Here’s today’s map.

Much better surfaces today. This part of the Elberadweg also follows the river closely as it winds through a deep gorge.

Setting off a bit earlier helped too, as did minimal hassle finding our way back to the cycle route.

We didn’t stop in Dresden, but there may be a few blurry photos to accompany this blog when I make a proper website. Neither of us fancied being in big cities for very long.

So we decided we’d have a lunch-stop in Pirna, a few miles upstream from Dresden and then aim for Decin, a relatively big town 10 km into the Czech Republic.

After Pirna, the country either side of the Elbe rises up so that the river runs through a spectacular gorge. There’s some climbing, and at least two ferry-crossings if you want to avoid road-bashing

Also the route crosses the railway line a few times. But no matter, we made good time, despite missing a need to cross the Elbe on a wee ferry at Königstein. This cost us about 20 minutes.

After that the climbs and drops were more frequent. Not significant but a change from the very flat paths we’d encountered so far.

We also got slightly lost at Bad Schandau, the last town before the border.  The final crossing was just before we’d have crossed the border on the east bank. The border runs along the middle of the Elbe for a while here, so we didn’t cross into the Czech Republic until 3 km later

At that point my left knee became very, very painful. We limped the last 10 km into Decin and then up a slight slope to Hotel Andy.

Lots of drinks later (2 of these: the cerny/dunkel/dark version is to die for) and any number of bottles of chilled water, we were ready to change, eat and then wander into town.

Czechs like their beers and nightclubs, it seems. No ice cream parlours but many, many different beers affected by bars and clubs. My last for tonight was a Pilsnet Urquell (golden lager, so not quite what I was after but considering I speak no Czech, I’m lucky I didn’t end up with someone’s clothes, boots and motorcycle!)

My knee is still tender, and my hip is sore from falling off yesterday so we’re going by train to Prague tomorrow. No worries: we’d have needed to go by train at least one day to be in Vienna in time, unless we had gotten quite far ahead of plans.

Next report tomorrow after drinking absinthe at Radosk FX!

Sorry but yet again I’ve cocked up the map!

So far I’ve been very happy with my cycle-garb. Hours in the saddle and yet my balloon-knot is unhassled. Thanks for this must go to my DHB ultra-padded shorts and aerotech leggings with yet more padding, along with suitable amounts of Assos chamois cream. Little sweat in the upper half: I’m wearing a cooling long sleeved base layer and my Lifescycle jersey.

Photo to come when I’ve persuaded someone to take it!

That’s the good news! Today was hard. Quite a lot of getting lost, while Elly’s cold was getting to her. So this morning I took notes of the villages we were to go through. Just love these names!

• Kranichau
• Dobeltitz
• Belgern
• Ammelgosswitz
• Droschkau
• Plotha

Again some of the surfaces were crazy for a national cycle route. The worst was coming out of Belgern: not a full carriageway of cobbles but two tracks of cobbles: just enough for a car or tractor to navigate.

It took us 4 hours to do 27 miles from Torgau to Riesa (lunch stop). But that was only 2 hours and 20 minutes of movement.

Riesa appears to be quite industrial. Big harbour off the Elbe, lots of goods trains passing through the station (we had lunch at an Italian restaurant next to it) and trucks logo-ed with ‘Riesa Stahlstadt’

A bit of fun navigating out of Riesa until we picked up the Elberadweg. And then I fell off. I was trying to plug jPhone into his portable battery while moving, misjudged it, dropped the battery, felt a wobble, didn’t unclog quickly enough and do over I went. Pride quite bruised, left hip slightly bruised.

Anyway, lots more beautiful countryside but still we were hot and bothered, while the Radwrg continued to meander annoyingly.

So when we saw a road sign saying 16 km to Meißen, we took it. Most of it was excellent Tarmac, if a little hilly but the last 2 km were filled with traffic. There was a bike path but it was on the other side, across a barrier. So we played the ignorant tourist and carried on to the centre of Meißen.

Elly had looked up the hotel we are now in: Zum Goldenen Fass, on Vorbrucke Strasse. It’s bike friendly so here we are, well before 6pm.

Our room has a bath, joy of joys, so we’ve both soaked away some of the aches while watching the bubbles, then wondered into Meißen’s Altstadt for food and beer.

For me the inevitable potato and salad, with beer-bread. For Elly a bierbratwurst with tangy sauerkraut, mashed potato and mustard. The beers were firstly a Meißner Schwerter Elbsommer (golden, Sweet, no bitter aftertaste, slightly thickening feeling) then a Meißner Schwerter St Afra Dunkel, named after the main local church (slightly bitter but light. Not quite black. Very drinkable but I think I preferred the Elbsommer)

Then a wander around the Alstadt: I hope my photos do it justice, before visiting an Eiskaffee to get cones yo munch on the way back to our hotel. Elly had a neon-turquoise concoction called ‘Engelblau’ while greedy guts here had sour cherry and lemon sorbets

Nicely full, still enjoying it. (I’ve only written about the pants bits to get them out of my head and because they stick out.) this route is quite set up for tourist-cycling. We’ve seen so many tourists, including folk from Winnipeg: I guess we just hadn’t prepared for so much stopping and head scratching – and neither of us are exactly super fit triathletes, YET!

Anyway, tomorrow we might get to Děčin. Another country!

This post is based on emails to my parents during the day.

09:51
Drinks-stop at Gaststätte Flaming-Eck in Kleinmarzehns. 15km so far today but spent quite a while finding our way back to the cycle route.

Then we faced the worst surfaces yet on the D-route 1. Until now, lots of tarmac, some concrete with expansion gaps every 5 metres, some brick and cobble (flat top, not the nasty round-head ones inflicted on the UK). But this was a farm track with very loose sand and gravel. Sort of OK if going flat but uphill caused skids and nervousness, downhill caused brown steam to emit from the shorts. Not much fun on laden touring bikes.

13:25
26 miles so far today. 13:20 when we arrived in Arsenalplatz in Lutherstadt Wittenburg

Long break to find toilets in shopping-centre and buy some anti midnight-starvation supplies.

And then we got onto the Elberadweg! We’d hoped to be here last night but no worries: this is an adventure for us.

Most of it is beautiful. Wondering through countryside that I hope my photos can show, because my writing can’t!

14:27
Stopped for lunch in a Gaststätte in Elster on the Elberadweg. So far mostly tarmac and brick. My arse likes. My tum likes a litre of apfelsaft and will like salad mit extra Kartoffelsalat. My first of the trip 🙂

Not to be: the Kartoffelsalat was made with mayonnaise 😦 Germany, you need to learn from Austria! Olive oil, bits of gherkin, lemon juice, garlic are what you need in a potato salad.

21:40
Here’s the map.

Actual distance well over 60 miles. I stopped Cyclemeter while we were waiting for a ferry. Then we did a lot of twisty back-roads before I realised it was off.

Good feeling when we crossed from Brandenburg to Saxony-Anhalt. We’d changed state. (My socks became liquid.)

Knees not as worked as yesterday. Signs for Elberadweg not the same in this Land but still plentiful, wanting to take you the scenic route! We ignored the last one and headed straight along a road to Torgau.

Elly had looked up Hotel Pension zur Markt and we found it without any hassle. The receptionist was amusingly boggled by me being vegan. ‘No fish? No cheese? What do you eat? What can we give you for breakfast?’ Thank goodness I can cope with dry muesli (especially this morning’s one which had tiny pieces of raw chocolate), tea and above all European breads. Oh my goodness, how I will miss those back in Edinburgh.

Evening meal was in Herr Käthe, a restaurant nestling in the castle walls. Huge foiled-wrapped baked spuds with fine beans, carrots and pine kernels, then a fruit salad. All washed down with a half-litre of my darkest beer yet: Ur-Krostitzer Schwartzer from Leipzig.

Now back at hotel, about to crash. Aiming for Dresden tomorrow

So we’re in Bad Belzig, 36 km from where we thought we might get to (Lutherstadt Wittemburg). Here’s the map

As you can see we’ve done over 60 miles. Today’s planned journey to Lutherstadt Wittemburg was supposed to be 64 miles, but the Mauerweg twisted and turned more than could be predicted from Google maps. Also, signposts were less frequent than might be liked, so we probably lost 90 minutes today for stopping and waiting for jPhones to wake up and smell the 3G-coffee.

Surfaces varied from smooth, new tarmac to cobbles to dirt paths to the whole road being dug up: get off and walk! By 6pm we were more bothered with finding a loo and a place to stay than carrying on. Attempting to ask directions to a hotel and then receiving them in German was quite taxing.

But we lucked out, finding an excellent place with a comfy room and a fine restaurant. Now necking salad and Petersiliekartoffeln with a small dunkel Paulaner von Fass. München bier, rather than Brandenburg, but excellent all the same!

So tomorrow on to Lutherstadt Wittemburg, where we pick up the path along the Elbe. Surely no map reading needed from then!

By the way, Elly’s just had a desert called Mohnpielen: bread pudding flavoured with poppy seeds and chocolate. I had a wee taste: excellent! My second dunkel Paulaner is very welcome too.

Loading up with rye bread and Erdbeeren Fruchtauftricht with lots of tea! Weather cool, overcast, so not hot.

So we’re in a holiday inn and enjoying it? Apparently so.

This morning started far too early: I’d worked until stupid o’clock on MSc stuff. I woke about 5am after a dream that I was in an English class with James Dean Bradfield. We had to do some work based on words on an electric blackboard. But the words flicked on and off so fast I couldn’t copy them down, despite JDB’s help.

The next thing I knew was a phone call from my dad to wish us happy travels. Then a hurried breakfast, some swearing at my luggage and the taxi was here to take us to Turnhouse.

Checking and the actual flight were fairly painless apart from being made to go and weight the bikes, and a wee but of turbulence during landing.

We had to wait quite a while for the bikes to be delivered. I noticed Lev’s box looked a bit bashed so I was quite concerned. So I got quite agitated waiting for the shuttle bus to the hotel.

Reinstating the bikes took over an hour: next time I want bigger bike boxes so I don’t have to remove so many bits! The only casualty seems to be the bottom of Lev’s front mudguard: an insignificant piece of chromoplastic had broken off. Fidel survived just fine!

Vegan choices here aren’t great: tagliatelle with rocket salad, baby tomatoes and chanterelles  – or nothing. The house beer seems to be a Sächsische Pilsner (Radelberger). Ok, but nothing special and not from Berlin or even Brandenberg

But what has me amused beyond belief is the trippy techno/industrial mix playing on the restaurant terrace. Very danceable!

So we have over 60 miles to do tomorrow, fairly laden. Why are clothes so heavy? Time for bed!

Theme song
Fidel is going on a summer holiday.
No more potholes for a week or two!
Gurkensalad on a summer holiday.
No more worries for me and you,
for a week or two.

Lev’s going where the sun shines brightly.
He’s going where the Donau is blue.
We’ve seen the third man movie.
Now let’s see if it’s true.

Elly’s going on a summer holiday:
bike to places she always wanted to.
So we’re going on a summer holiday
To make our dreams come true,
for a week or two.

Bruce’s going where Prater spins nightly.
He’s going where the Elbe is blue.
He’s seen it from a train-seat.
He wants to swim in it too.

We’re all going on a cycling holiday
doing things we always wanted to.
So we’re going on a cycling holiday
To change our arses’ hue:
to black and blue!

Packing bikes
This took ages, even though I’d pre-cut lengths of pipe-lagging to protect the bike-frames. For both Lev and Fidel,

• As expected, I needed to remove the front wheels, then extract their skewers and also remove handlebars, pedals, saddles, and deflate all tyres. I also removed Lev’s front pannier rack because I won’t be carrying front panniers, so I didn’t need this extra weight.
• I had not expected I’d need to remove both bikes’ front mudguards. This was so so I could turn the front forks to point backwards and thus make the bikes short enough to fit in the boxes.
• Nor had I expected I’d need to remove Fidel’s rear pannier rack (to make him low enough to fit in the box) and dismount his brake/gear units from the handlebars so I could fit them in the box.

Moral – bigger bike boxes are good!

For me, the most annoying thing about the current UK government system is that while there are governmental bodies for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, England is done by the Westminster government.*

To make the system coherent, I’d want a separate body for England, then a body doing all of the UK. This could be simply a federal clearing-house, a body that deals with things that are likely to affect all of the UK** or it could delve deeply into ‘regional’ matters. I don’t care*** so long as there are the same number of tiers of government, with the same sets of powers and duties, over all UK citizens.

Perhaps this is a start…

*Please tell me what annoys you the most about the current system! (No need to parade the perceived pros and cons of different parties within the system.)

*** such as defence, interregional transport links, disease control: invaders, motorways and railways and disease vectors either shouldn’t be or aren’t persuaded by lines on a map

***Actually, I do care but my opinions aren’t well-informed enough to go into here and now. They’re also quite fluid.

I’ve started some work with Brandelicious, a start-up company that pools some talents from Edinburgh Napier University’s marketing and computing departments.

Brandelicious’s idea is to build an online marketplace or set of shops within a shop (think of Amazon or Ebay ‘shops’ – but with a personal feel) that builds relationships between customers and family producers, to give their great products a supportive online home. Ideally this will also show the next generation that a living can be made from these products, so that the current generation’s skills and knowledge aren’t lost. My current role in this is to research how customers would prefer to shop on Brandelicious’s website, in particular which product categories and choices appeal to online shoppers.

This survey is my initial attempt to research this area. I’m grateful for any constructive answers, so please spread it far and wide. Because the survey was limited to 10 questions, I’d welcome extra comments on this blog post.

I’ve kept quiet about this online until now, mostly because I believed I can’t add to the debate and partly because I wanted not to make a fool of myself online. But this week’s spending review has tipped me over the edge, so here goes.

Reasons I’ve considered voting for the status quo

• In general I’m not in favour of extra borders and divisions. We are one species, living on one world. The only borders that make perfect sense to me are geographical ones, because these naturally give rise to genetic and cultural differences. Even then, such borders should be administrative borders, not reflections of or encouragements for you’re not one of us, so I’m going to beat you up mentalities.
• Similarly, I’m not keen on UKIP, BNP and those of their ilk, nor am I any fan of the current UK government. Removing sources of opposition to those might help condemn my England-dwelling friends and family to more of such unpleasantness. (It has been pointed out that the number of Scottish MPs is nowhere near enough to prevent the UK government doing things that Scotland – or the rest of the UK population – might not want.)
• For whatever they were worth, some of the senior members of the previous government were Scottish. Assuming Scotland can produce more worthwhile politicians (read ‘more’ however you want), should the rest of the UK be denied their talents?
• The upheaval that might be caused by independence would strain the Scottish Government and civil service more than it can take. The civil service already under huge strain due to reduced head-count and increased tasks. For example, Scotland is about to take over two forms of taxation (landfill revenue and a replacement for equivalent to stamp duty), along with some responsibility for the Scottish rate of income tax.
• Nor do I want an extra government that can get into debt, or have an army of its own.
• The current government is, I’m reliably told, reasonably competent and coherent. Independence may well lead to the SNP dissolving into factions. I’m not a natural fan of coalitions and scrabbles for bits of power.
• Scotland would have to renegotiate its position in Europe and a lot of treaties to do with international relations – more strain on the civil service.

Reasons I’ve considered voting for independence
My preference would have been for more devolution, so that the first ‘pro-status quo’ argument fell. But that’s not currently an option, so here goes.

• There are some cultural differences between England and Scotland. Should administrative borders not reflect and nurture regional cultures? (Having said that, I tend to think ‘this is our culture/tradition, so we’ll keep on doing this’ arguments are loathsome and stupid.)
• The current Scottish Government has said it will get rid of the nuclear weapons in Scotland. I’m all for that, especially if leads to a reduction in the total number of nuclear weapons.
• If there are going to be armies, I’d sooner they were under local control.
• The current UK government is, to me, a pernicious bunch of lying, incompetent, stupid, evil tossers which whom I wish no association. Reducing the number of people they can influence for the worse might be a good thing overall. For example, the recent spending review  contains three pernicious pieces
  1. the amount of money that Scotland could ‘spend’ has increased – and has been portrayed by UK government as extra generosity to Scotland. Not true: the UK treasury has said ‘here is some money you can spend lend’ (I’m not sure whether such loans are restricted to businesses or can also go to individuals) but it must be repaid to the UK treasury. It’s not a grant or any form of generosity, it’s a way to eventually increase the UK treasury’s income with no guarantee that such profits will return to Scotland. I don’t think tempting people or organisations into debt is a good thing. Also, Scotland’s capital budget has been reduced, while the rules on how much can be spent in different areas have been tightened. So much for local democracy and the Scottish Government having control.
  2. Unemployment benefits will be denied for a week after a person has become unemployed. From what I recall, it already takes ages for benefits to arrive. Desperate people may well be forced into the hands of loan-sharks during this time. Reduce the amounts, tighten up the qualifications, turn benefits from grants to loans (to be repaid when income allows, like student loans) but for goodness’ sake don’t increase the number of dispossessions and other forms of debt-misery. I’ve seen debt collectors in action – very, very scary and the individuals concerned didn’t give a toss that I was unrelated and had nothing to do with the debtor concerned. (It’s possible that I’m arguing here against the increased availability of
  3. This one tipped me over the edge: the denial of benefits to those who don’t already speak English and will not take lessons. I’m all in favour of integration, which probably needs a common language so that good things can flow BOTH ways’. (I’m not in favour of the form of integration that says ‘you must become like us but even then you’re originally foreign so you can never become a first-class citizen’.) However those in need of benefits who don’t yet speak English may well be desperately in need, having arrived from war-torn or otherwise horrible places. Food, shelter and security from persecution and rendition are likely to be major priorities. Arranging lessons is likely to be far down their list of priorities.I agree that speaking English is likely to help with these aims, and I can’t imagine any sane person wanting not the tools to get on in his or her new circumstances. But unless the lessons are provided along with the benefits, then this measure is simply an instance of ‘shun the poor’ combined with ‘dirty foreigner’ mentalities.I’d also like to see how many people this measure will affect. If there are many, it’s a classic case of British injustice and I want nothing to do with it. If there are few, then it’s just a bit of popularist rabble-rousing while still being unjust.
• There is no guarantee that future independent governments will be competent or even decent. Who can tell whether my place here in Scotland will remain secure. After all, I was born in England to foreign parents, one of whom still does not have UK citizenship after 50 years of living and working here, contributing to the UK economy for almost all of that time.
• There is no guarantee that the UK government will continue to be as repellant to me as it currently is.

I realise that many of my pro-independence thoughts are emotional. Certainly I feel emotional as I write them. Perhaps its impossible to remain emotional about this. I would like to base my reasons on quantitative evidence but that’s unlikely to be the full story. For the moment, I’m very, very likely to vote for independence and just hope that the government and form of independence that might result are ones that no longer sicken me.