Cycling Passau to Budapest - June 2023

Had a late breakfast again today! (8.00am) Organized a taxi to take us over the river to the Houses of Parliament.  Wonderful sculptures everywhere! Some even peeping over a temporary billboard! Suddenly thick mist began pouring out of vents in the pavers, in front of a building. Unsure of why, but Del had to get amongst it, of course! Below the Parliament buildings was a display of dozens of bronze shoes on the river bank. It was a memorial for the Jewish citizens, children and adults, who were shot  and fell into the river during WW2. Before they were killed, their shoes were removed. They were valuable and could be sold on.  We decided to walk back to our hotel. We walked to and across a second bridge then back along the river bank towards our hotel. It was lunch time so we stopped at a French Cafe for a Croq Monsieur and a cappucino. There was a Spar superette near the hotel. We bought sushi, crea...

 We were keen to make the most of our stay in Budapest. The Danube divides Budapest into two areas, the Buda and the Pest. Bridges cross the Danube to connect the two parts. Buda Palace, on Castle Hill, dominates the landscape.  To reach it we had the choice of climbing steep steps up the hillside, taking a bus - or taking a less strenuous alternative, the funicular railway. We took the latter! The palace grounds were full of tourists.  Tour leaders, with their raised umbrellas, gathered up their listeners.   Hundreds of cameras took photos of visitors against the backdrop of views, statues and buildings.  And we all witnessed the ritual of the changing of the guard. After enjoying a coffee at one of the many cafes, we returned, via the funicular railway and had a leisurely walk, to our hotel.      

What a challenging day it's been! We decided that, rather than following the route that had been set for us, we'd take a more direct route, get there early and enjoy Budapest.  Using our route map in combination with signage along the way, all went swimmingly.  We cycled on cycle paths, through quiet villages, along woodland paths, following the Danube as we went.   Our plan to dip our feet in the famous, not-so-blue Danube was abandoned when we discovered that the mud at its edges was thick and quite deep. Then, WHAM! We hit the outskirts of Budapest! We were dismounting and checking our position every few minutes.  We had to negotiate city traffic,  had a 700m tunnel to walk through,   a flight of steps to haul the bikes up and train lines to cross. A helpful man eventually led us to our hotel, Hotel Mercure Castle Hill. It had taken all day to reach our destination and we were "over the moon", until the receptionist told us that we didn't have ...

 We left Komarno around 8.00am and were soon on the flat cycle path again.  We cycled past more sweetcorn and wheat fields and haymaking was in progress between the crop fields. There's plenty of  green native bush - separating farms, fields and growing abundantly on the roadside. Following our route map has its moments.  Spark Roaming, on my mobile phone, hasn't worked since we arrived in the UK.                    Del is our navigator and, using his map, cycling signs along the way and his 'inbuilt GPS', he's always found a way to each day's destination. Having no local language to ask for directions and with no clear street names, it's been quite time consuming - with lots of stops to consult the map, especially in larger towns and cities! By the time we reached our hotel, Szent Adalbert, we were relieved to be there. 

Once again, our exit plan went smoothly. It's always challenging to exit a city, especially when road signage is poor. Few people seem to have enough english to be able to help.  We cycled on the road and were relieved when we reached the cycleway. Not many cyclists today. The weather was fine - a clear sky and 27degrees C. We had an enjoyable ride through native forests, industrial areas and flat, agricultural landscape. So far we've seen no livestock, just mainly sweetcorn, wheat and green vegetables.   Lots of poppies and thistles, though, and long grass cut for hay. We arrived at our hotel, Hotel Bow Garden, by 1.30pm. It is quite quirky.  It has very ornate furniture - - a magnificent, wooden  garden  setting -   - and a small Ten Pin bowling alley in the bar!! Apparently it's full of locals on bowls night! We had dinner at our hotel but were again disappointed with the mainly deep fried menu.  Still, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do!"...

We were promised a bit of everything on our ride today - fields of crops, woodland (inhabited by deer the signs said), quiet villages, cycle paths by lazy waterways and others on busy roads. We were off to Mosonmagyarovar in Hungary, to catch a train to Gyor. We stopped many times to compare our route maps- Del with his guide book and me on my Rad Reisen app. The app was pretty quiet except when we took a wrong turn. Then it let out a loud alarm! After several stops, we arrived at Mosonmagyarovar train station. Del had to manoeuver the bikes up and down flights of stairs to get to our platform Imagine how we felt when another couple of cyclists arrived and simply walked across the railway lines! A 20 minute train ride took us to Gyor and our hotel, Hotel Ibis Gyor, was just 5 minutes away! We were surprised to find a bottle of wine waiting for us in our room! It was a peace offering from our trip organiser, Micklos, for the mix-up of our hotel booking in Vienna....