Day 7: Cycling from Berlin to Athens

Day 7

Litomerice > Roudnice nad Labem > Melnik > Prague

96km

5 hours 20 mins

674m elevation gain

One week of cycling complete!

At the start of Day 7 we decided to address Shanky's low inflated tyre which almost ended in disaster but we got it sorted and set off for the day. We had a lot of ground to cover to get to Prague, so we had some snacks 'on the go' and we only had our first break after 50km. We followed a wrong sign which meant we had to plan out a new route which involved some hills, but we made it back to the river to come into Prague at 19:20.

Rivers on either side

The Tyre

We headed to a petrol station to add some air to Shanky's back tyre, which was now quite low. We attempted to use the car tyre inflator pump which did not have the correct valve and we ended up letting all the air out of the tyre in the process. This was not good. I tried to problem solve and the petrol station had a pack of adaptors which didn't help, we tried our small pump but this literally added no air after 5 minutes of pumping (we need to buy a better pump), all the bike shops were closed as it was Sunday so we started to look a bit helpless. Then one of the attendees of the station came over and he said they could get us a bike pump, we said yes please! Another attendee then went in her car and we assume drove home, to get us a bike pump! It was so nice of them, then they actually sorted out the pump too and fully pumped the tyre and then we were able to get on the road, at midday by this point!

Roudnice nad Labem

Sights of note:

• Lots of locals on rollerblades - one couple on blades, pushing a pram each 
• A canoe slalom
• An international rowing race - could be the world champs (an Indian flag was spotted)
• Vineyards
• A brilliant breakfast in Litomerice - The Grand Salva Hotel

Canoe slalom

Breakfast in Litomerice

The detour, the detour and then back to the river path

We were cycling towards Melnik and that had been our main focus for 50km and as we were approaching there was a big cycle junction, so we carried on following our yellow signs to Melnik which brought us across the bridge and then up the hill into Melnik. However, the next destination on the signpost was not what we expected, but we followed the cycle route 2 for a while and then realised it was the longer route down to Prague but it was too late to turn back (especially with those hills). So we had a look on the map and planned out some back roads to take us to Prague. We were tired and hungry by this point so thankfully we found a restaurant a bit further along the road and had some lunch with homemade lemonade! 

However, on the back roads, although nice and quiet for the most part, they did go up and down a lot (they seem to like towns being on top of hills here) and we had to re-route a few times. One road was actually very busy and fast so we decided against it and then there was a closed road! So we had to try an off-road path which worked thank goodness. Finally, we went down a huge hill and we ended up back on the river path which led us comfortably into Prague and we arrived at Hotel Elite and they had a room and bike parking for us, phew!

Melnik from afar

Cycling up to Melnik - we should be down there!