The first sound we heard in the morning when we woke up was drip-drop-drip-drop on our window. The weathermen have all been telling us that cold weather, snow and rain was on its way. The sound on the window proved them right and we dressed in our rain gear from start.

There was a funny story behind how we found the place to stay at. When approaching the city of Stara Lobovna we told our almighty friend, the GPS, to take us somewhere where we could sleep. The GPS first directed us to a place that was outside of town and we wanted to be in town so we decided to go to the next place on the list, which turned out to be closed for renovation. When we saw the sign “Tourist Information” a few blocks away we thought we were close to a solution.

I went in and asked for advice where we could stay and the lady told me to to go to the same hotel the GPS first wanted us to go to. It was by now 1.5 km away and downhill and we didn’t want that uphill in the following morning. I asked if there was nothing else around, like a B&B or something similar. Her answer was “No, I am sorry”.

Wej was watching the bikes outside and when I came out to her and told her about the result, she said “why don’t we try this one?”. The very next door from the tourist information was a “penzion” with rooms and a restuarant. I am not kidding – the door to this place was less than 5 meters form the tourist information and the lady wanted us to bike 1.5 km downhill the same way we had come uphill. I think the tourist information in Stara Lubovna need to get updated soon.

Our room was on top floor and had roof windows and it was from those windows I heard the drip-drop sound in the morning. Outside our room there was a pool table and I couldn’t resist to pocket a few balls before leaving.

When we left our “penzion” there was all of a sudden no rain but we were equipped for a monsoon shower. I bet that if we hadn’t dressed for rain, then that monsoon would certainly have been there and probably at the most inconvenient time also. So from now on, we maybe should start in rain gear to fool the weather gods…. 😉

Anyway the weather was OK. Slightly above 0 in the morning and up to 7 in the afternoon, but no rain at all.

The ride today just had some tiny uphill sections, but it was mostly slowly downhill. We had a nice pace and didn’t put in much effort. Our aim was to reach Presov, but thanks to the downhill we arrived there already at 1.30 PM, so we decided to head for Kosice instead.

Our aim has been to ride between Krakow and Kosice in three days, but that plan seemed to be wrecked when we were caught in the hills and the rain between Krakow and Limonova. We have now caught up what we yesterday thought was a delay of one day.

One should bear in mind though that this trip is not a race between Göteborg and Bangkok, it is more a journey to discover what and who is between our two homes so we should not talk in terms of delays, especially when we come across nice people, but it is nice to know that we are able to stick to our plans while also meeting interesting people.

Today there was not much happening. It was us, the downhill road, the clouds, the headwind and no rain. When we passed downhill through a little town at high speed (30 km/h is high speed for a loaded touring bike), I saw a man jumping out from a car with a camera. He waved at us to stop and so we did. We understood almost nothing what this man said apart from him being interested in cycling and very interested in our trip. He took many photos of us and our bikes. We gave him our card with the blog address and then we parted. It is a pity that the language barrier made it too hard to communicate with him.

When approaching Kosice we had to ride on the big highway for about 5-6 km. It appears it’s allowed to cycle on it and we rode on the wide shoulder. To be honest, from a pure cycling perspective, that is the kind of the way we want to ride on with passing traffic many meters away and with nice a smooth tarmac. It is however rather boring since the road is straight and there are no views, but when faced with going 16 km on nice roads or 6 km on this, then the choice was simple.

We entered Kosice from the northern suburbs. There was nice old houses but also some apartment blocks that looked a bit grey and worn out. When passing a little stream we stopped to take some photos and on this one you can see me wearing my new helmet.

Cycling day 18  

Distance:           103.2 km
Traveling time    08.19 hours
Cycling time       05.48 hours
Average speed    17.8 km/h
Top speed           48.3 km/h
Altitude gained     529 m
Altitude lost          872 m

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