It's 7 o'clock sharp and no sign of the breakfast so far. I slept very well, and actually it was wonderful to sleep in a real bed again. I estimate the weight of the duvet to be about 8 kilos. Anyway, it was fabulously heavy. The weather looks a bit shifty. But today I am going to get to Vyskoke Myto, no matter how wet I am going to get. I plan on leaving this place around 8 o'clock.

The breakfast was served 2 minutes past 7. It was very well indeed. It was served to me on a small tray, so I was able to enjoy the meal in my own room. I was hungry, so it didn't take me long to remove the food. Afterwards I strolled to see my landlady to settle with her. And yes, I had grasped the meaning of our conversation correctly. I was to pay DM 20 including breakfast. I gave her extra DM 5, which she at first did not want to accept, but I succeeded in talking her round

And now. Out of Liberec. To start with everything went according to plans. But then the raod signs started getting ambiguous, and at last I had to ask the way from a bunch of road workers. The situation developed to look a bit like what I have experienced in japan. First they fetched one man, then another and so on. At last they got hold of one, who knew a little German, and he pointed the correct direction out to me. Off I went.

Suddenly I was overtaken by a young man on a racing bike. He was carrying a huge backpack on his back. We got into conversation and now I found out, that his name was Filip, that he spoke excellent English, and that he was one his way to see his grandmother, who lived in Hradec Kralove about 100 km south of the place we had met.
Filip was going to be my partner for the rest of the day.

Hradec Kralove is a big city with about 100.000 inh. and I was in fact passing that city myself. We agreed that we would ride together. We discussed how to tackle things, and Filip suggested that we followed the minor roads, which he of course knew. It sounded like a brilliant idea to me, and for the rest of the day I more or less disconnected my head, because these Czech place names are so strange to me that I can hardly remember them.

As the day went by Filip got a little tired, but we spent a wonderful dday together. In a town we passed a supermarked, and I asked Filip if he would go into the shop and buy some of the things he would like to eat and drink for the rest of the day. When he had done so, I would like him to double the things. I thought that was a great idea, because I did not know what was good and what wasn't. I gave hin 50 KC, which is about 12 Danish kroner. He returned from the shop with an enormous load of all kind of delicious things, which we enjoyed during the rest of the trip.

We also went into a restaurant to have a bowl of soup. I had coffee and Filip had a beer. I never drink beer, while on a bike trip.

Although Filip was supposed to know the neighbourhood he had to ask for the way severeal times, but we did make some progress. In a wood Filip had a puncture, which caused him a great deal of trouble. Among other things his spare tube had a defect too. But eventually we made his bike work again, but very soon we discovered, that the air very slowly leaked out from his tube. However, we did not want to take his bike apart one more time, so by pumping his bike more and more frequently we finally arrived in Hradec Kralove.

Filip was sure that his grandmother would treat us with a cup of coffeee, but unfortunately she was not home, when we reached the block of flats where she lived. Filip raced to her flat where he made me a cup of coffe. We sat in front of the house and consumed the rest of the things from the shop. Finally we said good bye and agreed upon keeping in touch. To me this became a day I shall remmber for a very long time. Meeting people like Filip always makes me very happy.

Now I had only 30 km left before I reached Vysoke Myto, which is situated on the very heavily trafficked main road. I managed that as well, and finally reached the town. Jaroslav had sent my a map, so it was quite easy to find the place. It was close to 7.30 p.m. when I parked in front of the house and rang my bell.

At once Jaroslav came out and greeted me warmly. It was the first time we met since Oslo in 1995. First of all he showed me my room on the first floor. It was very nice. On the whole the house is very nice, but of course it's not furnished like houses in Denmark. I forgot to mention that I also said hello to Ludmilla, Jaroslav's wife. She is a quiet woman, who only speaks Czech.
I wonder what she thinks about my appearing here like this. Most of the time she is very busy in the house hold.

I had a shower and soon after supper was served. We had a dish with meat and potatoes. Very delicious. We started with a glass of home-made dandelion wine. Not bad at all. Later we had coffee and I had a beer. We talked until 9.30 where we were all tired. Next day we should go for a bicycle trip, and Jaroslav suggested we started as early as 5 a.m. In my opinion 5.30 would be fine. We agreed upon that. Jaroslav gave me a light beer which I could take to my room. Very quickly I fell asleep in a rather hard bed with a heavy duvet. It seems to be the custom here.

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