September 12, 2014
To Petronovice: a day with difficulties
When we awoke it was raining quite hard but by the time we went for breakfast around 7am the rain was quite light. We really thought we couldn't stay another night although we could easily have enjoyed this interesting city. The weather forecast was bad but so was the one for tomorrow and Sunday. I booked a room at Petrovice on booking.com ( this is an area of small scattered towns) as we didn't fancy the survival blanket and off we set. As we left the Hotel Slavic it really started to teem down. It rained for most of the day but rarely as heavy as this again and once you are completely wet you get used to it and we weren't cold thanks to the merino layers under our rain coats.
I had read that getting out of Brno is terrible and this is no exaggeration. There were a few minor domestics as to the way we should go and at one stage we found ourselves riding down a muddy track that turned into a kind of river (my fault completely Ken said it was in the wrong direction). We do have cycle maps and the wonderful ap Galilao but there was a problem. With all this rain we could only check Galilao when we hid under a bridge or did weird things with umbrellas but when we did it always put us right.
Now we were out of the city and riding up beside a river, It was a magnificent pathway to start with and there seemed to be what looked like holiday houses in the forest beside the river, I think they would really have looked very attractive in better weather. The path began to deteriorate and got worse and worse - we thought we would have to turn back and go a long way to where there was a bridge to get ourselves to a road, Then a huge steel bridge like thing appeared to get us over a bluff. We thought we would have to unload the bikes but with two of us on them we got them over. As if by magic a road appeared and off we went again, We saw a large concrete building with some beer signs and cars outside, it didn't look as if it had much life in it. Ken tried the door and inside was a dark smoky interior with people drinking coffee and beer. The coffee was good - the only english came from a man who kept looking at our sodden states, shaking his head and saying " Why, why, why". A good question.
Route finding was good now and we bowled along at a good rate, At the edge of a largish town we saw a cafe and as the weather seemed somewhat unsuitable for a picnic in we went and had a warm meal. We did try to leave after the soup having of course no idea what we had ordered. The waitress showed she did in fact have some English and just said "Expensive soup !"
We were now coming to the Moravsky Kras, which is a very popular nature destination here - it has a very extensive cave system. In the middle was a very upmarket hotel, tour buses and lots of people waiting with umbrellas to get on a little noddy train to take them to the caves. The rain was easing and it is really beautiful, strange rock formations and deep forest which we really enjoyed despite the gradient.
Now we are in the little village of Petrovice in a warm comfortable room having a glass of Moravian red wine
Sorry few photos today because of the rain
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Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 2,217 km (1,377 miles)
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