Along the river to Prague

Posted on 2018-10-24

We crossed from Germany into the Czech Republic at a tiny crossing for bicycles and pedestrians only. The impressive rock formations of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains continue on the Czech side of the border and we continued following the Elbe river, which is called Labe in Czech. Our first night's stop was in Děčín, where a friendly host let us stay in his big and fully equipped garden house a bit outside town for the night.

A little further upstream from Děčín, at a barrage and sluice near Ústí nad Labem, the river suddenly changed dramatically. All the way so far, the water levels had been really low due to the long, rainless summer in Europe. But the barrage near Ústí is used to keep the river upstream of it at a constant level, so suddenly, instead of dykes or elevated roads, we could cycle right next to the water and in some parts, it looked more like a lake or canal instead of a river.

Unfortunately, on day two in the Czech Republic, we were running late again, and barely made it to the campsite in Roudnice nad Labem before dark. Thus, we unfortunately did not have time to stop in the former fortress-turned-concentration-camp Terezín.

The next day, we took a shortcut overland first, before following the Vltava to Prague. The Vltava is the main tributary to the Elbe/Labe and actually carries more water than the Elbe itself before they join. We had been advised that the last 30km to Prague would be quite dull, but following the cycle route along the Vltava was really quite nice! The constant level of the river meant that there a number of nice parks along the river and good views all the way into the city.

We came across a few more barrages along the river and noticed what we first thought to be fish ladders next to them. Later we realised that these were actually artificial white water channels built for canoeists to practice!

When we finally reached the centre of Prague, we immediately had trouble navigating the busy streets by bicycle, got stuck in a traffic jam and decided, also because it was quite late again, to take the Metro to our friend Petr's place. Heiko had met Petr while on student exchange in Singapore. However, we also couldn't figure out how to get our bicycles down to the platform (too big for the elevator!), and had to cycle to another station first.

We had two days of rest/maintenance/sightseeing planned for Prague. Unfortunately, Hannah was sick on the first day and Heiko was not feeling so well either, so that day was mostly limited to rest only. But on day two, we finally went into town, and took one of those tips-based walking tours of Prague. We went through the old town, new town and Jewish quarter, explored the impressive castle that overlooks the city and tried some Czech food.

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