The town of Nymburk, 28 miles east of Prague is worth a visit and a walk around. The main feature of the town is the Gothic brick Saint Giles Church. This church, together with the preserved buildings of the Nymburk fortification, is a unique example of brick Gothic architecture in the Czech lands. The dominant of the square is a rare Renaissance Town Hall. Besides town walls, the town is also dominated by the Road Bridge (cultural heritage) from 1913, which connects the town center with a town part of Zálabí. Among the important cultural monuments of Nymburk is also Turkish tower, Plague Column, Chapel of St. John of Nepomuk, Bohumil Hrabal Grammar School, Nymburk Synagogue, Water Tower, and Old Fisher House.
This trip was our last ride before we traded in our Apache Wakan bikes which served us well for nine years and upgraded to electric Apache MTBs. When we rode here, we had no idea that we will upgrade soon and that we will be writing about our trips. So we selected an easy ride with basically no elevation gain. The first notable stop of this ride was a graffiti sprayer’s dream – an abandoned warehouse with a lot of walls to put your creation on. We had the luck to talk to a homeless “guide” who explained to us how this hall is used. We recommend the visit only during the daytime!
We started our ride on the right bank of Labe (aka Elbe) river from the popular parking lot next to a bridge in Nymburk. There is a nice bike path in Nymburk, which slowly becomes a narrow path through the meadows. You may visit the ruins of the castle Mydlovar in the protected area Mydlovarský luh (point 3). At point 4 you will be riding along lake Ostrá which may be a good destination for swimming in the summer. Unfortunately, the road along the bank of Labe to the bridge in Lysá was closed, so we had to use the regular road to Litolský bridge, now called the bridge of Bohumil Hrabal (see picture below). The ride back from Lysá follows the river closely with the exception of riding through Hradištko, the beloved village of Bohumil Hrabal.
After crossing the bridge back to the right side of the river, you may stop at point number 7 and try to find the geocache. If you don’t know about the geocaching game, you can find out what it is here – http://www.geocaching.com, and at this point, you may find one of the nicest geocaches we found.
https://en.mapy.cz/s/dugukecalo 36 km no elevation gain. For all rides see the map.
