Lunch stop
We called into the shop for breakfast and lunch food, much bigger and better stocked, we’d have been fared better shopping here yesterday. Lázně Bohdaneče is an attractive spa town but after leaving it, the cycling wasn’t so interesting, passing along modern ribbon development as villages merged. It improved around the middle of the day with sections through woodland, the countryside was more undulating than yesterday. We also passed a few small towns with pleasing churches and town halls.
The rain began at two and the downpour lasted all afternoon. We should have entered by means of a meandering river path but it was closed for construction work, forcing us to take a shorter but hilly diversion along a busy road.
We’d booked in at the tourist hostel at Usti Nad Orlici, who asked us to phone them half an hour before arrival, which I did in the pouring rain by the side of the road. On arrival, nobody was there to greet us so I phoned again and was talked through opening the key box. Towel hire was additional so we’d have to wait until six for his colleague to call with them. In the meantime we walked to the Lidl supermarket a quarter of an hour away but on returning and trying to cook, we discovered there was no means of lighting the gas stove. I phoned again and was told the colleague would bring something when he came at seven. He actually arrived at 6:50 with a cigarette lighter and two damp old towels, which he didn’t charge for. The shower door had come off its rails and the whole hostel looked tired. It was probably an appealing little hostel at one time but it’s now neglected with lazy management, the only poor accommodation of the trip.