I started the day with an amazing breakfast that was included in my hotel stay. I ate all that I could and then took the leftover bread and sandwich meat/cheese and made myself a sandwich for later that day.
The route from Terezín in the Czech Republic to Dresden, Germany hugged closely to the Elbe river the entire day. It was a pretty flat route.
There were tons of people on bicycles, including many recreational cyclists, touring cyclists and families on bikes. It was about 10° cooler than it had been the day before, and the sun was out. It was also the first day that I really didn’t feel any pain from that cramp I had a number of days ago.
Although this route is not called the Great Rivers Route like the one we took from Brittany to Slovakia a couple years ago, it’s been amazing how much of the time I’ve been able to ride right next to rivers on this trip, observing the endlessly changing and myriad interactions between sky, land and water. The textures, colors, and patterns on the river have been a delight.
I passed from the Czech Republic into Germany at around the halfway point of the ride.
Somewhere in there, as unbelievable as it seems, I became hungry. And so I stopped at a little roadside café, and had the only thing that they had to eat, which was sausage! It was a paprika sausage with good wholemeal bread and a couple kinds of mustard and fresh horse radish, which seems to be included with every sausage dish. I polished it all off.
And then, I had to do the second half of the ride, which was powered by that lovely lunch. I got hungry again as I rolled into Dresden, and then I ate the leftovers I had prepared from breakfast! A few people have commented privately that it seems that I eat a lot on these trips and I am certainly hungry! Got to put gas in the tank.
Dresden seems like a nice city. While there are many newish buildings that were built post-World War II because of all the bombing, there are quite a few older buildings that obviously were not affected. The downtown is vibrant, filled with lots of bars and restaurants with people socializing. There is also a great tram system that can take you all over the city.
One of the more unusual buildings looks like a giant mosque that towers over quite a few of the other buildings in Dresden. I noticed that when I first rolled in and wondered what the heck it was. As it turns out it’s a cigarette factory that was built in 1909, which is now a commercial building with office space.
The older buildings in Dresden do not appear to have been cleaned up in many years. I wonder if it’s deliberate to leave the grime of the war on them or something else?
Anyway, it was a great day! The ride along the Elbe was spectacular and unexpected. And then, it’s really neat to see the city of Dresden, which I have always wanted to see.
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