August 14 - Goodby Poland, Hello Czech Republic

Friday - Swidnica, Poland to Teplice nad Metuji, Czech Republic
The church bells started ringing at 6;30 this morning so we were on the road by 0800. Early morning in the market, the time for deliveries and setting up.

This route just showed up.

We could hear the carpenter at work. We think that the fancy work under the eaves displays some of his craft.. 

This symbol is all about mountain bike routes.

Not for us!

We have enough mountain on the paved road. There was one hill that said it had a 9% grade.

Vegetation just likes to take over but this is the first time we've seen a tree growing on a bell tower.

One advantage of the Eurozone is that cross border cooperation on recreation facilities like bike routes is a lot easier. There isn't any discernible geographic difference in this area between the two countries. The map highlights bike routes in the area without regard to country.

It's official.....we are leaving Poland. It's been a nice visit even if it was a little HOT. We stopped at a market just before crossing to use up our zloty on ice cream and AA batteries. We had a few coins left. Two young boys rode up to the market on bikes just then so we gave the 8 zloty (about $2)  to them. They were a little confused by our actions but we just smiled a lot and rode off.

This area is definitely all about recreation.

On this side of the border the cruciifixes seem to be between villages instead of in them like they were in Poland. Borders did make a difference in the past. We are finding that borders are a relative thing because they have changed so much over the past couple of hundred years.

This is the road we need to take to Teplice nad Metuji. The sign said that cars had to take a detour which was about 12 miles around.

It was what we needed to do but it was tricky with loose gravel every now and then. It went on for 1/2 mile.

We all made our way through together.

We had reservations at a Pension that was about a mile from city center. We expected it would be a little isolated. It turned out that The Rocks of Teplice  are a major tourist attraction and there were 5 hotels/pensions surrounding this parking lot. If you look closely, bottom center, that is Doug doing some bike maintenance.

Donna did a little laundry in the meantime. The big crowds left around dinner time and it was pretty quiet the rest of the evening.