The End

Well we made it back home. The last couple of days in Belgrade were great. We saw the most magnificent crypt at St Sava, recently completed and awe inspiring. We also had a magnificent farewell dinner with our Serbian mates, complete with the best live traditional music that we've struck along the entire journey and lasting late into the night. Well, late for us, but it seemed like the party was only just getting started for the group of 30 or so women who we were sharing the restaurant with ;-).

The last day was relatively quiet, with a walk back up to Kalemegdan fortress to have a final lunch overlooking the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers, and then farewell to Kate and Colleen as they headed off to Italy. Packing and resting followed that, and then a quiet dinner and a nice Italian restaurant, where Kieran finally got to taste the raspberry rakija that he has been keen on trying for the whole trip. The night was most notable for being the only time in the whole trip that we arrived home wet, as a weather front came in as we were having dinner and we got soaked on the way home. Beats having it happen on the bike, and we are thankful that the rain avoided us for most of the trip.

We are extremely grateful to Nemenja who very graciously packed our bikes for us, and to Nikola and Dragana for putting us in touch with him. Vlad and Dragan acted as our transportation officers to the airport and checking in was only a minor hassle with the two bike boxes. The biggest issue was with the tools packed in the luggage - apparently the torque wrench (with its contained spring) looked like it might be a modified pistol! Thankfully a quick unpack and repack resolved that problem.

The flights were ordinary in the way that can happen with international travel. Everything was delayed, but we were lucky that the delays cascaded through the system and meant that extra time in the airport in Belgrade meant no time in Abu Dhabi and we managed to catch the last flight back to Canberra, arriving about 2 hours after the scheduled time. Our own beds were most welcome when we got home!

James has been diligent and the bikes are reassembled and ready to go again. Gillian has decided she loves hers, which was completely reliable (if not always completely comfortable) and didn;t miss a beat throughout the whole trip. A couple of parts went missing in the transfer (Gillian's bike box was pretty extensively beaten up by the airline), but for the total sum of $13 these were replaced by the local bike shop. We're actually looking forward to getting cycling again, although maybe not quite as much or quite as far for a little while. Stay tuned for the next adventure...

Belgrade

Belgrade is trying to kill us. We have been having a great time undoing all the good work we achieved on the bike. Gillian and James have been here before (as has Kate) and we are lucky enough to have some good friends who have been embarrassing us with their hospitality and generosity. This has taken the form of many big meals, showing off a variety of Serbian cuisine. Below is an example of lunch on our first day, at a restaurant chosen by Zoran - one of the aforementioned friends. Bear in mind this is only for 6 people - it would be nice to think that it is larger than usual, but really, it's about average...

We have been doing all of James' favourite things, lunch at Kalemegdan, dinner in Skardalia, wandering around Knez Mihailova. They all seem to be as much fun as he remembers. We have also been on a tour out into the countryside to visit two Serbian Orthodox monastries from the 14th and 15th century. This was very interesting, and instructive, and it was good to get out of the city and see some of the Serbian countryside. Thanks go out to our guide Milica - who has a vast knowledge of the history of the region and the traditions of the Serbian Orthodox church - and driver Alexander. Of course the tour included an enormous lunch (despite our efforts at moderate ordering) and was followed by a large dinner, which included music from two bands playing traditional Serbian songs. Kate somehow managed to sing along. We will be rolling off the plane in Canberra.

Today sees us heading off to see St Sava, the largest Orthodox church in the world, and surely many other interesting parts of the city. We will have to be disciplined at lunchtime as we have a big dinner planned with James' work friends and colleagues.

The ride - the stats

1602 kilometres
6 countries
0 flat tyres
1 stack
5 countries with live snake sightings
22 days riding
22 accommodation bookings
700mL of sunscreen
72.8 km per day average (on riding days)
2 lost(forgotten) chargers
3 ruined panniers
4 parliament buildings visited
3 ferry crossings
89.2km longest ride
47.3km shortest ride

too many to count:
cornfields
sunflower fields
churches
roadside shrines
other cyclists
good meals
gracious hosts
beers

Stari Slankamen to Belgrade

We made it! In the end our last day was pretty easy, with a flat ride into Belgrade (ignoring the big hill out of our accommodation...). We started the day with breakfast, of course. James, having done the shopping the previous evening had kind of forgotten that breakfast was a thing, so you can see our "breakfast" of champions for the last day's ride below.

With that taken care of we were on our way. We had a short day and a relaxed schedule, which meant we could (and did) stop for a coffee break after the first hour or so. The way into Belgrade was pretty unremarkable for the most part, passing through increasingly dense towns until we hit Belgrade proper. James had somehow managed to arrange the navigation to go past the Institute of Physics (no surprise, really), where we were able to catch up with our friends Dragana and Vlad before heading to lunch at a lovely restaurant overlooking the Danube.

From there it was a short ride across the river (actually, the Sava river, Belgrade being on the confluence of the Danube and the Sava), to our accommodation in the middle of the old section of Belgrade. The apartment is lovely, and very conveniently located. It has a washing machine, which was greeted by rapture-like delight as we took the advantage to properly clean clothes that had (at best) only a rinse since Budapest. Relaxation was the order of the afternoon, while we waited for Kate and Colleen to arrive after their big Persian adventure. Vlad had kindly volunteered to take James to pick them up from the airport in the evening, and once back to the apartment we headed out for a late dinner.

We're all looking forward to exploring Belgrade and catching up with our Serbian friends over the next few days, if only to stop hearing James tell everyone how much he loves it here...

Relive 'Danube - Grand finale'

Novi Sad to Stari Slankamen

This morning we had a little lie-in followed by a late breakfast in Novi Sad. In hindsight this may have been a tactical error. The route from Novi Sad was steep with a long ascent up a hill - 5% for 4 kms, a category 3 climb (on Strava anyway) for those acquainted with the Tour de France. Gillian was not mentally prepared for the slog today and chucked a wobbly half way up (Roge, if you are reading this you will know what this entails). Best not to describe a route that 'undulates' to Gillian for a while!

The view from the top was spectacular so maybe just worth the effort. Some of the downhill sections were a lot of fun, there just weren't perhaps enough of them. We did encounter some local cyclists who where flying up the hills and we think they were saying encouraging words to us as they passed by.

At one of the route junctions we found a church under construction which was just gleaming in the (very hot) sun. This part of Serbia is home to 16 Orthodox abbeys. We didn't have a chance to visit any today as we were on a schedule to meet our Airbnb host for tonight. As it was we were running really late. And the meeting arrangements were somewhat different to those we expected.

We finally meet up the Milos (our host) who showed us the way to his house. Which is lovely and has a fabulous view of the Danube from the balcony. Below you can see Kieran enjoying a well deserved sit down and Gillian reclining on the bench trying to recover from her fit of the vapours.

Milos discovered that James likes playing chess and the price of providing a taxi service into town to get supplies was to play a game. When Gillian chose this accommodation - a real Serbian holiday house on the Danube - she did think that there was a number of restaurants and grocery stores within walking distance. The location on the Airbnb website does not quite match the reality. Next time Gillian mentions "quirky", James and Kieran will say "five star"! All part of the adventure...

We have discovered a stash of 80s CDs which we are cycling through now and sipping a few beverages on the balcony. Who doesn't love Madonna and Was (not was). Next might come the Barry White.

Belgrade tomorrow!!!!

Relive 'Danube day 30'

Ilok to Novi Sad

Firstly, Gillian would like to thank the makers of Ibuprofen. After the last couple of days riding a couple of Ibuprofen in the morning were a must to get going.

We started the day with a massive breakfast, which was prepared by our attentive hosts, overlooking that Danube (and Serbia on the other side of the river). Fresh tomatoes from the garden, quince jam from the tree providing shade for us and cheese and ham prepared by the extended family. As our ride was short today we could enjoy a leisurely breakfast and chat with our host. We were offered rakija with breakfast but we declined (though the temptation was great).

Today was our easiest ride so far being under 50 kms. We started with a fun downhill section (after initially pushing our bikes up the hill from our accommodation - though James rode up the hill, showoff!). We made our way to the Croatian boarder crossing and completed this with minimal fuss then proceeded over the bridge to the Serbian border crossing. We were waiting in the car line with all the other people trying to cross when a very helpful truck driver told us we didn't need to wait in line but just make our way to the front of the line because we were on bikes. This seemed to be OK and nobody honked at us so success. Kieran would like to add that this is his sixth new country visited.

Once in Serbia we had a 10 km ride on the main road which required nerves of steel! We finally hit the cycle path which we had anticipated to be on dirt but found that the path was sealed and we enjoyed ramping up the speed into Novi Sad. Below you can see Gillian doing a happy dance about the surface and the shorter than usual ride today.

We arrived in Novi Sad in time for a leisurely lunch before heading to our apartment. Our apartment is located in a Soviet era apartment building (with an interesting lift) has a view of the Petrovaradin fortress on the other ride of the river.

After cleaning up and doing some hand washing (so over that) we went for a walk around the town centre. James was impressed to see a restaurant/bar abutted against a church wall - this seems like an entirely pragmatic use of space!

We needed a little rest after our walk (and stop for a drink break in a little cafe to people watch). The centre of town was swarming with police in riot gear which we think was due to the football match being played tonight between FK Vojvodin and Red Star Belgrade (full time score 1 - 2).

As the sun was setting we walked up the hill to the Petrovaradin fortress for dinner. The climb was no where near as bad as we had anticipated and we think this is because we are fitter now then when we first started. The view of the city from the fortress is just stunning. We managed to get a table for dinner at a restaurant overlooking the city and watched the sun go down. We all took a moment to think how lucky we are to be in Novi Sad and take stock of the journey thus far.

After dinner we headed down to the old town underneath the fortress were there was a music/beer festival happening and the old town was going off. Novisadians are unbearably cool. It is a pity we have to ride tomorrow! Or not as things may have gotten messy. We can still hear the music from our apartment as we prepare for the ride tomorrow. We look forward to a little sleep in followed by leisurely breakfast and short ride tomorrow. It is hard to believe we are almost at the end of our journey.

Relive 'Danube day 29'

Osijek to Ilok

First a quick update on dinner last night. We followed the suggestion of our host and headed out to a Slavonian resturant (Slavonia being the region of Croatia we are travelling through). The meal was excellent. James decided on the venison stew, Kieran on the fried frog bits (in honour of all the frogs we ran over or ran into on the days ride) and Gillian had the most enormous plate of meat (true to the description on the menu). Our waiter was very entertaining and very thoughtfully provided us with a pre-dinner drink of rakija - plum for the boys and cherry for Gillian. Whilst welcome we seemed to have overdone our daily limit of alcohol which luckily didn't interfere with our ride today. If we hadn't been so organised with the blog yesterday, this would have featured. By the time we got home though, bed was the only thing on our minds.

Now to today's ride to Ilok. The riding was really enjoyable today for the most part and this is the most distance Gillian and Kieran have done on the road. Most drivers gave us heaps of room, there were lots of appreciative waves from us. The route today was mainly flat except for the last 12 km which was gently uphill, interspersed with 4 steep drops, all followed by equally steep climbs. There was some walking of bikes as a result - we are blaming the weight of the panniers and our very tired legs.

By the end of the ride we were all covered in little insects which had gotten stuck to the sunscreen on our skin. Gillian and Kieran weren't covered in as many as James - he looked like he had been rolled in poppy seeds by the end. Gillian thinks this another benefit of drafting!

This region of Croatia is famous for the vineyards and the spectacular views of the Danube. This is most certainly justified. It is hard, however, to not be reminded when passing the ruins of buildings (or water towers, picture below) that this part of Croatia suffered greatly during the Yugoslavian wars. The main street of Ilok has many damaged buildings from this time.

We were all starving after our ride today and upon arriving at our accommodation didn't feel like walking the 1 km back up the hill to the main street of town. We did however partake of the apples and plums in the garden, which is stunning. Our rooms are housed in a building that was made by the owners from rammed earth. As we were on our way down to our accommodation ( a hill comparable to the others we had already climbed earlier) we did wonder if we had made a really bad logistical error. But not so, the hosts are lovely and the accommodation peaceful and very rural Croatian.

After a bit of a regroup this afternoon, we walked into town and found a lively little winery to have dinner - we were worried we had ordered too much because we were ravenous by this stage. Two drinks each and some lovely local cuisine and we were feeling much more relaxed and ready to face another day of riding tomorrow.

A note on pictures today - as most of the day was spent on the rode we decided that we didn't really want to stop and take pictures with cars whizzing by us. Anyway, we don't think our phone cameras could really capture what we were seeing!

Relive 'Danube day 28'

Mohacs to Osijek

That was a hard day, and one of our longest at 88km. We started early, at around 8am, to try and beat the worst of the heat, and headed out of Mohacs on a nice bike path along the river. We then hit the main road, thankfully not to busy, to head to the border crossing between Hungary and Croatia. This was the first time we'd had our passports checked on the bikes, and was a pretty smooth process. The only quirk being that the Hungarian border guard wanted to see a copy of James' Australian driving licence - we think for his collection, he told us he'd never seen one before. James got it back thankfully, although we'll be closely checking speeding and parking fines when we get home!

Crossing into Croatia, the friendliness of the locals was on show, as everyone we passed wanted to wave, and the drivers were giving us heaps of room, as well as lots of waves. We came upon our friends from yesterday who had gotten away before us but had stopped to put on sunscreen. Amateurs, we did ours before we left! We had a bit of a chat and recommended our hotel for tonight (they are also finishing in Osijek today). Shortly afterwards was a relatively serious climb, taking us up to overlook the Danube valley. Sadly we could not enjoy the descent which was at 10% gradient but on cobblestones. Lots of work on the brakes for that one...

Shortly afterwards we headed to the flood dykes for the rest of the ride into Osijek. This took us through some lovely country, a nature reserve peppered with hunting lodges - including one that Tito used when he needed a weekend off. This provided us with views of lots of the local wildlife, we saw a few snakes, a lot of frogs (don't know why they were on the path) and plenty of birds. The highlight was stopping to watch a wild sow cross the path with her piglets.

The lowlight was the effect the extended time on gravel had on our legs, wrists and bums. We were dusty tired and sore by the time we reached Osijek at around 2.30pm. However, our accommodation is excellent, they have provided us with a welcome drink (James had beer AND slivovitz), and we are sitting here composing this entry in a lovely little private courtyard (partaking of ice cream again). James is considering another of the beers. An early dinner and bed will follow, with our last proper long day tomorrow.

Relive 'Danube day 27'

Kalocsa to Mohacs

Corn, sunflowers, corn, sunflowers, more corn, more sunflowers. This is basically the theme of today. It was a big day of cycling which saw us travel 85 km across very flat terrain (as the name Great Hungarian Plain implies!) Kieran had been closely watching the weather reports for today and we knew that the temperature was set to reach 35 degrees - our hottest riding day so far. In an effort to beat some of the heat we set off early.

We headed off into a head wind which did not abate for most of the ride and Gillian discovered the joys of drafting. If you aren't a cyclist you are probably wondering what the hell drafting is - in this case it is where James rides in front of Gillian cutting down the amount of wind Gillian needs to ride through, thus making Gillian ride faster. No real benefit to James other than Gillian goes faster and we get to our destination sooner.

We were riding on dykes all day. Much of the day was spent on good surfaces so the speed we could do was pretty fast. However what we thought were strictly cycle paths were apparently local roads. The path/road was very narrow and it wasn't always fun having cars pass us so closely, but there weren't that many, thankfully. Today we didn't have much of a view of the Danube from the cycle path but we were the beneficiaries of some very welcome cooler breezes coming from the river. We have spent the last few days riding across the Great Hungarian Plain which covers about half of Hungary. This is really great for cycling but the landscape today didn't change very much.

Towns were a little further apart, so there wasn't as much break from the riding as usual, but we did find a couple of nice places to stop for a cool drink. Refrigeration is a wonder on a hot day!

The last part of our route today took us on another ferry across the Danube. In the line to board the ferry we meet a French couple who had cycled from Bratislava and were making their way to Belgrade, so we may see them again. This is what seems to be happening all along our journey, though the amount of other riders we are coming across now has reduced significantly. It is nice though to smile and wave and wish fellow travelers good luck. It would be even better if we could speak something other than English so that we could swap stories about which bits of the route are blocked off due to construction!

Our hosts at the accommodation are lovely and promptly offered us cold water when we arrived (they could probably tell we were in desperate need given the state we were in, and had heard of our appreciation of refrigeration...). Today the best thing about our accommodation is the air conditioning. Not many places along the way have this so we are rather thankful for it.

We stepped out earlier to find ice cream as we skipped lunch and thought we deserved another dessert (there seems to be a theme developing). We will go in search of dinner in a little while.

Relive 'Danube day 26'

Szentgyorgypuszta to Kalocsa

Today we started with a traditional Hungarian breakfast, replete with raw bacon! We didn't touch the bacon as we really didn't need to stop for lots of toilet breaks. We did laugh ourselves silly all the way through breakfast with various references to the raw bacon - some probably best not shared, rather we will leave this up to your imaginations. (After some further research this afternoon we have discovered that the bacon we were served is know as Szalonna and can in fact be eaten raw - though we are still unconvinced on this front).

Breakfast finished, we headed off along the first part of today's route. Not sure calling the cycle path 'a goat track' is really descriptive enough - it was just slightly shorter grass than the grass around it for the most part. For the first 11 km or so our top speed was 17 km/hr but most of our trip was down around the 10 km/hr mark. Gillian was most relieved to see the newly paved cycle path when we finally got to that. As were James and Kieran, but we now know not to get too excited because the next surface might not last long or might be worst than the last.

Though the going was slow this morning, we did see a large collection of birds of prey, but unfortunately(fortunately?) didn't get close enough to identify them. The country side was also magnificent and we have to pinch ourselves sometimes to remember that we are in Hungary.

After a rather too long break for lunch, too boring to recount, we traveled mostly on country back roads at a respectable speed (not quite Tour de France style but good for us) and arrived in the very pretty town of Kalocsa. Unfortunately we didn't have time to do the tour of the Paprika Museum but we did pass a small brilliantly coloured field on the way into Kalocsa filled with paprika plants. We did the usual washing of knicks and showering before heading out for a long leisurely dinner in town. We even splashed out and had dessert as we all agreed we had earned it today.

Another big day tomorrow...

Relive 'Danube day 25'

Budapest to Szentgyorgypuszta

Today got off to a bit of a rocky start. James' navigation tools did not seem to want to work and he was forced to reboot everything to get things going again. This meant our departure from Budapest was delayed by about an hour. By the time we did finally get on track (and we really needed everything to work today as the navigation was particularly difficult) we were all relieved to be back on our bikes again.

The journey today took us along some dodgy tracks, through a forest, a corn field (that track finished in rows of corn!), roads of varying busyness and finally along potholed country roads past some holiday homes along an anabranch of the Danube. As a consequence, there are very few photos as we really had to concentration on where we were riding rather than the scenery. James' mood didn't help, still reeling from the navigation issues at the start of the day.

We finally arrived at our accommodation at about 3 pm. We seem to be staying in a Hungarian summer house. Not sure that we rate the accommodation side so much but we did enjoy the meal at the associated restaurant, which was excellent. Our hosts gave us a couple of bonus samples of plum palinka. James and Kieran seem to like it alright but Gillian thinks it is 'liquid death'. We are assuming it is home made and we are probably best not knowing how that process was done.

We will be breakfasting late tomorrow at 9 am (our earlier request for a 7.30 am breakfast was meet with disapproval) - hopefully it won't leave us too late arriving at our next destination. It's a long day at 74km (experience suggests adding a few kms to allow for navigation "issues").

Anyway, off to bed now as we have a long ride ahead of us through more of the Hungarian countryside. Hopefully hangovers won't be a factor...

Relive 'Day 24'

Budapest

We love Budapest! Our time here has been fantastic and we don't really want to leave tomorrow morning.

Day one in Budapest was spent wandering the aisles of the Budapest Central Market. So much colour and movement, so many different kinds of salami. Had this not been the first stop of the day we may have been forced to buy a number of samples to take home with us. I'm not sure we would have tried the Donkey salami but we certainly like the sound of Catfish salami! It wasn't long before our stomachs started to rumble (it had been an hour since breakfast...) and we decided to try the must eat Hungarian street food, Langos. What is not to love about deep fried bread dough covered in sour cream and cheese?

After this we headed up to Buda Castle, managing to accidentally miss the stairs, but finding an escalator and lift to the top of Castle Hill instead. Not really a bad thing as the temperature was pushing 32 degrees. The view of the city from the top of Castle Hill is breathtaking.

We found a little cafe at the top to sit and admire the view and have lunch. We had planned to visit the Hungarian National Gallery after lunch (Gillian needed to see the Dali exhibition) but one look at the ticket line and we decided to just walk around the grounds of the Castle instead. We happened upon a photographic exhibition collected from submissions from the Hungarian public, called 'Every past is my past'. Deciding that might be a decent substitute we went to the ticket booth and found that not only could we get in, we could get a ticket to the whole shebang (without the hour long wait)! Virtue is its own reward, but we were pretty pleased with ourselves for finding the back way in... The photo exhibition was just fantastic, an insight into Hungary over the last hundred years - we took far longer in there than we thought. It was distinctive not only for the images that were displayed, but also for the lack of images of Hungarian Jews from the time leading up to and during World War II. We went on to see some of the (huge) permanent collection of the Gallery and also the Surrealist exhibition (Gillian was happy, Kieran found it a bit trippy).

We headed out for dinner in the old Jewish district and enjoyed a modern take on old Hungarian dishes. After dinner Gillian and James had a few quiet drinks in an outdoor bar whilst Kieran went off and explored other venues in the district.

The next day we managed a sleep in (might have been too many Spritz Aperols enjoyed by Gillian) and after breakfast we headed off to visit Hero's Square and a walk around City Park and Vajdahunyad Castle. James managed to navigate around the Budapest public transport system, always our preferred method of travel. Kieran was especially curious to use the subway, which is the oldest in the world. We caught Line 1 which began operation in 1896, and retains what must be a lot of its original design work and charm.

After a bit of a rest at our apartment, we headed out to explore another restaurant/bar street close by. Whilst we are loving the Hungarian food we felt like a bit of variety and opted for a tapas jazz bar, with live music. Sadly, the music was disappointing (to say the least - not jazz, not on tune, just one old guy on his guitar, possibly the owner...). We decided to leave as soon as the meal was polished off and the musician started playing the 'Irish Rover' - it just wasn't right!

Today, we started early because Gillian could not wait to go on a tour of the Hungarian Parliament. Our tour started at 8.30 am which meant a 7.30 am departure to be sure we didn't miss the start. The building is something else and well worth a visit - wildly oversized for the actual function it needs to play (third largest parliament building in the world, Kieran tells us), but spectacular. But for Gillian it was the Chamber which really made her little parliamentary nerd heart beat faster.

After many photos we managed to tear Gillian away and headed off for our next tour at the Dohany Street Synagogue, another incredible place of worship. Our tour guide George was very passionate and gave us an insight into life as a Hungarian Jew. As much as we were in awe of the building, the reality of what happened to this community during (and before) WWII was sobering, and upsetting.

After lunch Gillian and James headed off to the Gellert Thermal Baths, while Kieran had a rest. This is yet another beautiful building in the Art Deco style, and an interesting contrast to our experiences of public bathing in Japan. After joining the hundreds of people in the baths we headed home refreshed. The final thing to do is the laundry before heading out of this wonderful city tomorrow.

Nagymaros to Budapest

This post is brought to you a little late for various reasons. James had some issues getting Relive to work - and really, what's a blog post without the video? And also, Budapest...

The ride started out with another ferry crossing of the Danube. We got there about 25 minutes before it was due to leave and figured the system was the same, where you get on and pay for the ticket on the way over. We didn't count on the massive bicycle tour group also being there to cross, the massive truck that got on the ferry (along with two support vehicles and trailers for the tour group) and various other people and cars. Also, it seems like you had to buy tickets at the cafe before you got on, unless you happened to follow the tour group onto the ferry and they assumed you were part of it. We feel a little bad about our free ride, but we didn't even properly realise what was going on until it was too late!

The ride into Budapest was relatively short from there, although it took longer than we might have expected. There were again long sections on the road, which we all find a bit stressful (some traffic hasn't heard of "a metre matters", although mostly the drivers are great with giving us plenty of room). There were good sections of beautiful bike path, although some of them ended a bit abruptly. At one point in a drop off that fed straight onto the road. Some quick thinking had us stopped in time to avoid any issues.

Navigating the way along the river into the city was "interesting", we took back streets and dirt tracks to avoid main roads until we hit the proper bike path along the river. The views as we came in were spectacular, with some debate over the purpose of one massive building - Gillian won that one, it is the Hungarian Parliament (more on that in another post...).

We stopped for some lunch in the city before checking into our digs. And WOW! This wins hands down the prize for best place we've staying in so far. We're in the old Jewish Quarter in a "two bedroom apartment" (check it out here). The description doesn't do it justice. It is bigger than our house (not joking), with three enormous main rooms, and what seems to be original parquetry flooring. The ceilings are high and there are a couple of chandeliers (Gillian likes the pink one in the living room). There has been some discussion about extending our stay here and just taking the train the rest of the way to Belgrade...

The rest of the afternoon saw us finding a laundromat to do some washing (luxury! we're sick of rinsing everything out...), and then in the evening we found a couple of nice "ruin bars" to go to for dinner and then a little nightcap. More exploration has followed - but that will be the subject of another entry!

Relive 'Danube day 20'

Dunaalmás to Nagymaros

Lovely town that it is(not), we weren't entirely upset about leaving Dunaalmas this morning. All three of us just could not get past the smell of the water. We rode out of town past the local supermarket to top up on potable water before taking on some road riding for the first part of the day.

Road riding is not Gillian nor Kieran's favorite way to ride and a number of expletives were uttered (mostly by Gillian, but some by James too) during our time on the road. It has to be said that Hungarian drivers seem to be more courteous towards cyclists than Australian drivers but nonetheless you do have to steel your nerves a bit. We did get to ride through some very pretty villages which now, unlike the previous two days, seem to be populated with lots of people going about their daily lives. The drop in temperature may have helped as well, it certainly did for us.

Part of our route today included a short ferry ride across the Danube - which is the first time we have actually been on the Danube. We may consider a sunset cruise in Budapest but the list of things to do there seems to be growing and we are going to need to pick and choose.

Our accommodation today is very typically Hungarian. It is rather homely but small and has a similar feel to staying at your grandparents house. The really good thing is that we can drink the water! (We also met a Hungarian bloke at our accommodation who had lived in Australia for 18 months and was wondering what three Australians were doing in Nagymaros. He recommended a restaurant and we had a Hungarian style family dinner).

After ditching our knicks and showering, we headed into town to have a drink at a funky little bar on the banks of the Danube with a view across the river to Visegrad Castle, perched up high on a cliff. It would have been very easy to sit there for a number of hours just relaxing but we thought we had better keep walking. We also discovered a bar in a side street that specialises in Tokaji but we again resisted the temptation and walked in the other direction - James was very conflicted though. We will definitely be sampling some Tokaji in Budapest - tomorrow's destination.

Relive 'Danube day 19'

Gyor to Dunalmaas

We left Gyor this morning just after 8am trying to get some km's down before the peak heat of the day, forecast was for a 35 degree day (our earliest start yet! James was organised for once...). Today's ride took us along some industrial estates coming out of Gyor, along some country roads through villages, some patchy dirt track and up a very steep hill in order to reach our accommodation (more on that later).

It seems that the most popular places to hang out on Hungarian National Day (day two of the holiday, and the actual proper date of observation) are at the local corner stores cum bars for drinking at breakfast. Pretty much like Australia Day actually. Our plan to find a supermarket along the way hit a snag when we discovered that they are all closed on Hungarian National Day! OK, we can roll with the punches, this wasn't the end of the world (more on this later).

Our ride was mostly pretty fast (relative use of this term) today and we managed to get some good speed going down hills, which Gillian really likes. There were large patches of bike path that was pretty sketchy and we kept hitting the expansion cracks in the path pretty heavily - they tend to be weed filled and curled up. Our panniers, which may or may not make it to Belgrade (note to self, get the expensive ones next time), are a bit the worse for wear and every bump meant they may jump off the bike!

Trains and train crossings were a big feature of the day as we were somehow held up three times at train crossings. They were enforced drinks break of a sort. Kieran is also fascinated with the amount of marijuana growing organically by the side of the bike path. Gillian less impressed that Kieran knows what to look for, but what happens on the Danube ride, stays on the Danube ride.

With 69 kms down we knew the end was in sight and couldn't wait for some cold water and some cold showers. The last 1 km saw us pushing our bikes up a gravel hill in 30+ degree heat. We made it to the top, drenched and in need of a rest and some food. We soon discovered that the restaurant of our accommodation is closed - you guessed it - 'for Hungarian National Day'. We also discovered that to go and get lunch we had to walk back down the hill to the nearest(only) open restaurant which is 1.6 kms into town. We had this entire discussion through Google translate, which we love!

The straw that really broke the camel's back was finding out that the water at our accommodation, and in the town, smells and tastes like sulfur! Gillian managed to drink two glasses but Kieran and James just couldn't do it. So without showers and looking like messes we wandered into town to the local pizza joint. Thankfully the restaurant was air conditioned (and opened) and we managed to order using the little German we have picked up and Google translate again. We drank about a litre of water each and brought a six pack to go!

Back up the hill we went, tummies full and well hydrated, enjoying the scenery as we sampled from afar a slice of Hungarian life. Also, working up yet another sweat as the temperature touched 33. Showers were the order of the day on our return, sulphur notwithstanding. We are now all looking forward to Budapest in a couple of days!

Postscript - our accommodation took pity on us and are preparing dinner for us at 7 pm. There may be a few beers consumed and definitely many more litres of non-sulfur water.

Relive 'Danube day 18'

Bratislava to Gyor

Today was a longish day, where we managed to do over 80km of cycling. That said, it was also our fastest day, as fitness levels have increased and we had fresh legs after our Bratislava rest day. We were also treated to some lovely views of the city as we left.

Mostly the riding was pretty good, save for one stretch for about 8 km along a busy main road that crossed the border into Hungary. The 80+km/hr traffic wasn't so much fun, especially for Gillian who hasn't really experienced that sort of riding before. That said, we were excited to enter our 4th country for the trip, with Kieran clocking up another land border crossing.

The riding was pretty good after that with fresh fit legs aided by a decent tailwind, making everything run pretty smoothly. We had a nice lunch and then another hour or so on the run into Gyor, our stop for the day. This is a lovely little town, with a pedestrianised centre, along with a big church and bishop's residence. We even found the Ark of the Covenant!

A wander around the city was aided by an icecream, and followed by sitting down in the main square for a beer/aperol spritz/soda water (Kieran was very restrained!). There were a lot of people wandering, thanks to it being the Hungarian national day. The only downside was trying to find some more sunscreen (which we are running out of), which tends to be located mainly in pharmacies in this part of the world (they were all shut - the supermarket had some that will do the trick though).

The highlight of the day was probably dinner. We decided that we wanted to have traditional Hungarian fare, and after a pretty extensive survey of the open restaurants we ended up at the one associated with our hotel. Between us we had chicken with fried gnocchi in a green peppercorn sauce, veal paprikash and elk goulash. We've decided that over the three dishes it is probably our best dinner on the trip to date - and it will be hard to beat.

On to Neszmely tomorrow, with a bit of a shorter day...

Relive 'Danube day 17'

Bratislava

We are staying in a little Penzion in the heart of old town so everything is right on our doorstep. The streets were filled with music and people everywhere last night which made it all seem very festive. It is easy to forget that things here have not always been this good.

We spent a very pleasant day wandering around the old town of Bratislava today, definitely a place worth visiting if you are ever in these parts. We started our day with a walk up the hill to Bratislava Castle. The view over the old town from one direction is spectacular and the view of the Soviet built Petrzalka is also spectacular but for whole different reasons.

Before heading into the castle we wandered over the the Parliament building so Gillian could nerd out again and then stopped by the Parliament Restaurant for coffee and to admire the view. Then into the castle for some history, including some interesting history from the time when Celts occupied this part of the world.

By this time we had worked up an appetite and headed back down the hill in search of sustenance. We found a very pleasant little restaurant down a side street to escape the sun and do some people watching. By this stage, Kieran had decided that he was full and needed to escape the sun and rest in our little Penzion. We weren't so full that we couldn't stop at the most popular gelato shop for a scoop, though.

James and Gillian ventured to an art exhibition featuring a Slovakian artist called Arnold Peter Weisz-Kubincan before stopping to have a coffee in another interesting coffee house. By this time James and Gillian were also wilting in the heat and also headed back to the penzion for a rest.

We had all decided that we wanted to head back to Evil Flowers for drinks and dinner this evening, which we did and spent some more time people watching. Kieran also sampled another gelato store on the way home, as we found a few more back alleys and hidden streets to explore.

Again, we will be sad to leave Bratislava as there is still so much to explore, learn and eat! But onwards to Hungary we go tomorrow, to the town of Gyor.