Petronell-Carnuntum, Austria to Bratislava, Slovakia, 1 hour 43 minutes, 19.6 miles (31.5 km), 470 feet (143 m) of elevation (climbing).
Today started out with rain, and we were unsure how that would impact our ride. Since it was a really short ride, compared to other days, we decided to spend some time touring the Carnuntum Archeological Museum and park first, before continuing our ride down the Danube. This museum and ancient Roman city were very interesting and fascinating. I'm really sorry we didn't have more time to explore more of it. We toured the museum and walked through many of the buildings in parts in the ancient Roman city.
The inside of one of the many buildings in this Roman city:
By the time we left the museum, it had stopped raining. I was relieved. We rode on and it was a nice ride, until we got yelled at by a cyclist coming at us from the opposite direction. We'd seen a detour sign but assumed we could get around it with our bike and that the sign was mainly for cars. We were wrong and, of course, had we spoke German, we would have understood that he was yelling at us to turn around, that there was no way through. We came to an impassable barrier so we had to turn around. Ugh.... I hate detours because you don't know where you will end up being rerouted to. We stopped and looked at the map on our cycling app and plotted a way around the detour. Once we got far enough away from the detour, our cycling app rerouted us around the blocked area back to the Danube path. We ended up pausing for a bathroom break near or in Hainburg die Mettelalderstadt, because I saw a sign for a public restroom. There are so few of these in Europe that I take advantage of these when I find them. The photo below is the castle ruin we rode by:
Our ride continued along a dedicated bike path and just before we crossed the border into Slovakia, one of the 'magic links' in our bicycle chain came undone. At the time, hubby thought the link had come off entirely and the chain had broken so I trekked back on the path looking for a chain link that we hadn't lost. This was an unusual happening for sure (like the time my pedal came undone and fell off on another bike tour). We were in the sun alongside a road, too. That ate up some time but eventually he fixed our chain, and we continued on, crossed the border into Slovakia and came across another interesting site. A double-sided infantry bunker, Bunker B-S 4 Lany, from the 1930s. Unfortunately, it was closed that day for touring, but we walked around and looked in the windows.
After our stop at the bunker, it was a pretty short ride into Bratislava, Slovakia. It was more inner city riding but with dedicated cycling paths which we really appreciated. We were nervous with respect to security and police presence as only days before, there had been an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Fico, who had been injured in the attempt. Sure enough, as we rode into the parking lot of our very nice hotel (always a shock when the hotel is nicer than we expect), There were police at the entrance to the gated parking area. We rode up, told them we were checking in and they basically ignored us. I guess we were not threatening in the least ha ha.
We were able to check in shower and change, and head out on foot to tour the old part of the city. We had a gourmet burger and hand cut French fries and a beer: (Google indicates this restaurant is now permanently closed, which is sad because the food was excellent)
Then we just wandered around and came across this famous sculpture of Cumil, the sewer worker:
I really enjoyed walking around the old part of the city in Bratislava. I had to laugh because we came across a Burger King that had "Home of the Whopper" over the doorway. I have a feeling that is still in business.
As we walked back to our hotel, my eyes kept being drawn to the interesting mix of Soviet-Era architecture with more modern-day architecture. We saw a building where the bottom three floors had that cold-war concrete box institutional look, and the top floors were more modern with lots of dark glass and trees growing in planters on patios. There were modern day buildings and buildings that looked like you could put bars on the windows and make it a prison. Very cold and ominous looking. There were architectural reminders everywhere of before and after Warsaw Pact Era.
As a young American some 40 plus years ago, this area was part of Czechoslovakia a place I heard about on TV, and what I learned was basically what was depicted by Hollywood in movies and TV shows. We might have learned a little bit in school or heard about it in the news. I was still fairly young when the wall came down in East Berlin and can remember watching scenes of it on TV. I never thought I'd visit this part of the world, but I'm so glad that things here changed so I could.
If you would like to read more about our three week-long bicycle tour starting in Prague, Czech Republic and ending in Budapest, Hungary, here are the links to our entire adventure:
Day Zero in Prague (Weather or not I wanted to)
Day One.... The Hills are Alive .... and I am not
Day Two....Vistas and Grocery Stores (and an angry cashier)
Day Three.... Are we Hiking or Cycling? (Today it was hard to tell....)
Day Four.....My Favorite Place on the Entire Tour (and a nod to the Beer of Kings along the way)
Day Four and a Half (I couldn't do it justice in one post)
Day 5 ...... Will This Day Ever End???
Day Six... Pausing in Passau (AKA This is the way we wash our clothes.....I think....)
Day Seven - Off down the Danube (If we'd only had that meeting.....)
Day Eight - We needed a day like today.....
Day Ten Cycling the Danube - Cloudy With a Shot of Melk
Day Eleven Cycling the Danube... A rare short mileage day!
Day Twelve Cycling the Danube - Aahhhh Vienna!!!
Day 13 - Our Day in Vienna (It's not supposed to be this HOT)
Day 14: Vienna to Petronell-Carnuntum (Apparently, I can speak some Italian.....)
Day 15 Petronell-Carnuntum, Austria to Bratislava, Slovakia (Rain and broken Chain...)
Day 16 Bratislava, Slovakia to Gyor, Hungary (There's a snake in the grass....)
Day 18: Komarno, Slovakia to Esztergom, Hungary (A tense tummy and a tense moment......)
Day 19: Esztergom to Budapest, Hungary (A long ride for the last day)
Day 20: A Day in Budapest (We had to see the last of the "Stevens/Stephens")
