Pool Time

Day 333
Budapest Rest Day 2

No drunk people last night – it was rather quiet. We had another “sleep in” morning and then ate the usual bowl of muesli and drank the usual cup of coffee.
Our plan for the day was a leisurely one – go to the park and take in the thermal baths followed by a café stop. Since we still had some time on our bus ticket from yesterday, we hopped back on and rode to Hosok Tere aka Hero’s Square. The area is a collection of beautiful bronze monuments dedicated to the 896 Magyar (Hungarian) conquest of the Carpathian Basin. We lingered a bit to take some pictures and contemplate the long history of this country. The most remarkable thing to me is that most of the city was destroyed by bombing in World War II and everything was rebuilt to the style and character of the city. Amazing…
After a short walk from the square we found Szchenyi Furdo, one of many thermal baths in Budapest. This complex was opened in 1908 and has both indoor and outdoor pools. The place was definitely a busy hive of activity and we enjoyed the people watching just as much as the water. I’m trying to talk Chris into changing his swimming attire from baggies to a banana hammock. I think something in shiny blue might be nice.
After a good soak we packed up our things and strolled down Andrassy, Budapest’s version of the Champs Elysees. The avenue is lined with beautiful trees and lavish homes. In the days of horse and carriage, this end of Andrassy had alleyways lined with wooden boards so that horse’s shoes would not disturb the affluent citizens.
Instead of coffee we had an ice cream at an up-market café called Lucaks. Apparently, it used to be the old stomping ground of the secret police. There is now a museum just down the street dedicated to their former exploits called the Terror Haza. We didn’t venture instead but read that it is quite the draw.
Tonight we’re going to venture out and see the city lights. I’ve read that castle hill, across the Danube, is quite spectacular at night.

Here’s to speedos,
LK

Café Hot Dogs

Day: 332
Budapest Rest Day 1


We slept in this morning after having a bit of a fitful sleep. A drunk guy in the next apartment spent an hour or so moaning and buzzing the doorbell trying to get his buddies to let him in around 2:30 am. He finally went away, or his friend let him in, or he passed out in the staircase. Bottom line is he finally shut up. We had our little apartment to ourselves this morning and had a leisurely breakfast of coffee and cereal. We slowly got ready and went to look for a café for a cappuccino and a croissant. Leslie was looking for a café reputed to be the local hangout of the Budapest intellectual crowd. I was bummed because I had forgotten my t-shirt that reads ‘Talk to me, I’m smart.’ Luckily we didn’t find it so we had to settle on a cool little spot in the theatre district. It made for good people watching and Leslie thinks she maybe finally had a cappuccino to knock the old #1 off of the list. That one was from a little café on the Great Ocean Road in Australia. After some proper caffeine we decided to play super tourist and take a bus ride around Buda and Pest. The bus tour was set up to be a hop on, hop off type, but as we got to our first stop and saw the driver turning people away we decided that were here to stay. The tour was surprisingly thorough and we took a lot away from it. The basic gist of the city is it has been created, pillaged and bombed for around 1000 years. WWII took care of the city’s bridges across the Danube, but the city persevered and rebuilt most of the bridges just like the originals. All in all, quite educational. We finally decided to hop off in the Jewish quarter of the city where several thousand Hungarian and other European Jews sought refuge during the war. We both were hungry and sat down at the first café we saw. The special was frankfurters or grilled sandwiches. We both opted for the frankfurters and had a really nice meal. Leslie joked that we were having café hot dogs or ‘lips and a-holes with a view’. I wanted to title the blog the latter, but decided against it. We then worked our way over to the train station where we lined out some tickets for a train to Zagreb, Croatia on Sunday. We had to buy one ticket for each of us and two tickets for each of the bicycles. After our Bangkok train experience, we know what kind of questions to ask and don’t mind buying the bikes a ticket.
Tomorrow we are off to one of the cities famous baths and then a tour of the park.
I am sure there will be more cafés in our future.
CK

Adventures in Hungary

Day 331
Esztergom to Budapest
Time: 4:48:00
Distance: 78.2 kilometers
Avg Speed: 16.2 kph
Terrain: Flat
Location: 47 29' 51.63" N, 19 04' 19.28" E

We left Esztergom at our usual time this morning and quickly found the bikeway along the Danube. We snuck out of town under the grandeur of the Basilica, a neoclassical structure that dates back to the 19th century. This area of Hungary actually bears some important and interesting history. From here to Budapest, the Danube Bend area was once a popular place for the kings of Hungary. Way back in time, Esztergom hosted the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in the 2nd century. It was while he stayed here that he wrote is famous work, Meditations.
We had quite the mix of riding surfaces today. That, coupled with our sub par route finding skills, had us going in all directions. One of us would spot a trail with a bicycle sign and off we’d go only to find that the trail ended or diverted itself in the wrong direction. It’s always amazing what signs you find (to point you in the right direction) when you turn around.
About 15 kilometers out of Budapest we found a major trail route called the Euro Velo. We hopped on and figured we’d have a smooth ride into the city. In a matter of five minutes we were on singletrack dodging trees and potholes. Chris yelled back to me to see if I wanted to continue and I hollered forward to carry on. As long as we were heading south and along the river, I was ready for whatever terrain lay ahead. The trail soon turned back to hardpacked dirt road and didn’t pose too many challenges after that.
The first glimpses of central Budapest definitely took my breath away. Sometimes I feel like I’m traveling through all the movies I’ve watched in the past about Europe. The magnificent parliament buildings set on the left bank of the mighty Danube River is a memory I think I’ll have forever.
We made our way to the Szechenyi Lanchid (bridge) and crossed over into Pest. You see, Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and Pest (I didn’t know this before reading my Lonely Planet book). Buda is the more relaxed of the two, while Pest is the commercial center. Anyway, we crossed the bridge and then did the usual zig-zagging to get to our apartment.
Tonight we are tucked away four doors in and four floors up. Tomorrow we explore the city…

Here’s to Viennese coffee houses,
LK

Day 330: Komarno, Slovakia to Esztergom, Hungary

Time: 3:45
Distance: 61.6 km
Avg Speed: 16.3 kph
Terrain: flat
Location: 47 47' 25.4" N, 18 43' 58.4" E

After a little respite off the bike we got back on the road this morning. Our two days in Komarno were great. The city offers a lot of great old architecture, nice people, good food and ease of access. It was nice to roll out in the cool morning air watching all the café owners setting up their wares for the day.
We quickly found the Danube bike route and rolled on out via the mountain bike route. We enjoyed double track dirt roads on top of the levies all the while keeping track of the flat farm and pasture land to our left. The right side of our route was the river and all the people who cruise its waters daily. We dipped toward and away from the river throughout the day, but if you kept an eye toward the high earthen levies, you could always pick it up.
We arrived in our last Slovakian town around lunch time and decided to do just that. Sturovo is a nice little tourist town right on the river and we were content just to eat our bread and nutella sandwiches and people watch for an hour. After we had our fill we quickly located the bridge heading east and rolled on into Hungary. We switched the last of our Slovakian Koruna for Hungarian Forint and came away with not as much as we had hoped. So much for having faith in the money changers for a good deal. There are three campgrounds in town and we seemed to have located the one with the most cyclists. I would imagine that there are just as many cyclists as other campers in this park. You can really tell that we are on a major bike route.
We have now had announced over the loud speaker in the campground, in German, Hungarian, Slovak and English that the pool is closing and rolls for breakfast should have been ordered. The fact that we picked a site right below the loud speaker has me hoping that they are done for the evening. Who knows, they may announce that the restaurant is out of beer around midnight.
CK