Out of Budapest

We reluctantly left Budapest today. More days in this grand city would have been great. We took the evening boat cruise the first evening there and toured city on foot Friday.

The morning exit from the city along the busy city streets. We departed convoy style all 25 or so in one group all wearing out our safety vests for the first 20 kilometers or so. Not since Paris have we seen such a huge expanse of suburbia from a major city with the same lousy road that I described in my last blog (link).

As we moved out into the more rural areas, the traffic decreased and the roads improved and the fun really began. We started to move along at a nice steady clip of 17-18 Miles per hour through some very beautiful flat country with farms on each side and many fields of sunflowers.

I'm biking with two sets of computer on my handle bars. On the left hand side I have my Garmin set up to readout in kilometers to match the map directions and on the right hand side, my cycle computer set up in as miles to match the setting that I used to prepare for this ride.

We'll it's time for dinner, gotta go, Happy Biking,

Brian

Into Budapest...

Today we left the Danube River behind for the day. As you can see in the map below, we followed the river at the start. Mostly on busy city streets shared with trucks and cars zipping all around us. As we started to head south and up into the hills the roads became more quiet, less traffic. It was really nice to start climbing again. The river has been very nice, but it fun to mix in some hills as well.

The road surface was not well maintained. The roads were old, patched and had many pot holes. In reminded me of California and much of the roads in the US, not as nice as the other European roads that we've been riding on. You know what that means, the United States has roads as bad as a former soviet satellite state. That's not much to say. Click on my friend Philppe's blog on see his comment on American infrastructure (link).

Were in Budapest for two nights and a day at a very nice hotel (Budapest Metropol Hotel) and hope to do some fun sightseeing. Any suggestions?

That's it for now, Happy Biking,

Brian

Slovakia to Hungrary

Today was a fast ride from Bratislava Slovakia to  Komarom Hungary. Like yesterday we had a wonderful breeze pushing us along the levee while we followed the river. I'll upload the photos when I get a chance.

We're starting to move out of the fairly wealthy part of Europe (France, Germany and Austria) and into the countries that were formally part of the USSR. It's a bit early to judge, but buildings and infrastructure looks worn and tired. We have a rider from Germany who traveled here in the mid 80's and has stated that it's much improved since then. We'll see what develops as the ride progress.

That's it for now, Happy Biking,

Brian

oh... This is what a tail wind feels like...

We're back on the road after a very nice stop in Vienna Austria. We spent 3 nights and 2 days there. Besides the typical housekeeping tasks (updating blog, washing clothes, cleaning bikes and some shopping) we had the chance to explore the city a bit. By far, this has been my favorite city among many great cities that we've passed through.

Today we left Austria and entered Bratislava Slovakia. The ride was only 57 kilometers that is just over 35 miles. In addition we had a very nice tail wind that helped speed us along. We arrived early enough to check into our Botel (stationary river barge) and held into town for sightseeing and refreshments.

To me, this is where the adventure begins. As a group, we're really not sure how the traveling will be different in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria will be from France, Germany and Austria. We're looking forward to exploring and learning more as we travel.

That's it for today, Happy Biking,

Brian