Day 27 - well it had to happen

Day 27, june 29

What a wonderful stay at our first pension in Hungry. The hostess (Irena) made us feel very much at home and after a shower and a big wash (1^st time for the riding short for a while) we walked around the small village. With some chips and drinks we made our way to the local river and relaxed. This part of the trip is some way from the Danube as there are simply no roads on the Hungarian side. We could have stayed in Slovakia but according to our guidebook much of the trip was along a large dam which didn't appeal much to us.

We left after a hearty breakfast and cycled the first 10km in ½ hr.

We entered the town of Gyor which proved interesting in that it had many old Austian-Hungrian style buildings in narrow streets. I wish I could say the rest of the day matched the first hour.

Gyor Street Scene

The path out of Gyor led through an old industrial estate and proceed through small villages with poorly maintained roads (Lia says they look like patchwork quilts). Much to our chagrin the road took us a long way south (10km) and then we had to cycle back into a very strong head wind. We arrived at Komarom (on the Danube) which we thought might have a nice restaurant on the river for lunch. Instead we find the city separated from the river by the railway lines; furthermore a reasonable restaurant was not to be found. We pressed on after buying some food for lunch. Neither of us had much hunger when we finally stopped in a “park” surrounded by Soviet-style grey concrete apartment blocks – still not a single glimpse of the river even though it was only a few hundred metres away.

Our only view of the river today!!!

While our guide said “You are only sometime forced to ride on the main road”, this proved totally incorrect and we battled along a significant road for around 20km. To make matters worse it started raining and we were splashed with slosh by many large trucks which passed us. While we tried to find accommodation as by this time we had already ridden 75km, nothing suitable was to be found so we ended up cycling 107km (phew) before coming to rest in a comfortable hotel in Tat. After a shower and a nice dinner with pancakes for desert we are starting to relax.

Just did a tally and we have cycled 1930km so far.

All-in-all this has proven the most challenging and uninspiring day of the trip but never mind tomorrow we head to Budapest our final destination through “one of the most attractive sections of the Danube” - we shall see.