Budapest - Vienna to Venice, with a detour through Budapest - CycleBlaze

September 7, 1994

Budapest

This morning, we had for the first time what we are beginning to suspect is the typical Hungarian breakfast - a plate of sliced meats and cheeses, bread, and tea with lemon juice.  Not exactly to my taste, but interesting.

We used up another hour trying to find the lake before leaving town - rather exasperating, since it was only about three blocks from the hotel.  Yesterday's fiasco was fresh in our minds as we turned back from yet another series of false starts.

Tata Castle
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I don’t really know what this is, but from the lighting this must still be in Tata.
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All day long we had flat, easy riding.  The final fifty plus miles were along the bank of the Danube, often on a semi-busy highway; but quiet enough that horse-drawn carriages were still allowed on many stretches and were frequently seen.  The more memorable sights of the day included a horse-drawn wagon being loaded manually by pitchfork near Esztergom, a woman carrying her duck through the back streets of Visigrad, and the entire old town of Szentendre with its wonderful collection of towers, churches, small alleyways and arts and crafts shops.

Along the Danube Bend, west of Esztergom
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Along the Danube Bend, west of Esztergom
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Along the Danube Bend, west of Esztergom
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About thirty miles 8nto the ride, we took a break in Esztergom to gaze up  at the immense Esztergom Basilica.  It’s really a huge structure, visible for miles away. (And, looking it up now, I see that it’s the tallest building in Hungary and the seat of the Catholic Church in this country).  

Esztergom Basilica: seat of the Catholic Church, and the tallest building in Hungary
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Esztergom Basilica
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Esztergom Basilica
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Esztergom Basilica
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Esztergom Basilica
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An hour or so later we pull off again at Visigrad to find lunch, ending up with a few slices of frankly terrible pizza from a food cart.  (tThis pizza was memorably bad, alright.  23 years later, I still look back on this as the second worst pizza we’ve ever had.  Awful as it was, it loses out to the pizza we had in Nowy Targ, Poland five years later.  That meal was the worst ever - a soggy, bland pizza covered with a thick layer of catsup, accompanied by a bowl of iceberg lettuce topped by a half inch thick layer of mayonnaise.)

The Upper Castle, Visigrad
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Visigrad Castle. Atop of the ridge is the upper castle, and beside the river at the bottom is the lower castle. The tall white structure is the 13th century Solomon’s Tower, a part of the lower castle.
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In Visigrad
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In Visigrad, I think. Or maybe it’s a misplaced photo from Esztergom.
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Finally, we took a third break in Szentendre, almost sixty miles into the ride.  By now we were getting tired and it was late in the day, so we only had a few minutes to look around at the most attractive town we’ve seen since Sopron.  

In Szentendre
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I wish we’d allowed more time for this part of Hungary. I’ve toyed for years with running another tour through here.
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Shortly after Szentendre we picked up a signed bike route.  It wove back and forth across the highway, on and off of side streets, all the way to north central Budapest.  At one point we were startled by a man walking across the bikeway in front of us, stark naked but carrying his bath towel.

At the Arpad Bridge we crossed over the Danube to the Pest side, and began a slow and stressful traverse of the central city to our planned stop for the night at Dominick Pension.  We arrived about 7, shortly before sundown, and were crushed by the news that they had never heard of us and had no vacancies.  A note from Alan (who arrived earlier - they were due here a day before us) named an alternate hotel - the Lido, up north and on the other bank of the river.  Maddeningly, we had biked past it an hour and a half ago.

Biking back to it at this hour, with the sun gone and us both bone weary and famished, seemed out of the question.  Fortunately, the somewhat chagrined attendant allowed us to lock our bikes in the hotel and called a taxi to take us back to the Lido.  We arrived there at about 8:30, left a note at the desk for the Hersheys, and went upstairs to our room to get cleaned up and wait for our friends to hopefully arrive.

With great relief we heard their voices on the stairwell about a half hour later.   Over a fine dinner at a nearby restaurant we listened to their tales of Vienna, a missed morning boat to the Danube (they caught the afternoon hovercraft instead, arriving in Budapest about 9 last night; and of their desperate attempts to procure a different room somewhere and leave a note for us.  And of their tour of the city today, conducted by their private tour guide, a taxi driver Alan had befriended.

All's well that ends well!

Today's ride: 73 miles (117 km)
Total: 233 miles (375 km)

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