European Tour – Dresten & Czech Republic (Written by Emanuele July 13th)

So Dresden was nothing like I had read in New Europe, which describes it as modern and boring. It had some truly beautiful architecture, and the Elbe River bed made it somewhat look like Ottawa, as Jenika pointed out. This morning was our first very early morning (we had to be out of the gym we were staying at by 5:30am so they could clean it for morning classes) and the first day riding without having set accommodation.

Getting up after a late night (read : 11pm) basketball game was quite the effort, but soon the team was out and rolling towards the Czech Republic. Robbie and I were sweep and tied a few loose ends while giving pods a bit of headway, which some pods clearly didn’t  need, some teams cycled past a big mountain and got there in 2:30! Go team go!

Today was, in my mind, the most scenic route we’ve done so far. Our enthusiastic host, Jean-Pierre, had warned us that it would be the most beautiful ride we’d had done – he was right! Beautiful river, amazing rock formation, just beautiful beautiful all the way. There was crazy art on the bike path crossing the border, it was absolutely unique and crazy.

Rolling into the Czech Republic was really neat, it was a bit of a shock just knowing 2 words in the language =) The bike path was well marked though and we found our way easily into Usti Nad Labem, after bumping into poor Erin who had heat exhaustion and was waiting for the car to pick her up. We met some of the crew (lost) under a bridge — the city has a couple bridges, a bunch of high-perched high rises and a big open mine in the middle of it, pretty crazy! — and then went to our meeting point to find out the great news that, after talking to people at the information point, Shawn and Charles had been put in touch with the mayor of the city which found us a place to stay near hot springs!! That was a big relief! So we got there and had amazing Czech snacks, followed by a plentiful dinner with the most vegetables I’ve eaten since we started this trip — it was great! An animated meeting to close up the evening, and certainly a great day on this epic adventure!