(Frydek-Mistek, Czech Republic to Jablunkov)
View 2008-05-27 Frydek-Mistek to Jablunkov, Czech Republic.kmz in a larger map
Highlights: big breakfast, super-wide bike path (for 1/10th of a mile), warm day, much hillier than expected in afternoon, forest riding, only 7 km from Poland
Morning view from outside the hotel (Frydek-Mistek)
Widest shortest bike path ever (Frydek-Mistek)
Czech hay bales (near Smilovice)
Talk about "going green"! (near Podgrun)
Journal: Today could have been a relatively easy day as we headed across the lowlands of northeastern Czech Republic into Poland. Instead, I convinced myself & Joe to take the more interesting way along the official Vienna-Krakow route to the southeast. Even so, I did not expect today to be as hilly as it was. We were only supposed to ride 50 km or so thru the last valley in the Czech Republic, with no net change in elevation. However, the path we took ran along the hillsides of the valley and had quite a few ups & downs (but nothing too lengthy). I'm sure the heat & humidity of the day contributed to my frustration at times as we slowly counted down the miles to our target destination for the day (the town of Jablunkov), a mere 7 km from the Polish border.
Similar to each previous day in the Czech Republic, the scenery was quite pleasant and the route relatively traffic-free. The most interesting parts of the day were an extremely short & unnecessarily wide bicycle path (only 1/10th of a mile long!), the Czech version of odd-looking hay bales (very different from their Slovak counterparts, but unusual nonetheless), a shady ride on a bumpy forest road, and the city square in the town of Jablunkov (which has a major highway running thru the middle of it). Slovakia is less than 10 miles to the south and heavy truck traffic consistently whizzes thru the center of town, nearly ruining what would otherwise be a very nice place. Fortunately, a bypass is finally being constructed around town (something that probably should have been done 30 or 40 years ago).
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