Berlin to Horni Blatna, Czech Republik

Tuesday 4^th Jun 2013

Pretty straightforward ride down, almost due south of Berlin, to just inside the Czech border to meet up with my Czech friend Denisa whose family have a holiday cottage there. Due to the unseasonal flooding all over central Europe, many roads and town centres were closed off to prevent water ingress and I encountered quite a few detours… one road closure prevented me from visiting Colditz Castle which was on my route. But at least it was a dry but overcast day, so making for a good paced ride. The tarmac included some motorway mixed with country roads – the only disadvantage with the country roads are the low speed limits: top speed frequently only 80kph and most bends limited to 70kph, and the Germans mostly appear to obey the limits which is most unhelpful for us ‘foreign johnnies’.

Checked the oil at a fuel stop and as it looked like the engine had burned a bit (it hadn’t) bought a litre: €15 yikes!!!

The road quality deteriorated very noticeably as the Mule & I headed towards Czech – I guess quite a large part of the country we were travelling through was former East Germany. Some of the Czech roads were covered in potholes and it was a pleasant surprise at how well the new tyres coped – no twitching or slipping, etc. In fact the only ‘moment’ happened on Friday, when I was coming off the very wet A111 motorway ramp to Hermsdorf in north west Berlin when the back gave a bum-twitching shimmy in tandem with a slight front weave due to some right-hand exuberance upon spotting a road sign displaying my destination. 

At one stage wandered into part of Leipzig, which has many large, ornate and formerly grand-looking buildings and trams all over the place. It’s very alarming when a tram crosses your path at an angle especially if you’ve only just spotted the red light overhead!!

Took the ‘over the top’ mountain route into Czech from Germany which is obviously a ski-centric area. It was very misty (and cold) at the border (no controls) and got to my destination at about 6pm – a good day’s ride. Was soon tucking into hot-from-the-oven homemade cake and a steaming mug of tea, courtesy of Denisa’s Granny. Quickly followed by venison (deer meat as Denisa says) goulash and Czech beer.