Day 009 Praha > Svata Katerina

Today was a day full of farewells, first we said farewell to Hana, then we brought my Dad to the train and said farewell to him and finally after Filip joined me for a while and we had a czech sportmen meal I had to say farewell to him.
Thanks a lot to our lovely hosts Hana & Filip for being so welcoming and inspiring and helpful with all the small things like washing clothes and translating czech mobile company messages.
And I have to say a big Thank you to my dad for being a great travel companion for the first week even during the first both very hard rainy days and for supporting me in all my plans for all my life even if this plans involve such crazy things as cycling to India.
I am now on my way to Ostrava where I want to attend a great festival. At first I had planned a more southern route, but after consulting Filips topographic map and considering my poor uphill performance I changed my mind. So Filip and me cycled to Elbe again and we followed the river. There were some very muddy parts, so it was a great test for me and my equipment for the things to come. The Elbe is pretty small here, there is next-to-none boat traffic and people are bathing in it. Between Nymburk and Kolin some stretches reminded me a lot of Leipzig as they looked, smelled, sounded and felt very much like some parts of the Elster. In the end it turned out to be the longest distance per day so far - more than 100km.
Today is my first couchsurfing night during the trip (ok, in fact we also surfed Filips and Hanas couch, but today is the first one organized via couchsurfing.com). Radek and Katka (and Sissi, their very nice dog) welcomed me in a small village near Kolin and Kutna Hora. Katka prepared very delicious food for me, Radek gave me some great advices on the way for the next day and we had a long interesting talk about our travel experiences, future plans, Czech and German music and and and... Thanks to them I am now safe and dry in the thunderstorm going on outside.
Dobru noç to you all !
:o)