Sunday 5 August. Tisice to Melnik.

We took a quiet, but interesting rural road out of Chrast (Tisice), it headed south west towards the Labe. There were quite a few new houses under construction. They looked like they were made of a red tile material but the size of a NZ concrete block. However unlike NZ they don't seem to use much mortar. Lots of air gaps. 

We joined the Labe by going down by the side of a railway line which continued on over the Labe on a bridge. We kept to the North bank of the Labe and headed down and under the bridge heading West. We then spent quite a while passing an enormous chemical factory located on the South bank. It had an extremely tall chimney, which looked in good condition but some parts of the factory looked derelict. Other smaller sections seemed to be under repair or construction. The sections we passed first were mostly derelict with the later sections looking newer. The factory is in the town of Neratovice. I did wonder what they made and what, if anything, finished up in the river. People were happily fishing downstream of the factory.

We headed inland, through a few small villages, and in one of them we stopped at a small pub. Every table outside had an overflowing ashtray.

I don't think I've mentioned it before but cigarette smoking is very, very popular here and is accepted almost everywhere. We have yet to have an evening meal which hasn't to some extent been spoiled by second hand cigarette smoke. There doesn't seem to be any segregation of smokers and nonsmokers, even in restaurants. I may have mentioned before that you also see many dogs in restaurants. We now only really notice them when they start barking.

The last part of the walk into Melnik was very quiet, which surprised us as it is one of the most significant regions in the life of the Labe. It is here that the Labe is joined by the Vltava coming in from Prague. The Czech Republic's two largest rivers are now one! A few hundred metres downstream the Labe is also joined by a canal.

It was quite a surprise to find that although Melnik is on the North bank of the Labe one has to climb quickly up from the river, through a vineyard, to reach it. You do however get great views over the surrounding countryside as a result. Tomorrow is a day off in Melnik so Shiel can catch up on the Olympics on TV.

I meanwhile will use the time to treat my insect bites. Over 70 when Shiel last counted. I got most of them two nights ago. We had the Velux window in the roof open because of the heat. They itch! Shiel has only got 4 small bites for the whole trip so far.