Only a short trip to Europe this year for us slow cyclists has meant us choosing a shorter but equally historic river .Ideal for history buffs.

The Elbe has several tributaries ; the most famous one being the Labe from the Krkonose mountains.There in the mountains is the official  plaque however you do need a mountain bike and the mountains are a few hours from Prague. So we are following the Vltava from Southern Bohemia through to Prague.

From Prague the bikeline series cover all the Elbe through to Cuxhaven.

Storing our bikes in london means it is more of a challenge to get to the beginning of the ride.

So its eurostar to brussels from london , book well in advance for fully assembled bikes  only a few on each train.

From Brussels we are cycling towards Aachen then catching the train to Cologne and the afternoon  IC to Passau. To get your bike booked on an IC train you will need to phone deutsche bahn at the moment you cannot do it online.Go into the deutsche bahn website as if you are booking your tickets and add Fahrrad under advanced options at this point the phone number will come up. Your bike tickets will have to be posted out so allow time , limited assembled bikes on all the intercity trains.

For those of you without heart problems its only 105kms through the Austrian alps from Passau to start following the Vltava from its source at lake lipno.

We not being so energetic have organised a mini bus from cesky krumlov to pIck us up and take us over the Alps.

 

Whether any of this works out remains to be seen, well keep you updated!