23. May
Train ride to Dresden.
We leave on time and load our bikes. The usual poor design forcing all to lift and manouver in tugt spaces with racks designed for road bikes while every bike is a city touring one. Does look best and tidy after loading. The design seems ubiquitious in Germany Austria and chezk.
The countryside is rural and looks far poorer than earlier in the trip. I do not know the relative wealths of the three counties but the clothing and architecture makes it look as if the Chezk are far less well off.
The paperwork. Of course the mist change crews as they cross each border. Of course no crew can trust the work of the previous crew. Of course each crew acts as if they have never seen this type of paperwork before and new places for stamps are required.
The EC , according to the onboard schedule should be running at 90 km per hour beteen stops. In fact it is running slow, falling further behind schedule but is fab compared to Amtrak.
Train is full. Long train and we are in the bike car. Maybe 60 seats all taken. Maybe 10 are taken at most.
The last 60 or so km into Dresden the train rides through the Elbe valley with a preview of riding to come.
Entering Germany the train was immediatly cleaned. Neither Austria or Czech cleaned.
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