50 miles  3,065 elevation gain  5.5 hours riding time

Our route directions for the day started out by saying “You can take a taxi to avoid the first 20km and 200 meters altitude difference.” Or… you can just start your day with a very steep long climb. Before we’d gone 2 miles we’d climbed over 700 feet. Most of the day consisted of a lot of very steep climbs of 7+ percent with too many 10-12% grades. The downhills were often steep and short. Since we were either climbing or descending I couldn’t get any pictures.

The countryside was much like yesterday with big fields of young wheat – beautiful shades of green or woodlands and forests.

On one of our longer descents I finally made Chris stop so I could take this picture. It was such an odd site out here in this beautiful countryside.

Here’s our view during one of our calmer sections along the Oltava later in the morning.

At around 60km “an enchanting quiet forest path leads you to the Castle Hluboka, set high on a hill overlooking the Vltava.”

We spent over an hour here, eating a late lunch and exploring.

Leaving the castle behind we headed off for the last 10km to our hotel. This took us over two hours of trying to figure out how to get there. There were lots of errors on our route map and the road and cycle path numbers have changed since our map was printed.

We finally rolled in to the lovely town of Ceske Budejovice or Budweis, the home of the original Budweiser beer.

We couldn’t believe our room when we opened the door.

After a quick shower we’re off to explore the town. Our hotel is right on the town square.

In addition to being the home of Bud, this town has become a mecca for local micro breweries. Chris had already done his research and decided we were going to do a pub crawl this time. The first stop was Singer Pub where all the tables had old Singer sewing machines on them.

As we wandered the town we heard a lot of noise and music and came upon what looked like a “pop-up” skateboard park behind a church.

Here’s a typical side street without the crowds near the square.

There’s a beautiful little canal running through the town with a steady stream of kids and adults paddling by in canoes, kayaks and on boards. This picture was taken at 1830.

As far as the rest of the pubs, I can’t tell you much about them. But I can tell you the local white wine is delightful.