Vranov nad Dyji to Mikulov

 Ride day 9: 58.7 miles, 2664’ elevation

Lodging:  Penzion Zatisi

We awoke to another damp morning. We realized that while we had booked Resort Mlyn Karolinka, we ended up in the adjacent building, Baby-Hotel Karolinka. It was a hotel geared towards small children. Our room had a crib and a toddler potty chair under the bathroom sink. It was filled with toddler artwork and a play area on the ground floor. All very odd to us, but it worked out. Breakfast was mediocre, then we headed out into the misty morning.

After riding around a lake, we passed a lot of small vacation homes as we headed up hill. We climbed up through patches of forest, wound through fields, then headed into another forest. Some of the forest paths were fairly rough with puddles, some were broken up asphalt or dirt and mud. We saw a lot of cyclists and walkers, most cyclists on e-bikes. Because our gpx route cut corners, we stopped periodically to consult the map. It was slow going. 

Finally we came down the point of a ridge with a lazy river wrapping around both sides. A large group of walkers and bikers was sampling wine at a small wooden building. We descended a cobbled path, crossed a river on a swing bridge, and emerged into wine country. Vines were heavy with white, red, and purple grapes. In the town of Satov, we located a restaurant and had chicken schnitzel with fries for lunch. There was a goulash festival in progress, but we had a long way to go and couldn’t linger.

We followed bike paths and narrow roads past vines, corn fields, sunflowers, squash, and empty fields. The character of the countryside  seems to be changing. At last we made it to the town of Mikulov which seemed very busy. A large castle was half way up a hill, and we had a climb to our penzion on the far side of town.

After cleaning up, we walked to a winery next door to our penzion, the attractive Dostal Winery, a four generation enterprise. The friendly owner conducted a wine tasting  for us. We tasted rieslings and a Pinot Grigio , choosing a Riesling for later. It turns out that it’s a huge wine festival this weekend, with music, rides, and wine tasting. It’s a historic festival this time of year, and other towns also celebrate. We were lucky to find a room! You need a ticket to enter the center of town. We were too tired and have a long day tomorrow, so we skirted the festival and went to a restaurant, the oddly named Aquarium Relax (we didn’t see an aquarium), where we had a good dinner. Afterwards we sat on the terrace of our penzion, sipping Riesling and listening to the music from the concert.