine the explorers of the Amazon, canoeing up fast torrents, avoiding the piranha and finally falling into a clearing with one mighty sweep of their machete to only see a Walgreen/Boots facing them?

Now I like gnocchi, but the stuff from Crawley (for those who don't know it all the pasta (etc) consumed in the UK is made in a series of factories close to Gatwick airport) but this was super normal.

Still the local beer was good (if only from a bottle, but such things are acceptable after the horrors of the wine den below).

More anon.

Bird life, now I'm not “into” bird life but this area benefits from reduced human influence (migration of humans from Saxony to the rest of Germany and migration of Czechs to Prague and the NW European countries) so nature and the river has had a chance to recover. While pollution used to be a major issue, the work of the EU and the closure of major industrial units has lead to a cleaning up of the river (acidic leaching of Uranium is another matter, but too far away from this river).

Most days we would expect to see sky larks, kites (red?), buzzards, harriers and your basic mallard ducks. But we also see small and great white egrets, grey herons, canadian geese (and their various friends), swans, all manner of crows, doves, pigeons etc etc. We only saw storks in Germany as the Czechs don't seem to have a culture of putting wagon wheels on posts for them.

Whenever we stopped by the river it seemed to be teaming with the things. We watched one crow bully a whole flock of geese, we also had the pleasure of watching the parents of some ducklings (species unknown) herd them along the river bank for their first swim. First they walked them up and down the river bank, quacking “jump in, jump in” then finally they got the kids trapped between mum and dad, and the little blighters had to run, and they did, they ran across the water until gravity took over and they where bobbing about just like nature intended (Mr Disney! Your voice over is ready!).

Another time a pension host slipped a sack over my bike saddle, “why” because a metre above the saddle was a swallow's nest full of mum and chicks.

just found this and am enjoying pedalling along with both of you, bilbo.

Slightly worried about whether you'll make it to Dresden though!

Do not despair Ann, we will get there but may not be staying in facilities that you would use.

Bohemian History and a day off

I guess all the world knows the history of the Sudetenland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudetenland , how successive rulers of the area brought in hard working (and trained) Germans to help the locals develop the area of Bohemia, how their most famous king “the Blind King of Bohemia” was hacked down by the ever destructive English (blush) and the Prince of Wales was so impressed he stole the guys tag-line and ostrich feathers, how the discovery of some very large silver mines allowed the king of Bohemia to not only found the first Porcelain factory in Europe, but the money made allowed him to (buy) get elected King of Poland.

All of which collapsed when Hitler took the Sudetenland into the German Reich (forcing Czechs to leave the area, 95% of the town in fact), with this process then working the other way with Germans being forced to march to Germany leaving the Czechs to be ruled by the Russians and their own version of the Stasi (StB).

Day off.

Decin has the benefit of a large castle on a rock sitting over the town, used by most of the above as a centre of control it even acted as the Red Army's officer's wives maternity centre (good to see even in the soviet union rank had its benefits).

Now the peacocks strut and you can pay a large sum to see the rose garden (avoided), the town on the right bank proved a little too 1960s for us, but once on the left bank we stopped to watch people climb the cliff face and then headed off to see a very disappointing Synagogue from the 1920s in the “eastern style”.

Still the town museum was a revelation, with lots of interesting details on the Elbe as a industrial waterway, a video of the town replacing its bridge in roughly 1923 and a guide who wandered around with us as the place was empty. It seems that Decin was the site of an important bicycle manufacturer in 1890.

After a short visit to the bus station to photograph bicycle transport on buses (yes in Europe they let you put bikes on the back of buses or on trailers behind) we ran back across the bridge in a sudden downpour and landed in a great little cafe right by the bridge (Caesar Salad).

Once the rain let off we walked back through the medieval town (thoughtfully flattened by the Red Army into a lawn, well a lawn surrounded by a medieval wall) and back to our hotel. That night there was a local concert in the nearby park (think “the Specials” in Czech) and a river bar fed us.

I've been following your report closely, enjoyed reading the unusual adventures of a cycling trip (have done parts myself). Keep it coming! Just want to point out a few minor things.

"Both Bohemia and Saxony have small wine areas, famously average to poor quality." It's not the poor quality that at least the Saxon wine is famous for (quite the opposite, some wineries are listed among the best in Germany), it's the outrageously price.

And as for Czech wine, it is too bad you did not find the castle in Litomerice, which is the "House of Czech Wine" with a wonderful vinoteka where you can taste and buy the wine!

"Day 4 to Decin
After yesterday's rather sad day we start to ride into Bohemian Switzerland..." It's not Bohemian Switzerland, which is between Decin and the German border, it's Ceske stredohori (Bohemian mid-range mountains) between Litomerice and Usti nad Labem/Decin, in case someone wants to look up this beautiful region.

"... how the discovery of some very large silver mines allowed the king of Bohemia to not only found the first Porcelain factory in Europe, but the money made allowed him to (buy) get elected King of Poland." That was Elector Prince August the Strong (of Saxony), not the King of Bohemia - and the first porcelain factory was in Meißen.

Very glad you took a day off in Decin. I've seen the town museum and was quite impressed, too. That sandstone cliff with the climbing routes is quite impressive, isn't it? Looking forward to read more!

Yes I know it Meisen (see later) (but his influence was wide) and I hope you can see the lighthearted way I play with history :-)

Saxon wine is still famous for the poor quality, that it also has good wine (and I had a bit) (as you suggest) is good news but the prices rose too steeply for me. (NB last year's visit report; Bordeaux)

Didn't know there was a sub region of the mountains. It looks like good hiking area, as indeed does much of this land all the way to eastern hungary. As we peddled along people waved from the mountain tops, always nice and made up for the silent Czech cyclists (someone I spoke to suggested the silence was due to the StB and the reign of fear, but people were helpful just not "greeters") and, as we will see the change to the chatter as we cross the border is amazing.

LOL, yes, I smiled and laughed quite often while reading your report :-)

Ha, I didn't know people outside Saxony knew about our wine at all ;-) Yep, it's *way* too expensive.

Do not despair Ann, we will get there but may not be staying in facilities that you would use.>>

mmm - not quite sure how to take that, bilbo.

let's see when we get there, shall we?

we will leave it floating then...

Day 6 Decin to Pirna

We left Decin with rains around us and a steady drizzle which slowly stopped. Not to bad to ride if wet and warm, it is just wet and cold that gets me. Our heading is Pirna in Germany and the Villa Hennes. The rain ensures that we see very few people. We cross the border and things change pretty fast, the first is the quality of the signage drops through the floor but at least we can ask people where to go, suddenly there is more beer and cake and finally everyone starts chatting to us as we past, lots of people about it must be Sunday.

We had considered stopping in one of these spa towns but they were a little past there best so after a good lunch we carried onto Pirna, crossed the first bridge and came back on the minor-track side, the RHS. Nice little B&B clean warm, own sauna in the room (you can follow my hotel selection on tripadvisor).

I'd carefully chosen this B&B to be near a great restaurant so Mrs B insisted that we headed in the other direction to Pirna to eat and we passed and then joined a wine tasting in the village. My goodness they had run out of sausages. (Yes, I know, Germans who run out of sausages at a festival). Still good fun, they had brought along the village cake-princess (that would be the local expert in cakes) who sat in a mild downpour and watched us drink.

We struggled into town, where they were carefully pulling up tarmac and replacing it with noisy/slippy cobbles and at 6pm the place was almost shut, but we found a Mexican. No panic, German beer is almost as good as Czech and there is more choice of weizen.

My goodness they had run out of sausages. (Yes, I know, Germans who run out of sausages at a festival).>>

when we were last in Germany, our friends showed us a butcher's shop which boasts a take away Bratwurst machine outside, in case you have a yen for a midnight sausage.

Great job of writing and stringing us along - cheers!

Thanks P

Day 7
Pirna to Dresden is basically on the flat, wide open areas with old and new sand workings and lakes and stuff. Dresden is slowly approached down the river with multiple bridges and some pretty good views of 1920s funiculars and train bridges, all very pleasant. Given that Germany has now instituted a 50cents “bathroom” visit we now have the chance to see the area where the Viking ships come in is also where the Chinese tourists line up for some relief in the open. All that shines yellow is not gold it would seem.

Now the other problem we have is that it is Monday so all the Museums are shut. Yes, Dresden on the day the museums are shut. Sorry Ann. Still we get to walk around the fake mosque (from the 20s) and a few gardens (light rain) and see the rebuilt buildings and finally the promenading area where the Jews were banned in the 1930s. I suspect the city is a great visit, just not on Mondays.

Old Dresden is on the left bank, while a fine modern city has developed on the right bank with pleasant non tourist restaurants, good shopping, plus a mooring for a ship-hotel. So off we go and find an old paddle wheeled ship (originally names the Engles or some such) turned into a hotel. Pretty cheap and across a stream from a beach/party area. Well the hotel was ok, we stored our bikes on board and apart from using a communal bathroom (never saw anyone) perfectly pleasant. Since I'd had no lunch we walked to the beach area and ordered a potato with mayo. Now I've never seen "mayo with a potato on top" before, pretty much a weird experience, what do you do with that much mayo?

We found supper in the new town (Tapas) and that Ann, was that. Rain forecast for the morning.

Day 8

Dresden to Niederlommatzsch.

It rained a fair bit that morning, first your feet get wet, then your hat begins to let the water in and finally your waterproof clothing's seems start to fail. Luckily our clean clothes are all wrapped up inside nice Bradford council plastic bags inside their bike panniers. But you begin to look for any glimmer of sun, just a bit of blue in the sky and so it was, a little lady pointed out a bakery and we had 11s. The rain had stopped so riding out of this place my back cable snapped. An hour later (tell me about it) it was replaced and off we set. Next stop Meissen.

I mentioned Meissen earlier and the place left me cold, the main square's wifi did not work, the happy carillon (of porcelain bells) is out of tune, the guys running the bar in the square clearly did not see customer service as one of their skills and the factory visit was a little too perfect for me. But can they market that product? But at least tourist info were helpful.

For those who have ever enjoyed “the Producers” there is a moment (somewhere around the Marching Band sketch) where they use a complicated German town name as an expletive. It may well have been Niederlommatzsch, the humour of the name came to me that evening

The afternoon varied from thunderstorms to hot sun, we passed a fully automated nursery (for plants) and trudged up the hill to our B&B, washed and ran to the only restaurant in the light rain. I try the door, nothing. I peak around the corner and there are 40 happy people eating and drinking on a partially covered terrace. We order and then the heavens opened in one of those massive storms. Anywhere else we would have withdrawn to the restaurant. No, here the staff walked back and forward to the kitchen (through the restaurant) but kept us outside. Even the locals complained “hey, look there is rainwater in my beer” no, it continued in this farce like manner, until we all went to bed. Niederlommatzsch!

Now the other problem we have is that it is Monday so all the Museums are shut. Yes, Dresden on the day the museums are shut. Sorry Ann.>>

`<<We found supper in the new town (Tapas) and that Ann, was that. Rain forecast for the morning.>>

you clearly have a rather inaccurate view of me, bilbo, as some sort of pseudo-intellectual high-maintenance gourmand, whereas of course that is only partly true.

es tut mir leid, dass es auf deine Parade geregnet hat.

> it is Monday so all the Museums are shut.

I appreciate and enjoy the lighthearted approach to this trip report, but wish you'd be at least a bit more accurate. The Royal Palace (Both Green Vaults, Armory, coins, the times around 1600s, Prints and drawings ...) is open, ditto the Military history museum e.g. Neither the funiculars or the "fake mosque" (Yenidze) are from the 1920s, they were built earlier.

Meissen: The Tourist info is right on Markt square. Understandable that you didn't bother going up to the stunning castle/cathedral on the hill with your bikes.

Ann, I have an image of a svelte cosmopolitan lawyer.

ingo you are right aboiut castles on hills, Mrs Bilbos knees were not enjoying steps, we call it "step fear". We did find Dresden's tourist info, a bit hidden away in a shopping mall. The only town that charged for a map! Still we walked around and everything we found was shut. Maybe there were bits we should have found, but ... you know sometimes after 50km you just don't care.

I feel history should be treated as somewhere between "1066 and all that" and Santayana.

:-)

a bunch of days

Niederlommatzsch to Belgern

This allowed us to visit the RHS of the river and see where the Americans and Russians actually met for the first time, at Strehla (not a great target but interesting), the town is tiny, there is a cheap little museum and a stone. Belgern is another little town with pensions, a brewery/restaurant and the world's largest Roland statue park (song of Roland, rather than my cousin which would have been pretty weird). By 8pm we were fed and bored, so we let some nice “westie” pick us up and take us off drinking.

Belgern to Torgau

The small stone in Strehla was rather over shadowed by the massive monument at Torgau, where senior USA/Russian officers met formally for the first day. Torgau has another of these big empty town squares and an officer of the fire brigade getting married. The old town comes with a pretty nice castle (at a reasonable level above the river) and where some walls had been pulled they have developed a series of parks. Accomodation at the old brewery is ruined by the fact that the “old brewery” is now a white van man hotel just off the local motorway (but boy were the servings big). Come for the castle and then move on.

Torgau back step 1

We now need to move back to Prague, by bus or train? Train. So we toddle off to Riesa (the rail head), in a rain storm. The storm grows, and the bike path is being repaired.... No doubt about it the Elbe radweg is very badly sign posted and any replacement path is even more badly marked. After a few too many endings in farm yards we decide to take the main road. It gets worse and worse, every restaurant sign we see is “40km to the North”, what? It gets so bad we begin to monitor the clouds to get just the showers rather than the twisters coming through. Finally before Riesa it dries up. Good rooms in the Golden Lion and the Ratskeller is now a Greek restaurant.

In the morning we catch 4 trains all the way back to Litormerice, then a ride through storms back to Melnik, where we found a fantastic apartment right in the city centre and watch the only festival that Melnik has (running in skis around the town square).

Ann, I have an image of a svelte cosmopolitan lawyer.>>

I will not destroy your illusion, bilbo but sadly at least one of those descriptions of me is wrong.

Certainly your trip has not lacked excitement, and not always in a good way.

But those are the bits we remember and laugh about afterwards, aren't they?

BTW, this ski race in Melnik - had they had an unseasonal delivery of snow?

"BTW, this ski race in Melnik - had they had an unseasonal delivery of snow?"

No but a lot of duct (duck?) tape to stop them sliding on the cobbles.