August 17 - A Day of Contrasts....and wetness

Monday - Chotovice to Prague
It is gray again this morning with predictions of showers.

Breakfast didn't start until 8:00 so it was an opportunity to do some blog work. Seems like every time we make good progress, we get behind again . 

Notice the play area in the corner. Once again, we were the only ones at breakfast. We think we may have been the only guests last night given the lack of cars in the parking lot after the restaurant closed.

There should be some nipples here somewhere.

Doug can't find them either!

Doug says "I wonder if we Google Czech Cycle Route 4199 (which we had seen several signs for at this point) a map would come up". We rounded a corner just then and a cycle route map appeared on the side of the road. We knew Google was good but we didn't know they were that good! Unfortunately 4199 did not go where we were headed.

We read recently that the fruit trees that we have been seeing along all the roads were planted as a community resource years ago. Anyone can pick them. There are apples, pears, plums and cherries.

In Libice nad Cidlinou. Not sure why the pond is dried up but he is netting the dead fish out of it.

Right next door.....A typical village cemetery in the part of the Czech Republic we've been through.

The town of Pobrady

By the dates on the statue this guy was 13 years old when he died. The statue has a beard and mustache!

We are finally far enough west to be off the Poland map. Fortunately there was a Tourist Information Office handy with a very helpful host and we were well supplied with Czech maps.

Czech Bike-friendly Business sticker.

Yes it is wet. It has been raining off and on all morning.

The bike path had 3 brand new bridges completed in 2011. This is the largest one going over the train tracks.

More Hawaii! In the gas station bistro in Sadska.

No rain for now!

St. Peter's in Velenka built in 1713.

Ignore the scab and look at all the mud dots.

World War I memorial. This caught our eye because it is a woman and so many memorials are only men.

It must be official then if there is a sign with the word Praha in it though it doesn't look like city yet.

There is supposed to be a Decathalon sporting goods store (similar to REI) in this mall, if we can just find the front door! We got caught in the 2 levels of parking underneath and it took us 15 minutes to get to the right place.

New bike glasses just in time. Donna's prescription glasses don't keep water out of the eyes very well at bike speed. There were consequences, however. Finding this huge mall took us downhill and off what we thought was the most direct route to our hotel. And it started really raining while we were inside.

In the process of trying to get back on track we got sucked down a bike path that turned to dirt and ended with these stairs. Fortunately each step was wide enough to fit the whole bike. The Czech Republic has not shared their few bike facilities with Google Map very well.
The wet pavement made things tricky as well. Only a few blocks from the hotel, Donna's back wheel hit a lip at too much of an angle and she went down. Other than a little bruise though Donna and bike came out of it fine.

Since we are going to be here 2 nights, we did major laundry as it would have time to dry.

Squishing out the water the easy way.

The high was 69F today which was 20 degrees cooler than yesterday. It only took a lot of clouds and rain to do it so everything is wet.

Dinner at the Gate Restaurant which, fortunately was only a couple blocks away. Gnocchis seemed like a good way to complete this challenging day. We now have a total of 996 miles.