A roundabout day.
First around the lake and through the forest, past a run-down estate with huge palace, a big gothic St. Hubert statue in a clearing. (put photos here)
Went to the Austrian-Czech border at Valtice, with an awesome Kolonade on top of the hill. Didn’t realize that the other side of Kolonade was Österreich, and so accidentally entered the Prussian empire. Returned and took a rather bad road along the border until Hevlin. Not an interesting town except there was a potraviny there so I could burn my last crowns on lunch.
Then through to the Austrian town of Laa an der Thaya. First mission was to find the campsite. Of course on any map the tent picture means nothing – there was no campsite here. Went into the Rathaus for some maps. It took me a while to find the right room, the rathaus being a bit of a rabbit hole.
Received a quite good map of the area to the east of where I wanted to be. Nonetheless got a large-scale cycle route map with information that there is camping in Poysdorf, and headed there. The cycling signs in Austria are very good. It was no problem getting there, apart from the warm weather, the somewhat uninteresting farm land, and running out of water.
Followed a route called the Veltliner. I have no idea what that means but it goes around a hilly region, takes you up the side a bit so you can get a little view and see some grape vines, then drops you back down into Poysdorf.
I was the only one in a tent at the camping, until a Polish couple arrived on their bikes, Lukasz and Ola. They had caught the train from Katowice at 3AM to Brno and then cycled from there. Nice guys. Though weary, they offered to share their soup and still had time for a chat.
Dep 9:30, arr 5:00, dst 97.5km