Last stop before Prague. My initial reaction is that one could miss Melnik or at the very least not stay. The castle is well worth a visit and its on my schedule. But Melnik is basically now on the industrial outskirts of Prague and it has that frenetic feel with pot holed roads and big trucks belching exhaust fumes between large graffiti ruined factories

The accommodation was also the least enjoyable. I had some difficulty in finding a bed and breakfast, not helped by a curt Tourist Information officer, who shoved a list of hotels and a map of the city in my direction.

The Hotel Ludmila is on the outskirts – a typical 10 story box. They had rooms! In fact according to the reception lad, he shrugged and said they were “empty”. I had a sense of foreboding, magnified several times over when he went through the room choices of which there were 4. The “basic”, then the “special”, and so on up to suites. When I asked the difference between “basic” and “special”, he became somewhat flustered and obvious had difficulty in explaining the specifics in English. ( price difference about 10 Euro), finally he resorted to the statement that ” well somethings may not work.” I was flabbergasted. What did he mean?

Well for a start the hallway lights did not work… At all! The breakfast was abysmal, the so called “Wi Fi lounge” was half correct. There was a lounge seat. Others in Trip Adviser have summed it up as a typical old fashioned Eastern European hotel.

Pictures show the “breakfast buffet, – its a “spot the missing bits” competition,

A bus load of Belgian cyclists decamped at the hotel…

And the rivers at Melnik