Today’s ride was smooooooth sailing. Up at 7:30 am, out by 8:30 am, a quick stop at Lidl for breakfast and to stock up for lunch, then onto canal and dirt roads for the 100 or so km ride to Baja.
Baja is a river town (obivously), but more so than most of the other towns so far. I arrived at around 3 pm and the heat plus a 12 euro room in town both ensured that I’d end the day’s ride here in Baja.
Tomorrow I’ll have to decide whether to stay on the EuroVelo6 main route in Serbia or to venture into Croatia for a few days. My gut says to head into Croatia.
I tolerated a white bread and dry corn flakes breakfast at the Unity Hostel then slipped into my still-damp bib shorts and left in search of a bike shop from which to procure chain lube.
All appeared to be going well enough—The Green Machine felt especially light and spritely: ‘I guess those rest days paid off,’ I thought.
The Green Machine waits restlessly in anticipation of today’s ride
Then, as I reached the edge of Budapest and stopped to take a photo of a skatepark beneath a highway, it hit me. My handlebar bag was missing. It’s the only bag that matters, the whole kit and, yes, the caboodle too! It housed my irreplaceable trip journals and my passport, among other important items. An immediate panic-induced shot of acidic bile jolted my stomach and a cold sweat smacked my face.
‘Where did the bag go?’ Then reflexively, ‘Who took it?’
After 30 seconds of anger at the alleged thief, I realized that in my haste to get my bags out of the elevator and onto my bike I probably left it on the hostel stairwell.
So I pedaled like Lance from the outskirts of the city back to Unity Hostel. “Please let it be there, please let it be there,” I mouthed as I rode.
‘How much would I pay for my bag to be where I left it when I arrive,’ I asked myself, ‘$1,000?’ Luckily, I didn’t have to answer this query because my bag was right where I had hoped it would be at the bottom of the staircase. WHEW.
My sincerest apologies to those I’d convicted of a certain type of thought crime.
The pitstop that saved my passport
At this point I rechecked my luggage and left Budapest for the second time in half as many mornings. The ride out of the city was a mix of nice river roads, a detour that a concerned cyclist posted directions for (thankfully), and a hellish freeway that lasted an hour with semi’s whistling inches from my left ear.
Despite the hectic start to the day, I felt good and wanted to ride into the evening so I flagged down a couple of cyclists coming from the opposite direction to ask if they’d passed any campsites within 25km. They said that campsites were few and far between, in the truest sense of the phrase, so I stopped at a pension with an open room for 16eur.
I recommend staying here at the EuroVelo 6 Stop Pension. The husband and wife who own it are gracious hosts with supremely comfortable lodgings for the weary rider.
The Eurovelo 6 Pension
The pension was near a Lidl, which I rode to and picked up some food for dinner: hummus, bread, and bulgur did the trick.
A good day. Funny how it can take losing something to come to understand just how important that thing is. Thanks to this morning’s mishap I now know I’d be in despair if I lost my journals. They’re the only irreplaceable things I have with me on this trip aside from my health so I was at first self-critical over having lost them, that was until I reminded myself that even loving parents forget their own children sometimes.
The Day’s Miscellany
Three pullup challenges, two of which with the same design
Abby and I spent the weekend eating, drinking, and walking our way through Budapest in what amounted to a gluttonous couple of days.
A highlight of this trip to Budapest was Memento Park. It’s a statue park outside city center. After about a 30-minute bus ride you get off on the side of a road near what I think was a tiling business.
Across the street massive statues poke up over the horizon. After the Velvet Revolution, some of the biggest soviet statues in Budapest were collected and consolidated here as an open-air exhibition.
If you like art and are interested in Eastern European history than this statue park is a must-visit. Everything is self-guided. As of 2019, the museum is still under construction. In unfinished unlit rooms, massive busts of Lenin and of kid-Lenin jump out at you.
Creepy kid Lenin
In the completed statue park there are some magnificent pieces of art and monuments to oppression.
After Monument Park, we headed for the thermal baths at Széchenyi where we enjoyed a relaxed afternoon.
Strike a pose
We finished the night with a late-night falafel fueled walk along the Danube.
Falafel time
On Sunday, we ventured across the river from Pest to Buda to explore a local market. We got veg sausage, langos, olives, bread, veg cheese, Hungarian sweetbreads, and pickles then found a picnic spot. Lucky me, the park had a fitness park where I completed the pull-up challenge.
I spent most of the rest of our time together urging Abby to blow off her job and join me in Belgrade, to no avail.
Vegazzi has the best pizza in Eastern Europe, at least. This isn’t the last time it’ll appear in today’s miscellany
You gotta have a lángos
Picnic on the Buda side of the river
After Abby left, I found this spot for my first dinner of the night. As it turns out, Bollywood Vegi Bar has some really good naan.
Vegazzi has its own gravitational field in which I was caught on my way back from Bollywood. I wanted to try the pesto pizza and the margherita, so I ordered one pizza with half of each. Instead, I ended up two full pizzas and a journey to the limits of distention.
Action shot in Csakajósör Kft., the best place for a beer in Budapest
Last night at camp I met a Turkish man and his daughter who are taking a cycling trip to celebrate her high school graduation. I’ve been wondering about what it’s like to cycle into Istanbul so I walked up to them and introduced myself. This turned out to be a great move. They cooked up a pot of Turkish tea and we talked for a couple of hours before calling it a night.
We decided to ride into Budapest together this morning. Throughout the ride I listened as my new friend told me about Turkish politics and history. Turns out that they were even more directionally challenged than me. Every 10 minutes we just had to stop to check the map and ensure we were headed in the right direction. This didn’t help much, we often made the wrong turn regardless.
We braked for breakfast pastries then again for lunch and beer.
What was supposed to be a short 35km ride ended up taking all day due to our (fun) stops and (frustrating) wrong turns. We made one last stop for a drink along the Danube just before Budapest then parted ways as we crossed into the city. They went on to meet with a friend working as a Turkish attache in Hungary and I was off to find Abby’s and my Airbnb.
After hauling my bike and gear up four stories into the Airbnb, I immediately smelled a gas leak in the kitchen. After some sniffing around I found that the source of the leak was the meter. The host assured me there was no leak but the stench of mercaptan told me otherwise. There was no way in hell we’d be staying there.
I booked a last-minute room at Hotel Memories Oldtown. It was so much better than any comparably priced Airbnb. I recommend this hotel.
The ticking time bomb
My new gas-free digs
Abby’s flight was scheduled to arrive after 10 pm, so I was on the hook for dinner alone. I wasted no time picking a restaurant, Napfenyes for their vegan sarmale is a no-brainer.
I woke up at 7:30 am, so I don’t think Budapest is gonna happen. I decided to explore Komárom and Komárno instead of pushing hard to make it to Hungary’s capital.
Komárom and Komárno are on either side of the Danube, one in Slovakia and the other in Hungary. Komárno is the bigger city and sits on the Slovakian side. Both towns have interesting histories as shifting borders for various empires, kingdoms, and countries. Komárom was the last stand in Hungary’s 1848 uprising.
I visited Fort Monostor, a sort of Hungarian Alamo, where the last stand…stood. Fort Monostor has a dark history too. It was taken by the Nazis and used as a concentration camp for the Roma.
From Fort Monostor it was off to the other side of the river back into Slovakia. I spent a good 40 minutes tooling around in Komárno where I found a redeveloped old-town. Someone must have put some serious dough into this square. There are restored buildings, statues of local historical figures like Maria Theresa, hotels, and restaurants.
Just outside the square, I met two American bike tourers from DC on my way out of Komarno. It is nice to stop and talk with other cyclists as I get lonely after a few days of not crossing paths with another English speaker.
Soon after Komarno, there is this really cool viewpoint. It’s a wood-paneled stand-alone spiral staircase with a fitness park at its base. You have to go up to the top of this tower where you’ll get panoramic views of the Danube.
Today’s ride was a mix of great paths, more sand, a scary highway called The 11, and a delightful ferry ride. I got a beer, peanuts, and some cookies while I waited for the ferry. The cookies were good as hell and the Czech IPA hit the spot.
There was a split second here where I thought I’d have to swim across
Ferry snacks
After the ferry, there was still 15km to the campsite. This was some of the best riding so far on the trip. All downhill, a bike-only path, along the water, a fitness park, deep greens and blues, good looking people everywhere, and a clear line of sight up to the imposing Visegrád Castle (the former summer residence of King Matthias). I’ve taken to calling Hungary, Hungary the Beautiful. The country has amazing natural beauty.
Some of my family members are Hungarian, so it has been a little weird seeing people who look vaguely like my relatives. I saw one kid today who I swore was a carbon copy of my little sister at 10 years old. I’ve seen about five or six versions of my grandpa too, despite him being Transylvanian.
One last note from today: there is a group of German ladies I’ve been trading places with since yesterday. I caught up to them today while they were picking fruit and veg along the side of the trail. They kindly picked me some baby corn, a fruit I don’t remember the name of, and some apples. Delicious!
After I set up camp, I ventured back along the path to find some dinner. I ordered a veg burger from a kiosk and to my surprise “veg burger” meant a huge slab of grilled cheese in place of a patty. I must admit, it was tasty.
Visegrád views
Today’s Miscellany
Said veg burger
Bridge views of Esztergom Basilica as I crossed back into Hungary
Esztergom Basilica is probably worth visiting. I was over-eager to finish the day’s ride so I skipped it and missed out
This marks my first day in Hungary. The ride out of Slovakia was frustrating despite its gorgeous scenery. I pedaled past adolescent sunflowers eager to outcompete each other for the sun’s rays like newborn puppies blindly in search of a teat. The roads were so full of sand and gravel though that I couldn’t look away from them to admire the sunflowers’ glow for more than a just couple of seconds at a time.
Perhaps the prettiest invasive species on the planet apart from people
I’m spending tonight at a campsite here in Komárom called Hotel Thermal on the recommendation of my Polish friend, Simon. Thermal baths included in the price of admission.
Once I checked in and set up camp, I headed straight for the baths to relax. Today’s sandy ride was especially hard on my knees.
After returning shivering from the baths to my tent, I met a nice family from Belgium who offered me a chair in which to read and a beer to drink. Both of which I gladly accepted.
The object of many-a-curses
Tomorrow it’s on to Budapest (I hope), one of my favorite cities.
“Sunflower fields forever.” – John Lennon, first draft
Today’s Miscellany
America’s cultural contribution to this part of Slovakia is the name of a 24-hour roadside strip joint called the Hollywood Club.
