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Today we joined the Eurovelo 6, one of the most popular European cycle routes that crosses the continent from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. We followed large parts of the route in France in 2012, most notably along the Loire Valley.

We expected to find route information in Budapest, as this it is a prominent start/end point for many cyclists on the route. However the tourist information offices that we consulted were universally ignorant about the route, so we are flying a little blind without an official maps.

The best information we got was actually from the barman in the craft beer pub, who helped us confirm that we should exit on the southern bank of the Danube to pick up the route.

We crossed the Danube at the magnificent Megyeri Bridge – a long cable stay bridge built in 2008. There are totally separated cycling/ pedestrian lanes on both sides of the bridge. Some commercial barges passed by on the river while we were crossing.

            

Directly after crossing the bridge the beautiful cycle route deteriorated into a bumpy broken tar road. Luckily that didn’t last too long and soon signs for the Eurovelo 6 route became visible. The route was great in lots of places, off road and directly alongside the Danube, with just houses on the other side. It must be wonderful to have a house on the Danube banks with only a bike route between you and the river. In other places the bike route signs directed us back onto the road.

    

Visegrad was one of the most interesting towns we passed through. It has an old castle high on a hill above the Danube, and a lower castle, in ruins in the village below. There were hundreds of schoolchildren around the lower castle – a big school outing.

It was a hot day, with lots of flying white fluffy seeds in the air that can be quite irritating when they get into your nose or mouth. We bought some strawberries at roadside stall and ate them and some cookies alongside the river. Then we had ice cream at another small village.

We arrived fairly early at Esztergom and spent some time looking for a tourist office. We went up and down the town asking directions and being directed in circles. We would have done better just riding around and checking out the accommodation ourselves. Finally we found out that there was no office, but that we could get accommodation help from the foreign exchange office. She recommended the apartments we had already identified on the internet (but couldn’t find on the town maps displayed around the place) and provided us with a printout map. They are about five minutes out of town by bike. The reception caused us to have serious misgivings about these apartments (slow receptionist, odd people milling around, not quite like a hotel). Thankfully they turned out very good – large and self contained with a kitchenette.

Estergom is notable for it’s magnificent basilica and beautiful buildings. 

 

The basilica is HUGE – according to Wikipedia it is the largest building in Hungary. It sits up on the hill over the town and dominates the town – there are panoramic river views from up there. However the rest of the down town area is a little run down, maybe the economy here is not so good and it is not attracting tourists to stay in the town.

 

 

In all it was an easy day – only 68km including all the riding around the town.

Today we had a full day sightseeing around Budapest on our bicycles. Kris had a challenge to find our way out of Ujpest to the central city on bike paths.

I really enjoyed the entry to the city from the North, via the island in the middle of the Danube (Margaret Island). In the morning there were lots of joggers. In the late afternoon when we left the island was full of families with small children and lots of people lying tanning in the sun. The island is a huge park which includes the ruins of a mediaval cloister, cafes, swimming baths, musical fountains and a small zoo.

    

 

For our sightseeing around the city we picked up a map advertising a hop on – hop off tourist bus route and followed that route with our bikes – as it picks up on all the main sights.

Budapest is large, cosmopolitan and has a surfeit of fantastical old buildings. We were glad to have our bicycles as it is spread over a large area. There is a large bicycle hire infrastructure in Budapest with many distributed lock in points. There is also many shopping areas with lots of posh shops. There are a number of bridges crossing the Danube and we managed to cross at each one of them.

                  

 

                  

It was a hot day, so we were happy to find a craft beer pub, on the river front in an ultra modern shopping centre on the river front. The local brew was good. I see they also sell bottled BrewDog (Irish craft beer which we also get in Wellington pubs).

   

Our ride today was a little more manageable at 77km and took us to Szecseny, just on the other side of the border in Hungary.

The first part of the trip relatively flat (thankfully) and took us on route 526 out of Hrinova. We were surprised to see a train passing not far out of town with heaps of tanks on it (no clues where they were coming from or going to).

The route turns off and becomes a quieter at Podkrivan – we had a bit of an uphill climb through a rural area, but no too bad compared to the previous day. There was not much traffic at all on this road and it was pleasant cycling.

We took a detour from the 526 road onto a little farm road to the left, which was very potholed, with green fields on either sides dotted with spring flowers and rolling hills all around.

    

When we got to Abelova, we saw some evidence of real poverty – a run down building with the ground floor empty and people living above – and ill kept looking kids playing outside. The road out of town was just as bad as the road in – even worse as it had a 16 degree down gradient.

Our route then took us through Sula, Hor. Strehova, Dolna Strehova, Mula, Nógrádszakál. I was interested to see a storks nesting on top of a power pole in one of the towns just before the border. At first I thought it was an ornament, as it was standing so still. Then at the next town I saw three in one street.

It was a hot Saturday afternoon and we saw a number of people lying around outside their houses in the sun as Kris looked for a border crossing. We found ourselves going through a slum area near the river and a small boy began to throw stones at us but quickly backed of when Kris reacted. We didn’t hang around there long.

Kris found a border crossing at Nógrádszakáli that was basically a footbridge with a muddy track through a paddock on the other side. When we reached the other side we exchanged a few words with our first Hungarian family – the father was shirtless and was slim and sinewy, the mother had teeth missing in the front of her mouth, a small girl was carrying a young kitten and the little toddler was cute and wide eyed. They were very good natured and excited to exchange a few words in English. From there it was only around 10km ride to our destination town of Szecseny.

     

Szecseny was was also buzzing with celebrations when we arrived, evidently “childrens day”. It felt like a friendly town, with some well kept historical buildings and a small castle. A couple from Budapest helped us find out hotel by looking it up on their smart phone. Our accommodation was a bit on the outskirts of town and hard to spot (no signage) – but a nice room and good value. We headed back into town thinking we could have something to eat and drink – however none of the pubs or cafes serving proper food were open. So we bought some food from the supermarket, had an ice cream and watched part of the folk dancing display.

Today was probably the most physically demanding ride so far, as we are passing through the Slovakian mountains (the Tatra range). It is an incredibly beautiful area, and organised in terms of road signs for the visitor (no getting lost here).

We headed out of town along the highway to connect onto route 72. It was a relief to be off the main road and the traffic was not too bad, aside from a number of passing log trucks.

The start of our ride was a nice meander through green fields and mountains, the sun was even shining for the first time in a while.

Then we began climbing and we just climbed and climbed, around 1000 metres over 10 km. There were some great views along the way. Imagine very green meadows fringed by forests, with snow capped peaks in the distance and the odd little village nestled in a valley. The whole pass was engineered to be at a steady incline, with a few long s-bends to get to the top. An endurance test.

Here is a photo (my camera cannot do it justice) – you can see the road at the bottom that we climbed up from, and this wasn’t at the top yet.

     

Then came an even steeper run downwards – so much so that I had to stop a couple of times as my hands were aching from holding on to the brakes.

We turned off route 72 to the left heading to Bresno and meandered on little country road again – noticed another ski field – could have been a beginner slope as much lower down.

When we reached Brezno it was bizarre to ride past a slum type area on the outskirts, including a transvestite and little children playing near the traffic. The people looked different, with darker skin.

In the centre of town there was loud music, children’s carnival rides, miniature horses and stalls. Went to tourist office and found out that it was the 750 year anniversary celebration for the town.

      

We discussed accommodation in Cierny Balog, our intended destination about 8km away – all that there seemed to be was cabins on the side of the road. We bought enough food and wine for dinner, as we expected there wouldn’t be much at our accommodation. When got there the cabins were right beside a railway line and the town didn’t look very appealing. We decided to press onto the next town, only 12km away to look for something better.

We started up a hill with steady gradient through a forest – the whole time we felt that we must be coming to the end of the hill, but it actually climbed for about 10km – which we did very slowly as we were already tired (took more than an hour). There were some good views through the trees.

      

When we reached the next towns they were idyllic, but there was no accommodation. Kris stopped and asked for some water from a lady at a nearby house. We saw a shepherd up on the hill bringing his sheep in.

We pressed on. Thankfully we were on a long long downhill, which was spectacular. We sailed along for next 10km, coming back alongside the river.

We passed a large water reservoir and then into the town of Hrinova. On the outskirts there were large factories, and then we heard the loudspeakers again making announcements and playing music. We found the main town square and stopped for an ice cream and directions to the pension. The Pension Anka was not far away, set alongside groups of residential apartment blocks. We had done 94km, a lot of uphill, and were worn out, so we treated ourselves to the large suite (EUR50).

 

There is the strange phenomenon of speakers that are mounted on telephone an power poles in Slovakian towns and cities.
When I first saw and heard them it reminded me of as fantasy game I once played (a game called Twinsen).
We saw a women with her baby in a pram standing still under a telephone pole listening to a broadcast.
Some sources say the Soviets used them as a propaganda tool. A tourist information agent said they are used for sports and weather warnings.
Can this broadcasting network be broadcasting on hidden frequencies? Do the soviets still have back-door access to the Slovak broadcasting network? We are getting earplugs so we can monitor the behaviour of people around us during the broadcasts.

Today was a real treat – a manageable 64km ride through super scenic Slovakian countryside, with good roads and little other traffic.

We started out going west along the 520 from Trestna, passing through the towns of Liesek and Cimhova. Here we noticed loadspeakers broadcasting music along the main street again. We first heard this when we entered Trstena and find it very intiguing.

At Vitonova we turned onto the 584 to follow the Oravica river south.

Here we also passed heaps of accommodation, mainly bed and breakfast advertised on private homes, the reason became apparent when saw a ski lift just as we were leaving the town.

Along the 584 we found a wonderful cycle track, the best cycling infrastructure we have seen since Germany. It came to an end at a large ski park that had a ski lift and large warm water spa (you can just imagine it buzzing in winter).

         

It was a clear but cold day, so we stopped for a coffee at Zuberec in working mans cafe – there were heaters on alongside the tables and I could warm up my feet. Even though it was only 11am, there were a couple of workers there eating very hearty looking food and some more came in while we were there. We were very tempted to try the food, but it wouldn’t have been a good idea to eat a big meal while cycling.

A little while later we stopped for another coffee at a smart cafe along the mountain pass – just before a steep climb! This was a newly built lodge, all made out of wood with sheepskins hanging from the rafters, a roaring fire and stunning views. The patrons were business men and day trippers.

We had a long climb to the top of the mountain in low gears, and then a wonderful downhill run.

We cycled through Liptovske Matiasouce, Liptouska Sielnica, and then to Liptovsky Mikulas. We passed a huge hot bath/ water park/ zoo/ movie entertainment complex just before town. The sun came out and it warmed up as we arrived in Liptovsky Mikulas.

The town had a very smart tourist office with a young lady who could speak good English (it seems like tourism is one of the main industries here). She helped us organise our accommodation at the Penzion Boniface. The main bonus of this place was that it has a huge bath (only showers up to now) – so we could have a good soak.

The town has a large central pedestrian area with cafes and bars. We found a “beer garden” down an alley off the main area – with parking for bicycles right outside. The bar man called someone over who could speak English from among his customers to help us chose a beer, and we ended up with a very good beer that rivals any Wellington craft beer. We enjoyed sitting outside alongside the locals – and especially some of the music, that was some sort of Slovakian rap/ rock.

We had dinner at a traditional style restaurant not far away – cabbage soup and a shared plate of local specialities – potato dumplings in sheep cheese sauce and cheese filled dumplings, something like ravioli. It was very good, just the type of thing you can imagine eating after spending the day on the mountains with your sheep. We finished our evening off with another beer at our new favourite pub.

We were relieved to wake up to better weather, the sun was even shining a for a few moments this morning. Today we did 83km from Sucha Beskidzha to Trstena in Slovakia.

We took a little time looking around Sucha Beskidzha and spending the last of our Polish Zloty on new bicycle brake pads and orange juice for the journey. There were many little shops along the main street, an attractive town for tourists.

We headed out of town to the west, alongside the train track and river. There was even a bicycle route for the first few kms. The first town past was Lachowice, then Jesowski Dzial, then Hucisiko. There were a couple of steep hills (both up and down).

Here we had a little adventure at an unmarked intersection. Kris wanted to continue following the train track but wanted to make sure we were on the right road. He stopped to ask a man mowing a lawn nearby, who seemed to indicate we should go back the way we came (which would be a long steep uphill, so we were not keen).

A bus then stopped and the driver began to speak to me. He turned out to be Russian, with only a few words of English. Anyway, he was helpfull and a conversation ensued between Kris, the man mowing the lawn and the bus driver. Another man (pedestrian) also stopped and joined in. Eventually a consensus was reached that we could go either way. We said that we wanted to go on and then bus driver told us to follow him in the bus.

So Kris and I were riding behind this yellow bus, which was soon on a gravel roads with potholes, through a forest, pedalling with effort to keep up! He stopped the bus about a kilometre up the gravel road and directed us from there. He had his daughter, who can speak English, translating for him on his mobile phone at this point. The instructions were to continue up the gravel path for about 1km, turning right at the first main road we came to. Then we would have a long downhill. After ten km, were told to turn left at the next major intersection. Then to keep going until we reach Slovakia.

The directions worked out pretty perfectly even though it was a bit different from the route we planned. Here is a photo of the gravel road we took through the woods. It is a short-cut not shown on any map.

The road to Slowakia took us through lots of little tourist settlements, very pretty and green. There was lots of accommodation around, we suspect for winter skiing. The route was the 945 (which was part of our planned route), which is called the 521 in Slovakia.

There was a long long hill climb just before the border, going through forests, where there was some logging going on, and alongside a little stream. The border is on the top of the hill and it is all downhill from there.

Our first impression of Slovakia is that it is very scenic. We passed a flock of sheep some of which had bells around their necks, so they were clinking as they grazed. There were also regular road-work stops along the route. We reached a huge lake called Orava about 20km from the border. The main town on the lake was Namestovo. It was getting really cold at this point (less than ten degrees Celsius). We pressed on around the southern side of the lake, crossing a dam wall with hydro generators. There was a final hill climb just before we got to the town of Trstena, where we are staying. Here is the view looking back at the lake from the top of the climb.

We were feeling cold when we stopped at the Trstena tourist info and in a hurry to find our hotel. Luckily it was really nearby, and we have a huge room with heaters!

After cleaning up we went to the pizza cafe at the bottom of the hotel and bought the biggest pizza we have ever eaten (50cm diameter) and also some draught beer. The draught beer cost less than NZ$2 and the pizza around NZ$15. And yes we did eat it all and it was good.

Today we we had planned a shorter ride of 62km to Sucha Beskidzka south of Krakow. However this turned out to be long enough as we were in rain after the first hour and there were also a lot of hills.

Our start was delayed as Kris got talking with the intelligent young Pole working at the hostel. It was very interesting hearing his views on Poland and European politics. He spoke about the challenge with Ukranian refugees. His grandfather was lucky not to be one of the 22,000 soldiers executed by the Russians (Katyn massacre) but was deported to Siberia during WWII. Eventually an agreement was reached that Poles could join the allied forces, but they had to get to the allied bases themselves. So they had to walk from Siberia to the border in Turkey. His grandfather survived but the friend he walked with did not.

The start of the route was the most pleasant as we rode out of Krakow alongside the river for about 8km in overcast conditions.

We headed onto road 953 through a series of villages where we encountered road works and it started drizzling. We eventually turned off at Kalwaria onto a quieter road. We passed a huge 17^th century monastery on a hill. There were a number of tourist buses but no tourists in sight, it was raining and pretty miserable weather at this time.

We were advised by a couple of people and also a map outside a hotel of a more direct route through to Sucha Beskidzka. This road was in very bad condition with lots of potholes and patches and also had lots of steep up and down hills – lots of them through forests. Road signs helpfully indicate the gradient, most were 9-12% but the highest was 14%. I had to get off and push my bike a couple of times.

We were getting cold by the time we reached our hotel in Sucha Beskidzka. The hotel is on the ground floor of a Renaissance castle and is called Restaurant and Hotel Kasper Suski. We are finding the Polish prices very affordable – for example this hotel costs around NZD 50 for two including breakfast and wifi.

I enjoyed getting warm and clean again. Kris did some maintenance on the bicycle brakes. We had a three course meal in the hotel restaurant – I had trout which was delicious.

Here is a photo of Kris adjusting bicycle breaks in the rain.

We felt quite revived today for our ride into Krakow. The route went on 791 to Ogrodzieniec – Pilice. Then along 794 through Wolbram, Trzycha, Wielinoza, Skata, Brotowka, Korskiewsku, to Krakow.

It turned out to be an easy 70km as we had a lot of downhill runs as we came closer to Krakow. We also noticed that the quality of the roads had improved today (fewer pot holes and patches), presumably due to our proximity to the big city. We also saw our first other bicycle tourists – one about 30km before the city and a second (a Frenchman) in the centre.

The outskirts of Krakow didn’t look at all promising – with many ugly big square apartment blocks, congested roads and angry traffic. We circled around a bit to get into the centre and it started to rain quite heavily just as we arrived. We found a currency exchange, tourist information (for accommodation) and bookshop (for a map). Once these were sorted the rain had stopped and the place was looking a lot better. We decided to have a meal at an outdoor café on the main square. This was quite a treat, as they had outdoor gas fires that we could sit besides – nice and warm. We both had steaks and beer. We know from previous experience how good red meat is when you are cycle touring.

          

We then rode around to see the main sights. There were no tickets available for the today or tomorrow for the two things I would have liked to see – Wawal castle and the underground Krakow tour – so we just rode around soaking up the ambience. There are enough museums and tours to keep you busy for a week, and also horse drawn carriages, a real tourist Mecca. All the people in the centre seem to be tourists – we heard French and German, spoke to an Irish couple at the cafe and even saw some Indian and Chinese people. We talked to an eccentric solitary French cycle tourist. I guess we are eccentric too. We hadn’t come across many tourists during the rest of our trip – it seems that they are all concentrated in this one spot. After seeing hundreds and hundreds of cycle tourists in Germany, we finally saw two cycle tourists in Krakow.

After checking into the Okay Hostel (couldn’t figure out if the name is marketing genius or idiocy), which is near the river, we rode around some more on our bicycle (another 15km in all around Krakow). The nicest place to ride is on a bike path alongside the river.

There are heaps of places to eat and drink. We had a beer on a boat restaurant (one of many) and found a superb delicatessen where we bought some snacks and red wine before heading back the the hostel.

The Okay Hostel is up two flights of stairs (a disadvantage with bikes) but otherwise I would recommend it. It is very cheap and based on the youth hostel model. We had our own room but shared a bathroom. It was not full, so not a problem. An advantage was that they had a washing machine that we could use to wash our clothes.

Today we exhausted ourselves with a 100km ride. Our route took us through Skorogoszcz – Narok – Slawice – Luboszyce – Turawa – Ozlmek – Zedowice – Kosmidry – Lubliniec.

The route was straight forward and flat. At the start we were going through nondescript semi urban areas with traffic (not too pleasant and slow).

The route improved when we approached the lake Jez Turawskie – nicer houses as well. A highlight was riding on top of an earthen dam wall alongside the lake. It was Kris’s good idea to haul our bikes up there, and we found a few other cyclists and walkers on the dam, as well as fishermen. The lake is huge and there were a large number of wind surfers in the distance.

After this we found ourselves following long straight roads through forests, but with occasional fast passing traffic. This was quite monotonous and my arms were aching badly the last hour or so (Kris was also suffering with his bottom).

It started to rain quite heavily at around 1pm and we stopped to shelter in a bus stop. A little old man was already sitting there, but he beckoned for us to sit down and could speak to Kris in German (though was difficult to understand). He was adamant that we should take the turn off just before the bus stop (the map seemed to indicate the next one), saying that a bridge was impassable. We decided to take his advise and it seemed to be correct as it the connection from the other bridge seemed overgrown when we passed it.

We were happy when we reached the town of Lubliniec where a lot of roadworks were happening. The hotel Lubex was fairly budget style but good. They were getting all set up for a wedding and most of the other guests seemed to belong to the wedding party. It is surprising how many wedding venues are advertised in Poland. Maybe everyone gets married many times.