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'