travel blog Archives - Page 10 of 39

Budapest to Dunapataj on The Danube Bike Trail

Posted on September 20, 2013August 26, 2021

The things I can recommend The Hotel Rila for are it’s close proximity to the E6 cycleway through Budapest & the price,. Otherwise the breakfast is mediocre ,it’s a long way from any nightlife unless you are visiting the adjacent hospital. Plus the owner is a bit dour..

The sun was out and a tad warmer than of late. The two notables for me today were the varied road surfaces & the sheer amount of sculpture in Hungary.

The road surfaces varied from ultra smooth cycleways, deeply potholed tarmac, grass banks, mud tracks, old cobblestones narrow footpaths, tree route paths and raised pipes crossing the road! Unbelievable that it’s all meant to be the E6 European cycleway. In fact Hungary reminds me more of the UK in municipal stupidity than Germanic countries connected efficieny . e.g. In one spot outside Solt there is a perfectly good road that has been by-passed so perfect for biking etc. A priority for action with all the stuff that really needs doing? of cause – at vast expense its been narrowed, new tarmac laid with limestone edging. Just a pity that where it meets the new road they forgot to allow access. see the picture.

But one thing that Hungary does different than the UK is the classic sculptures, leaving Budapest in a renovated riverside area just full of lovely bronzes. I fell in love with this guy carrying his cases, the expression on his face was wonderful.

I met up with a young French couple on a tandem, The guy is a rugby player from Toulouse where they had started, so as you can expect I didn’t keep up with them for very long. But very interesting to talk to all be it very briefly 🙂

Tonights place Bringa Panzio (Warning: has a sound file) is ultra modern & really very well built & designed. A good find from AroundMe which I must say is a great app for when you are travelling. It has no fans, lifts & other man made noises However, the rain has just started on the Velux windows 🙁

Here’s the Strava for today’s 74 miles and now very nearly halfway down the Danube with 14 days in the saddle.

Todays pics are here

Danube biking Day 13 – Sturovo to Budapest

Posted on September 19, 2013June 8, 2014

Much 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.

On 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:

All the pictures for today are here

The difference a day makes – Komatron to Sturovo

Posted on September 17, 2013April 8, 2021

Yesterday’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!

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.

The photos are here

Danube Bike Trail, Day 10 Riding – Vienna to Bratislava

Posted on September 15, 2013May 28, 2019

I 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.

I 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.

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