Thursday 2nd of September
145km in 6hr 38min
Average 21.9kmph
Max 41,2
Odometer 3716km
After Alice's exercise in concise blogging* this entry shall seem quite verbose....
Morning rises in the Boothaus a little cold and damp. Alice shivers in bed whilst Colby Citchen Culinates** breakfast with my assistance. We enjoy our porridge then shake a leg down to the bikes who have been flirting with the canoes in their shed.
The first twenty km is spent travelling through the misty morning, cycling in right angles around the flat fields lining the Elbe***. The river is wide and flat and flowing fast to the north****. Soon enough, our flat fields fade away as steep sandy cliffs errupt from the river banks and we find ourselves winding up and downhills.
We roll into civilisation and Lo! the golden arches that frame Alice's European journey. She insists on stopping and Phil and I cannot muster up the argument to desist. So in we go, it's still the breakfast menu. Alice and I have a muffin with meat item and pretend set egg. Phillipa has some flat cake pancake things with McDo Honey-Maple. Unsuprisingly these fatty small mouthfuls do nothing to vanquish the hunger rumbling in our bellies so it's round the corner to Lidl and it's bakery.
Phillipa and I wait patiently outside wondering what Alice could be doing in there for so long... It transpires she has been contemplating the Lidl cycling commuter trousers***** which she returned to thrice, fingering the fabric with deliberation. She chooses not to buy.
We follow the bank as it winds into Dresden, which I'm sorry not to stop in as it appears to be Germany's nicest. Nevermind, we have lunch at the edge of the city beach****** and watch the cycle tourists whom we'd just overtaken pass us by.*******
After dinner we find ourselves off ElbeRadweg********'s recommended route and instead we find ourselves on the north bank "scooting" over 2km of very bumpy/jagged cobbles. Thankfully a crossing isn't too far away and we are back on the main route tussling to get past a series of elderly german men out for a day's cycle. They number many and their response to our bellringing is to slowly overtake the gentleman in front of them. When they realise a trio of young female cyclists are overtaking they make a selection of coos and whistles which Alice relishes and Phillipa scorns.
Out of Dresden and fast approching the border, the cliffs are higher with castles perched on their peaks with adjoing stone bridge arches spanning the gaps. We are following the railway and at the crossing point are faced with a pedestrian detour for road works. This involves walking into the station and crossing to the other platform via the stairs.
Alice simply picks her bike (still fully loaded)********* and trots down then up. Phillipa competently rolls her down the stairs and then pushes it up the other side. I on the other hand intially hoover nervously looking down over the void before half pushing/ being dragged by my bike down. At the bottom I again hesitate. An attempt to pick up my bike is miserable failure********** clearly my guns are all for show. Thankfully a chivalrous road worker comes to my aid and happily picks up my bike as if were no more than a light carbon number and whisks it up the stairs.
We roll down the street and await at the level crossing for the train to pass. It's a half barrier and they are down with lights on. Alice suggests that as we know there are road works further down we could just cross. This is met with staunch rebuke when we remind her the line's been busy all day, as she has commented at tea break earlier. So we wait and the train goes by, the barriers raise and we cross.
Approximately ten km down the road we again come to a level crossing. It was open but closed as we dawdled to check the map. Happy we are on the correct route we patiently wait with full barrier down and red lights blinking. The train takes some time to come. There are cars waiting on the otherside. Phillipa's eye is caught by the emergency buzzer box to her left, which has a bilungual message, the english reading "Short press button to open
get". She interprets this to mean that this crossing point is a request stop where we need to ask for the gates to rise. I again point out that this is a busy line; we know the gates open- they did whilst we were looking at the map without any short buttoning; that there are barriers and red lights for a reason; it's not even translated properly; there'll be a fine. It's a long discussion/argument and I cannot get her to see reason. She feels her argument is bolstered when after the train passes the gates do not rise. "There's obviously another train coming" I return. Heated discussions continue thankfully long enough for her not to try her short buttoning as sure enough the gates open when the next train goes past.Then we get to the border, much photography snapping. We continue into Bohemia which is
very beautiful. You are not supposed to cycle on the pavement in Czech as i discover to my peril when I overtake an elderly lady and my back is hit by a barrage of Czech. I hide on the other side of the road (conspicous as a cycle tourist) while the girls nervously follow her until they can slip past her on the other side of the bridge.We settle down for the night in the city of Usti, and have an authentic Spainish meal. We stay in hotel Bohemia, which has seen no transformation since the iron curtain was drawn and is still 1962.
*A glanced count only noted only one adverb/adjective in her entry
**On the camping stove in the middle of our bedroom
***Which felt like we were retracing the coputer programmed route of turtle machines at school
**** This suprises us as we continue to expect our North to South desecent through Europe to be downhill
*****Complete with padded gusset, zip offs for three different versatile lengths in attractive and slimming khaki
******Throughout central Europe they are obssessed with providing sanded areas with deckchairs and volleyball courts in urban areas. This one also had the benefit of piped music, but deceptive WC signage which led to an enclosed wooden bench. Confused we decided to save our bladders for later ,and happily some fellow cycle tourist had broken into a portaloo on the outskirts of the city (I'm unfortunate to discover a dead large spider hiding in the toilet paper-still points for the toliet paper)
*******Never have we seen so many cycletourists than today, traveling in both directions and on both banks. We are traveling significantly faster than them, and enjoy repeated overtaking immensly. For some reason whenever Philllipa dings her bell to signal her overtaking intent this puts the willies through the poor cycle tourist who instead wobbles in anticipation of her passage... I think she enjoys this too much.
********
*********Who's the Sandwich Lady?
**********I blame my high centre of gravity and slightly heavier bike.
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