"Our first days on the second part of the tour seem a bit harder than usual. Although we meet super nice people, "the weather really does not show itself from the best side...." - that's what I would have said at the beginning of the week. But the fate has turned again! Our first days in the Czech Republic were simply one thing: Breathtaking! In the truest sense of the word!

Due to the rather wet weather forecast we waited also on Saturday (15.04.) some time in Leipzig - the afternoon should be better! Since we had no positive feedback received so far for an overnight stay between Leipzig and Dresden we began to play also with the thought to drive through. But first Janek and Tilman prepared delicious, strengthening scrambled eggs for breakfast. But at some point even the long wait doesn't help... we just had to go. So we fought our way through the chaotic Leipzig in the rain. Finally out of the traffic stress, we could take mostly small side streets and met cars only rarely. At a small shelter in front of a daycare center we took a rain break. In the meantime we had also decided to drive through to Dresden. Frauke wrote us that there is another bomb disposal in Dresden and it is not foreseeable when it will be finished. So let's see where we end up tonight :) On the small roads we enjoyed the Saxon landscape: hills as far as the eye can see - or as you could see through the haze...

And we probably did not drive through the most famous parts of Leipzig...

The remaining kilometers on the right side of the river Elbe flew by and so we arrived at Frauke's around midnight completely exhausted - with one world war bomb less in Dresden.

Sunday (16.04.) was chill day - outside it rained almost the whole time. Only one rain break we could use to screw around a bit on the bikes. In the evening, the best hits from Mamma Mia 1+2 sounded from Frauke's TV, while we comfortably enjoyed some pizza.

Monday (17.04.) startet comfortably as well. After all, we had only one big mission for today: Visiting the giant Globetrotter in Dresden. At least judging by the shining eyes of the employee in Leipzig, it must be a paradise for outdoor maniacs! But first we have to tell you why we want to go to the Globetrotter so badly. (If you don't feel like reading this, feel free to skip this section!)
Everything has to do with our tent. It started with our last overnight tent in Portugal. It was cold and while setting it up we already had the feeling that something was not right. The outer tent felt sticky in places and the poles were already under a bit too much tension. Since we were forced to do a break anyway, we sent the tent via Globetrotter to Tatonka. Unfortunately, it came back with the note that there was nothing. When we put up the tent for the first time on this tour, we knew better. In the morning, the condensation ran down the sloping wall towards under the tent, so that we woke up in a small puddle. In addition, the tent was quite crooked due to the wrong tension. Long story short: At Globetrotter in Dresden we found very helpful staff who set up the tent with us, saw the problem and gave us a new tent. We came, saw and won.
Without advertising too much, but the store in Dresden is brilliant! Climbing tunnel, kayak pool and a floor full of tents. A dream! What also convinced us to continue to get outdoor stuff at Globetrotter is that they guarantee 3 years. So one year more than the legal two years. And that gave us a new tent :)

The rest of the time we spent in Dresden driving around and finding nice stamp motifs. By the way, this is also Tilman's new tour plan (when we are done with the current tour).

Back at Frauke's we prepared lasagna and just devoured it! Well... we also watched a more or less funny movie from Tilman's repertoire: "Tour de Pharmacy".

When we left Dresden on Tuesday (18.04.), we felt for the first time a bit more like a bike tour. Maybe because we had our first border crossing ahead of us? Or because we were entering areas where none of us had been before? Maybe a little bit of everything :)
The first kilometers stretched along the well-known Elbe, which was sometimes more, sometimes less passable.

Relatively soon, Tilman said goodbye to the Elbe with the words: "See you in a few months, when we come back from the north!" - how wrong he had been! But instead of following the Elbe without much elevation, we showed our muscles the ups and downs of Saxon Switzerland. We even passed a cool gorge!

Towards evening, when the fog became thicker and thicker, we then also passed the border crossing in the forest. The first kilometers in the Czech Republic started a bit bumpy - on a gravel road. After that, we passed through remote villages. Overall, the landscape was very mystical. Fog right and left and not a soul until we were back in Germany.

At the end, we enjoyed a run down to our wtmg (for those who forgot: welcome to my garden). Not without squeezing through a railroad crossing first. Felix and his family greeted us warmly and even invited us to sleep inside in a spare room in the bad weather. The two had their house as a huge project, which is even supported by the state in the course of the expansion of rural life. You could already see properly how it would probably look like!

On Wednesday (19.04.) we woke up to light sunshine, packed our things and left again.

Our first mini destination was a star observatory in the nearby town of Sohland. In the whole region there are also paleoastronomic sites.

Today the border crossing should be final - for the time being no return to Germany! Since we drove through the border triangle of Zittau, we did not miss the opportunity to drive a few kilometers through Poland :) we were a bit surprised by all the tobacco stores behind the border. Well, in retrospect it is not so surprising... The second border crossing to the Czech Republic was so unspectacular that there was not even a sign!

Since the weather forecast for the evening and night looked very rainy again, we asked at a warmshower couple nearby. Marketa and Vlastislav answered very quickly and so we took the route to their house. Shortly before we reached our destination we had quite a struggle. Uphill with gravel road and occasional mud. The highlight was then, however, up on the plain where our wheels just sunk in mud and puddles. Here my strategy "just go through" proved itself worthy while Tilman's "stop for a moment" did not pay off. But the pictures speak for themselves.

At the end of the day we arrived dirty and a bit wet at Marketa and Vlastislav. There we were welcomed with a hot potato soup. The two of them were renovating an old rectory and had a lot of garden. For dinner Marketa and Tilman conjured up delicious pasta with broccoli and wild garlic sauce, a dream! After hours of conversation with the two of them, we all went to a well-deserved bed.

On Thursday morning (20.04.) Marketa was already off to work. The night before there was still the announcement "You can not leave the house without breakfast!". So we enjoyed a very rich breakfast with Vlastislav, waited for the last rain shower and continued our tour relatively late. During the first kilometers the clouds broke and we saw something totally unexpected: sunshine!!!! :) It should accompany us the whole day.

Our first destination today was Liberec (German: Reichenberg) with its planetarium. The planetarium is embedded in a whole science experience house iQLandia - definitely worth a visit! When we asked downstairs at the ticket office/reception for the planetarium staff, we were met with critical faces. All in all, the facial expressions here seem to be not so strong... In the end, however, it was still possible to make contact with Martin, whom we were also allowed to visit right away upstairs in the planetarium. Martin seemed to be quite excited about getting visitors from another planetarium and with enthusiasm he showed us his technology and some cool fulldome content. He loves doing live shows, which is probably due to his former job as a teacher. He got into astronomy via astrophotography and so is now living out his passion. He also does a lot regarding teacher education in astronomical content. When we asked him what his favorite object in the sky was, he replied: comets! These are also his favorite objects for astrophotography. Some of his pictures can also be seen in the exhibition. But now a few words about the other special features of this planetarium: like in Copenhagen, it is a tilted, unidirectional one. So you sit in a tilted dome and everybody looks in one direction. Also, they have people in charge of producing new content and for that they have a small dome in a back room where everything can be tested - super cool resources! After all, the exhibition is not without its own challenges either. But again, the pictures speak for themselves!

While leaving Liberec I think I got a few more gray hairs ... this city is really not meant for cyclists! A little further out we climbed the hill / mountain then fortunately on small and abandoned village roads.

At least for her later descent, the effort was worth it! Really cool bike path with gentle slope - a dream. During a small break we got into conversation with Georg. He introduced himself as a Sudeten German and we could talk to him in broken German. After that we continued downhill and started to love the small village roads in the Czech Republic! Really beautiful scenery and almost no traffic! Until we came across a somewhat larger main road, which we also wanted to leave quickly. So we turned right into the forest and had to realize that it was probably not the best decision. Much up and down on rather muddy ground. Somehow we had a dejá vú. Especially because the tactic "don't stop" prevailed again. However, we both pushed up the last incline at the edge of the path.

Thus nevertheless we continued on the road. This was obviously the right decision, because suddenly we found ourselves on a bike path off the road. Towards evening, our goal was to colllect as many vertical meters as possible to not have to do them the next morning. In the process, we passed a small village where there was just a man on the sheep meadow. In perfect pantomime Tilman made our situation clear that we were looking for a place for our tent. He beckoned us to come along and took us to his brother-in-law who spoke English. The family thought our project was cool and showed us a spot in their backyard (with as little goat poop as possible). While we were setting up our tent the woman came out, introduced herself as Petra and invited us to a cup of tea inside (politely we turned down the offer to have dinner). In the house we were of course the attraction of the children. Especially the oldest daughter -Lea- tried to interact with us at first shyly and later more confidently. She even dared to speak a few English sentences! At about 11 years old, that's quite an accomplishment! Apparently she was also a Harry Potter fan and came back a few minutes later with a Slytherin cloak. She also proudly showed us her artwork - she was really good at drawing! We chatted for a long time with Petra, who walked the Camino portugués to Santiago a few years ago. We really enjoyed this evening and will certainly not forget it so quickly!

Friday the 21.04. we would describe as "the perfect day". We woke up in the morning in our tent from the sunshine. When we looked out, we saw the sun's rays gently illuminating the hills - indescribable!

As promised in the evening, we stopped by the house for a cup of tea and said goodbye to the children. Tilman learned a new word: "V plence je hovno" (It's shit in the diaper). After chatting with Petra for a while, we really got going - in bright sunshine! The last meters of altitude practically flew by and near the cool rock formation Prachovské skály (German: Prachauer Felsen) we took a snack break on a tree trunk. While doing so, I noticed that the ribbon of the family's headlamp had gotten lost in my helmet and I quickly took it to the reception of the nearby hotel.

After that, we enjoyed a gentle descent to Jičín with absurdly beautiful views. No wonder the region is called "Bohemian Paradise" - we'll definitely be back! Our high spirits lasted all day as we drove along beautiful nature on really low-traffic roads. In the background we even saw high mountains covered with snow in the distance.

The landscape varied a lot and just before Hradec Králové we surprisingly came across the Elbe again, which is called Labe here. On the local Elbe bike path we met numerous inline skaters and we sped the last kilometers to the planetarium along the river.

And as it is with planetariums, we had to pedal up a decent hill. But it was worth it! Marek actually wanted to leave an hour ago, but still took the time to show us the planetarium. The funniest thing was probably the greeting: "My German is a bit rusty" - in perfect German. And so we talked with him mostly in German. He is blatantly enthusiastic and dedicated to his job! For Uniview he made things with so much dedication to make them perfect and put hours of work into it! When the probe "New Horizon" flew by Pluto and the first images came in, he worked hard to get the images into Uniview so he could show them at the show just 5 hours later! In Hradec Králové, like in Liberec, they have a tilted, unidirectional planetarium and even have game controllers attached so even spectators can control where you go from time to time (I got to go once!) Super cool planetarium with a very dedicated staff! Highly recommended!!!

Afterwards we went to Pardubice to Tanya, whom we had contacted via Warmshowers. She works as a doctor and took us in a residential building on the hospital complex. Tanya is super cool! She prepared a delicious dinner for us. We didn't get to go outside because we were chatting a bit and the sun had long disappeared below the horizon. Tanya is really passionate about cycling because it gives her a sense of freedom - we can well understand. At some point I was whisked away to the land of dreams and Tilman and Tanya were still chatting until the middle of the night.

At the end a few astronomical words about: the moon!

Super awesome observation target - with naked eye or simple binoculars you can already catch some good views!

The moon circles our planet, constantly changing its shape - no wonder it is the object of much mythology. But that would clearly go beyond the scope here! In many cultures it is used as a calendar and also for seafaring it is not without importance.

By the way, not only our planet has a moon. Mars has two of them and Jupiter and Saturn have well over 60!

Currently, NASA, ESA and others are working step by step to build a base on the moon. With them it runs under the name "Artemis". Only recently even for it the new astronaut cadre was announced! The Chinese and Indians are by the way also not completely inactive. Everyone works so on its program.

With this way too short astro lesson, this blog entry ends as well, and with it a very exciting week!

Kind regards,

Tilman and Ida