Day 12: Mehlmeisel, Germany

I walked down about 7 AM to take a morning stroll in Karlovy Vary and find a morning java. The nice lady at the front desk (actually the owner of the hotel) said it would be hard to find one that early. She then Said she would make me a traditional Czech coffee and also offered me some tiny pastries that were from her niece’s wedding. I sat on the front terrace and did some people watching, and the owner chatted with me for a bit about the history of the area with the Russians and Russian tourism. Lisa got ready and joined me for a walk and we spent about one hour walking around the city. We were seeing people drink something out of these strange drinking vessels, and realized that they were drinking the natural hot spring water from different taps around the city. The different waters are supposed to have different types of healing effects for the body. I guess that’s why the coffee shops weren’t open. It was a peaceful walk around the city, and everything seemed to move in slow motion until the hustle and bustle started around 9 AM. We had a great breakfast and got on the road around 9:30 AM. About 2 miles into the day I hit a sharp stick and that was it for my rear tubeless tire. I put on my trusty continental spare tire with a tube, And we rode on along the river and giant rock pillars to Loket, CZ. We spent a lot of time exploring Loket, which caused us to reach or hotel (Gausthaus)in Mehlmeisel, DE at 8 PM. We watched a beautiful sunset from the back deck, and relaxed with a picnic style dinner in our room. A lot of nice riding today, but it felt like we were moving in slow motion for the nearly 70 mile day.Read more