Prague to Hamburg

The Vltava/Elbe Cycle Route

The route we followed was described in detail in the two books I had bought in a Braunschweig bookshop, which regrettably I have now misplaced. I had asked Simon to lead us as he has good German and he could read the books without taking us down any garden paths. However, in preparing this memoir I have come across the Elberadweg website that you can access by clicking on the logo.

As I can’t find the actual route we followed at the time I have recreated it using route planning software that wasn’t then available and the maps shown here are from this later exercise. I thought it sensible not to copy the route details of the Elberadweg for obvious reasons. The plots I have created largely follow the Eurovelo route EV10, with occasional departures to get to the campsites that often are a little way from the river.

The Elbe is followed by cycle paths for almost the whole of its length, sometimes on both sides, with occasional loops veering off to avoid impassible obstacles. As well as road bridges for vehicles there are many pedestrian ferry crossings charging not very much at all, and often unpowered. The method of moving these ferries is by tethering them to a fixed point in the middle of the river by two cables, one attached to each end. Simply by winching in one end or the other angles the ferry against the flow of the river which then pushes it across.

* The only hotels we stayed in were in Prague before we set off, Dresden where we used a student hostel, Lutherstadt Wittenburg where we stayed for two nights and Hamburg while waiting for the ferry home. For the purposes of this memoir I've selected campsites in Dresden, Wittenburg and Hamburg that we might have stayed in if only I could remember which hotels we actually used.

Campsites/Hotels and Mileage