Vienna to Bratislava

This blog post is a little late, which reflects the day we had yesterday. While everything was on time as we got going from Vienna, technology issues meant that we ended up doing most of the ride without any reliable mapping/navigation system. This caused James no end of frustration, but at least the route to Bratislava is relatively well signposted. Although we discovered there are a lot of variations to take, leading to a planned 65km day turning into a 77km day. Not helped by the occasional missed turn...

For all that, the route was pretty for the most part. One thing we weren't warned about though was the extended naturist section along the bike path as we left Vienna. The question "what does FKK mean?" was soon answered through simple deduction (verified later via google - don't click on the link it brings up!). Naturally, most of the enthusiastic practitioners were on the older end of the age scale and Kieran managed to get more than he bargained for at one point as some people didn't want to wait to leave the carpark before disrobing to head down with their fellow nudists! No photos, which is for the best, let us assure you.

There are not so many photos from the ride (most of our focus was on trying to figure out which way to go) but at some point one of our detours led us to a castle in the middle of nowhere, which was very pretty.

Lunchtime saw our frustrated gang lunching at a little pizza place in Hainberg, where a reboot of James' phone resolved most of the navigational issues, as well as improving his mood markedly. It was only a short run from there to Bratislava, which included crossing our second border - into Slovakia.

After checking in to our Pension and having a shower, stretch and a little lie down, we went for a wander around the old town area of Bratislava. This is really a lovely city, with a lively restaurant/bar scene, which we're looking forward to exploring more of on our rest day today. Though Gillian was taken with a little bar called Evil Flowers which we will spend some more time in today. Plus there are more gelato bars per capita than we have ever seen in one city and we will be conducting a taste test of a few bars later today and will report back about the best one to visit!

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