Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Danube Bike Trail

Danube biking Day 13 – Sturovo to Budapest

Relaxing morning coffeeMuch better weather today with lots of sunshine. However, the temperature has markedly dropped. After some confusion over English numbers, she said €30 for last nights so called dinner but actually meant €13  with the beers.

The basilica in Esztergom looks pretty amazing although unfortunately I cycled past more interested in the bridge which was only rebuilt in 2001, 56 years after it was destroyed, obviously the Hungarians & Slovaks did not get on with each other. (interesting Wikipedia titbit – “Patrick Leigh Fermor walked from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933/34. His book A Time of Gifts ends on the bridge”

A quick ride along a semi decent cycleway & road to the ferry. Whilst waiting I discovered the derailleur was really loose 🙁 so a good reason for cleaning the bike periodically and poking around)

After the ferry its a gorgeous cycleway with fantastic views of the Danube as it does a major twist through the hills, be interesting to see the huge boats navigate around the S bend.

Me & fellow Danube cyclistsOn the next ferry at Vac I met another pair of Germanic guys once again one  lived in Vienna but this time the other guy was from Munich not Bremen 🙂 One of them had  this time, like me, cycled all the way from Donaueschingen. Alas they finish in Budapest returning next year to go to Belgrade.

The hotel Centrooms House is a bit unusual been in a huge open courtyard on the first floor. It was OK, apart from the hum of some huge fan till 2am but it was very cheap & in the centre of bar life.

I make it that I’ve now biked 2678km since leaving Cambridge on the 3 August in 47 days with 12 rest days so far. Here’s the Strava:

Strava_Ride___Sturovo_to_BudapestAll the pictures for today are here

 

The difference a day makes – Komatron to Sturovo

Foul day on The DanubeYesterday’s top notch cycling conditions were today replaced by heavy squally rain and temperatures down to 10 degrees 🙁 Plus the condition of the paths has noticeably detoriated.

The breakfast was disappoining but I guess it was cheap. First stop after getting kitted out in full wet weather gear was the Vodafone.hu shop to get one of their 1GB SIM’s for £9. The transaction was easy enough, once the new SIM was installed I was expecting the internet to be there like Switzerland, However, after much debate & discussion it transpires they need 48 hours to turn on the internet 🙁 Fortunately there is a lot of wide open WiFi  here so I managed for today.

Then it was time to choose which side of the river to bike. The right Hungarian side seemed to have a lot of my hated artics with huge trailers so I went for the left Slovak bank with it’s broken footpaths & Roman ruins. So back over the bridge I went!

It started OK with the rain easing off the path was very bumpy but passable. The Roman ruins were a bit uninspiring so after a quick walk around. On I went into loads more rain and the pathway detoriating with the sand & mud from the last few floods. I was tempted by the ferry, but to access the ferry meant sliding down a narrow ramp. I continued through the rain & mud eventually reaching a cafe with a pair of guys doing The Danube in 5 day slices over several years. However today was to much for them so they sent for the missus to come & rescue them in her car!

I left and continued in the rain  on a track with the mud getting deeper. Eventually I ended up pushing the bike through the goo and finding a way back to the road ;-( for a mud scraping session. By this time a gale was blowing behind me & I was wishing I had a spinnaker 🙂 The trucks blasting pass the other way were terrifying in the extreme as I was shot blasted with spray!

Thermal Pool
Thermal Pool

At Sturovo I saw the magical words Thermal Hotel and called it a day, washed the clothes and headed for the thermal pools to warm up. I booked a massage for 7pm. The massage was probably one of the most disappointing ones ever, even for €20. The guy had me lying face down for an hour whilst pummelling me and squeezing my very painful muscles around my ankles. It will be interesting to see what they will feel like tomorrow. Then it was off for an even more disappointing cold deep fried mushrooms, fish & potatoes for €11

I’m now booked into a hotel in Central Budapest via LastMinute.com so here’s hoping for a better day.

Today’s 34 mile ride makes it 42% of The Danube bikeway completed. Here is Strava for the day.

Strava_Ride___Komàrom_to_Sturovo

The photos are here 

Bratislava to Komáron on The Danube Bikeway

After last nights cracking evening in the basement wellness centre at The Hotel Devín which involved swimming against a very strong current in the elliptical pool, steaming in the steam room & even sitting on the lowest seat in the huge sauna 🙂 followed by buckets of cold water tipped from the ceiling, then a one hour Thai massage done in the reverse order to Sally’s Swedish massage which is still to be beaten for relaxation therapy.

Modern house with grass roof & in water garden
Modern house with grass roof & in water garden

As you can imagine  after such pleasures and a rear wind I zoomed along the first 2/3rds of smooth cycleways, although be warned there are no sign’s and in a few places a tree root or pothole is cunningly placed to catch you out. Also the route is barricaded off at one point to try and force you to use the Danube Ferry, which of cause I ignored and then spent the next few miles worrying what I would do if there was no crossing place Fortunately the barrage, locks & power station with a road crossing eventually appeared, so no problem.

Berr chitLunch was a beer at the remarkable price of 50p for 500ml although the only food was a big bag of crisps at 80p 🙁  after quite a few miles on a gravel path, very treacherous if the gravel is deep, I arrived in Komátno on the Slovak side, “Aroundme” thought hotels on the Hungarian side were cheaper so I crossed the huge bridge with low parapets that I fear falling over, seeing the huge Tesco made me smile – I wonder what the checkout staff get paid there?

The first hotel was in the process of a massive rebuilt so I went towards the next choice but seeing a hotel called The Aqua I just at to stop. The price worked out at £36 for b&b including free admission to the huge outdoor sulphurous thermal pool a conventional heated outdoor 50 metre pool and a huge 25 metre pleasure pool. Totally amazing all in the most beautiful grounds. So you know how I spent my evening….

The Strava is here and look at the amazing average speed of 13.8mph 🙂

Strava_Ride___Bratislava_to_Komàrom

The pictures are here

A very pleasurable day indeed with fine weather.

Danube Bike Trail, Day 10 Riding – Vienna to Bratislava

Stunning bridgeI woke up to pouring rain, so luckily it wasn’t an early start. By the time i had to leave to collect my bike from the repairers the rain had eased off a little.

Excellent news on reaching Bike7, the bike was all fixed the shop owner, in jest (I think) offered for me to run the shop whilst he pedalled around Europe 🙂

It now looks as if the the Wahoo SC cadence/speed bluetooth device is kaputt, I replaced the battery but all to no avail, so that was a 5 minute wonder 🙁

Bit of a nightmare leaving Vienna through crowded pedestrian areas over slippery cobbles & tram tracks, imagining bent wheels. I eventually made it over the canal & river bridges and onto the cycleway, which was so smooth and so glorious I missed the turning and ended up at a dead end then having to cycle a couple of miles back and  go through the forest of petrol/JET fuel holders to reach the main path into the National Park helped by a glorious tail wind 🙂 & just a few heavy showers to contend with.

Derelict border postI eventually made it to the derelict border post, which is what our border posts would be like, if only the UK had signed up to the  Schengen  Agreement, it always seems to be that the UK opts out of anything that would make life simpler.

Then it was over the huge, but very shaky bridge into Bratislava. I totally forgot about lack of internet been so used to free roaming on 3 in Austria so didn’t use AroundMe. However, The Hotel Devin loomed in front of me, a real **** place, after a bit of negotiation I got a magnificent  room for €80 which in some places in the UK gets you a b&b. This place has a Spa Centre with affordable massages and the most incredible breakfast to date & to top it all free WiFi with 3MB upload rates 🙂

The weather looks good today so I will explore Bratislava with one of Emily’s au-pairs from 13 years ago.

In all the messing about with the cadence device I forgot to switch on Strava. But the etrex recorded this track.

vienna_to_bratislava

adding another 52 miles to make a  total of 1,674 miles biked of which 649 miles is along The Danube.

The pictures are here