Esztergom, Hungary to Budapest, Hungary, 55.1 miles (88.7 km), 4 hours 42 minutes, 870 feet (265 m) elevation (climbing)
After looking at our route, I understand why the tour company had given us a train ticket and a boat ticket for this day. We never really understood where we were supposed to get the train (poor instructions at the meeting) and the ferry that we could put the bike on to shorten the ride left at 5:00 pm, which we decided was far too late for us to wait for, so we were riding the whole way. We were also told that should we want to opt to ride roads, that we should consider it, as the path was not well-maintained in some areas.
Okay, I'm just going to say this. This leg of the tour was a long-ass ride. I've done very few 50 mile plus rides in one day and this was one of them. I think the most we've ever ridden at one time was 65 miles, somewhere in Texas. This was only because the street that our cycling app said was there.... wasn't.... and we were ended up lost. Nevertheless, I was prepared for whatever obstacles may arise and we left early enough in the day. I was also feeling much better but still babied my stomach a bit at breakfast.
We had to cross back over the Danube (naturally) to get to the bike path, which looked like this:
The route took an interesting turn and became some bizarre, winding path near the Danube and into the woods. It was then we understood what "not well maintained" meant. The surface was big uneven concrete slabs that were bumpy and muddy. That part was teeth-jarring. That went on for maybe a half a mile, but I can't remember for sure. Then the route took us onto a major road, which was surprising. We'd ridden very few major roads this trip. There were nice cliff hilltops to look at on the left and the Danube was through the trees on the right:
Then we ended up riding through this lovely park along the Danube, and we came across other casual cyclists out enjoying Sunday. One of them was looking everywhere except in front of herself and almost clipped us as she rode by us. That would have been a nasty fall for all of us to crash to the pavement.
One thing I truly enjoyed about this entire tour were the gardens and yards of the many homes we passed. People in Europe take their flowers and plants very seriously. We saw some amazing gardening and several plants and flowers I'd never seen before. It was nice to be treated to different landscaping as we rode, rather than just monotonous green lawn.
We were still following the Eurovelo 6 bike route, and it cut through some great parks. We stopped for a break at one of them, because it had a portable toilet, or porto-potty as we call them in the States. It was certainly not a chore to stop and enjoy this view:
There were several places to eat along the trail, all of them crowded. It was a gorgeous day, not too hot, and everyone was out and about. We found this outdoor eatery in Dunakezsi, Hungary, where you order at the window and pick it up when they call your number. We ordered burgers and our number was on a scrap of paper they gave us. I was glad we found an empty table given the crowds. I was looking around at other people and realized several things. Many people were ordering fish. Also, while they spoke to us in English when we ordered, they didn't know that the number they were calling out for us specifically needed to be in English. This dawned on me after a few numbers were called while we were waiting. I dragged out Google Translate to find out how to say "48." Believe it or not, I was able to recognize it and when we went to get our food after thinking I'd heard that number, I was relieved to see it was our food. Sometimes it's the littlest things that can be stressful. This was the first time we had eaten at a place like this on the tour, too. We normally ate at sit down places where we were waited upon. They were great burgers, too.
Then we continued onto Budapest. We started to come into the outskirts of the city and the path become more of an uneven twisty shared sidewalk and bike path:
This type of riding makes me nervous because now we have pedestrians and cars who really aren't expecting to see bicycles. Sometimes they make unexpected moves. We've been doing this for about 10 years now and we have learned to always assume others do not see us (on our 9-foot-long bike wearing yellow shirts) or are not paying attention. That way we always err on the side of caution. The path was like this for a while but eventually we were routed back down to the Danube, where there was a really great bike path:
Unfortunately, our ride didn't end our ride on this path. We had to head back into the heart of the city traffic to reach our hotel. This was by far the scariest part of our entire tour. I felt like we were going to be clipped by a car at any moment. We had to ride for maybe five to 10 minutes like this and we had to cross all that traffic, too at one point:
We finally found our hotel, and our bags were already there so we were able to check in and immediately start the sad process of breaking down our bike for travel. We literally had only a pound or two leeway for additional things in our luggage and my husband decided that instead of leaving the bicycle tire pump he bought in Prague at the hotel, we were going to bring it home... men... so our luggage had to be balanced, weight-wise, to allow for that. We also had a stack of paper and portfolios from the two bicycle tours that we were bringing home, too. We were packing the bike now so we could enjoy our evening and freely explore Budapest tomorrow without any worries. We had booked an extra day there before flying home to do some sight-seeing. Here is my man, working on taking the bike apart.
Over the last several days, we kept running into these young German men along the trail and at a few of the hotels we stayed at. We had chatted with them a few times and knew they were riding to Budapest as well. They rode into the parking lot while we were packing our bike. They told us they got to that ferry to discover it only ran on Fridays and Saturdays.... and today was Sunday. I'm not sure how far out of their way they had to go to catch it. Hopefully it didn't add any mileage. So, skipping that option turned out to be the wisest choice. We chatted for a bit before they went to check in.
I have to say that the tour operator for the Danube part of our tour really didn't look at what they gave us and if it was applicable. First we have a missed needed meeting the first night, our luggage being forgotten, dubious train instructions and the Ferry fiasco. I feel like they didn't put in the extra care to be sure our particular experience was tailored to what days we were traveling. It was like they pulled a tour off a shelf, printed tickets that they thought were needed and put them in the package without checking anything. They should have made sure that things like this didn't happen. I did compose a long email to our tour booking company to explain all the things that happened with the Danube tour operator and how wonderful the tour operator was for our Czech Republic tour. The two experiences were vastly different. The owner of the tour booking company was surprised at our experience. At least he can provide feedback.
Discussing these young German men brings to mind something that usually happens on our bike tours. On other tours, we have met people and end up riding the tour route with them, eating meals together, etc. When we did a tour in Belgium we met and rode with a lovely Aussie couple and a Dutch couple. The six of us became well-acquainted on that trip. I still communicate with the Aussie couple. We did a tour down in the Florida Keys and got to know a couple from Canada that invited us to their home a few years later when we were doing a tour near there. We really didn't meet anyone on this tour which surprised me. We did meet that lovely couple in Passau in the laundromat, but they were on a different route than we were.
We finished dismantling the bike, packing it away and hauled the bags up to our room. Our hotel was pretty nice, but I was not a fan of the part of the city we were in. My husband picked where he wanted to grab dinner, and I just went along with it. On our walk to dinner, I noticed the sidewalks were very dirty. There were animal feces on the sidewalk and trash strewn here and there. There were a lot of construction sites. It was disappointing. It also felt a little unsafe compared to the other cities we'd stayed in on this tour. I'm sure it was perfectly safe, but it just felt different. The place we ate at was just okay, but the owner waited on us and he was very friendly. We probably should have just walked and picked a restaurant we came across rather than picking something first sight unseen. I think I would have felt better in a more touristy area this time instead of where we ended up, which was outside at a local restaurant/bar with people smoking all around us.
When we got back to the hotel, I stopped at the desk to order a car ride to the airport, and I explained to the desk clerk that we had a really large bike bag. He assured me that the car would be big enough. I mentioned again that we needed extra room and reiterated the size of one of our bike bags, which was a really large duffle bag that had to fit a 4-foot-long piece of the bike frame. He assured me again that the cars were big enough. You can guess why I'm mentioning this conversation now. But that drama is for the next day's post.
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")
