Day 21_ From Roudnice nad Labem to Prague

Day 21_ From Roudnice nad Labem to Prague

 

We saw: Zdenek, Bela, Martin and Matylda in Prague!!!

We ate: bread  with salt and  fruits from Boris father's garden

We pedaled: 52 Km

Our average speed: no idea

We slept: Pension Josefina, Prague

 

We made it. We finally got to Prague, our last destination of this trip. It is hard to describe the feeling about it. The first word that comes to my head is silence.

Anyhow, I will start to describe it like any other day…

 

We left early in the morning and agreed to meet Zdeněk and Běla (Boris' father and his wife) somewhere along the way to have lunch with them. Trying to avoid the roads with traffic, we took the train to Kralupy nad Vltavou to get back on the cycle path.

 

We pedaled and as we were riding down a hill, in the next town called Roztoky, we finally saw Zdeněk waving to us.

 

Zdeněk and Běla were waiting for us at Hotel Alexander and welcomed us with bread, salt and strawberries, cherries, cranberries and blueberries picked from their garden. Then, they crowned us with a crown made of leaves that they did by hand for us. It was so beautiful! Běla made some arrangement with the hotel to serve us some lunch. We had a nice beef broth with noodles and the some chicken schnitzel with really good potatoes. We chat, told them about our experience and continue our last kilometers to the center of Prague. For me, this was the end because the way they both received us made me feel like we had cross the finish line and win the gold medal. I am sure that for Boris was a much deeper feeling having gone back to his home land after such long journey and having met with his father like that.

 

Soon after leaving them, we met on the road with Martin, (Boris' brother) and his step daughter, Matylda. They both biked with us all the way to Prague. This also closed part of the circle because they were the last ones we saw in Sevilla before leaving for the trip. They took care of our dogs and cat for a long while. So, we chat, stopped for some ice cream and beer (great combination) and afterwards, Martin guided us through the beautiful gardens of the city. We said good bye and continue to our final destination: Penzion Josefina.

 

Penzion Josefina, our last hotel, is located in the street called Nad Borislav, in Prague 6. This is the neighborhood where Boris lived through his university years until he left Prague in 1989. We usually stay here every time we come to Prague.

 

So. we arrived and…..we were finished. As I said, it is hard to describe. For me it was silence. It was a similar feeling as when you go to the movie theatre to watch a film. No matter how beautiful the film was, you just get up of your seat and go.

There is definitely a void, though. Pedaling was our daily thing. We will miss it. For me it was an unforgettable experience, worth it to repeat it again and again.

 

Thanks to Boris internal GPS, the I phone GPS and the maps, we pedaled 900 Km. Thanks to my diet intentions, we ate 9 million calories. We drank hundreds of liters of beer. We lost 0 kg of weight. We laughed every day. We are stronger in spirit, and we have stronger legs. Nothing hurts (ok maybe our upper legs hurt a bit when we go up the stairs). Our ass is intact and it is actually harder. This trip was truly about pedaling, food, an a huge lot of love.

 

Thank you all for being with us along the whole trip, wherever you were.

The trip has 3 more days so I will keep posting until then.

 

VIKA