Day4 of NO cycling across Europe en route to Elbe

You were left with dear hubby being very despondant that his bike with his favourite saddle and special pedals had disappeared on Eurostar on .Monday, apparently off to Paris .Hubbys bike wasnot at the luggage office first thing Tuesday morning so it hadnt come on the late night train. Finally 1045am the bike appeared, hurrah..We were now running out of time, we’d planned on cycling across Belgium and then catching a train if we werent going to reach Aachen.

We had s emi packed up but werent even sure whether hubbys bike would reappear so just to ensurevwe didnt get stuck we decided to train it out of Belgium. This was when we discovered that Belgium trains arent that well set up for bikes. 3 huge steps and then once on train nowhere really to put your bike. One long rail we could tie my bike to but hubbys was against seats semi blocking passageway.That train took us to Vervieres where we changed onto a really small train. Hubby hung onto the bikes in the entrance as people got on and off the train.Finally we reached Aachen, easy to cycle around.

Pleasant afternoon sightseeing of this very ancient town, the cathedral being world famous for being built in 800s for Charlemagne and numerous german queens and kings were crowned and buried here. It was like much of Europe once part of Roman empire then its own Rhenish Land and once ruled by Napoleon but generally tried to remain german. Lovely spa baths here so if we had managed to cycle across Belgium the spa baths would have been very nice.

I was hoping for a nice leisurely morning the following day but hubby wanted to get to Cologne and try and get his front brakes checked as they were not stopping well despite the service.Lovely to be on a german train with a slope onto train no steps and a proper bike carriage… great.The bike shop in cologne said they could fit hubbys bike in in mid September, very helpful…

Pleasant afternoon in Cologne before boarding the fast IC train to get us almost to the Czech republic.Only problem was the bike carriage was at the back of the train and our seats were in a carriage at the front of a 12 carriage train!We were attempting to run down the platform carrying our panniers when the train attendents yelled out”einsteigen” so had to jump on and drag our panniers through all the carriages. So much for reserved seats.

The journey from Cologne to Passau should have taken 6 1/2 hours but the train could progress only slowly along the Rhine valley as further ahead points had been hit by lightning.So much for our fast train.We arrived at midnight in Passau fortunately a very quiet town so easy to cycle out in the dark from the station.and easyvto navigate with the Donau/Danube right in the middle. Finally at a hotel and a bed. Exhaustion!!!The only good thing about being so late deutsche bahn will give us back 50 % of our fare! Not even a sorry from eurostar. Next time we’ll be catching the night jet sleeper train from Cologne matter no how much hubby protests about sleeping on a train!!

Its been a leisurely day today great breakfast at Hotel Atrium and a pick up in a mini bus across the mountain over into Czech Republic, stopped at Lake Lipno where the Vltavi tributary of the Elbe starts and dropped off in Cesky Krumlov.Eushuttle as recommended on trip advisor provided a great service and had taken most of seats out to get our bikes in, arrived on time, no hitches.Our Young Driver was keen to emigrate to Australia fed up with goings on in Europe so wanting tips on how to get in!!He was a keen car buff so I didnt get a word in after that to find out best food etc once hubby and him got talking about cars..

Cesky Krumlov is a very touristy but quaint village, picturesque to wander around.80% of tourists are Asian. At last we managed to pick up a cycling map of this area at the tourist information so at least we know where to find the cycling routes for the next 2 days!The route next few days follows the Moldau Radweg so should be well sign posted….we hope…the data doesnt seem to be working on the sim card we bought in Uk Lebara so still no google maps to help us out.