Velodyssee

Well it was always going to be a slog. An Aer Lingus flight from Budapest to Dublin with a 3 hr stopover before the connecting flight to Glasgow. Being unwilling early risers we opted for this arrangement with a 12:30 departure time. At least we get time for breakfast before we have to leave for the airport which we did.

First decision- how to get to the airport? Taxi or public transport? Being cheapskates we opted for the latter. We love a challenge! On line research suggested the best option is the Airport Express bus 100E which departs from a Metro interchange 10 mins walk from the hotel. We’re off. It’s 09:00. Get to Metro Interchange have to buy ticket before getting on bus. Easy peasy. But where does the bus actually leave from in this big junction complex? Spend 10 mins looking for the stop didn’t see it. All of a sudden the 100E comes roaring in and we see it stopping 50 m away up a side road. Bu**er! We sprint with our bags in the early morning heat and just make it before the bus doors close. We’re on but the bus is already full. Standing room only for the 30 min trip to the airport. The sweat is already trickling down my back. Not happy bunnies.

Bus duly arrives at the airport and we all pile off and into Terminal 2B. It’s 10am but check in desks don’t open till 10:30. We hear a few Irish voices among the milling throngs all eagerly watching for the desk number for check in so that the sprint to the front of the queue to drop bags off can begin. It’s like the start to an Olympic 100m sprint. I’m watching that board with eagle eyes for 30 minutes (standing up ‘cos no seats) ready to start my charge. And there it is – Dublin flight desks 56 and 57. I scan the desk numbers – in terminal 2B there are desks 34-44 and 63-73. Where the h*ll are desks 56and 57?I panic – where shall we run to? Suddenly I see a sign overhead indicating that desks 44-62 are through a gap on the other side. Oh no! We sprint but it’s too late. Two massive queues have already formed at both desks. How in God’s name did that happen. Did these guys have secret information that I didn’t have. I’m gutted. Of course one queue is moving faster than the other and we’re trapped in the wrong one. We weaved our way through the zig zags and eventually got to the front exactly 1 hour later. We put our bags on the conveyor for the check in guy to stick labels on. He peers quizzically at Carol’s IKEA bag which is holding her panniers full of sweaty cycling gear and can’t find a suitable fixing point for his labels. Don’t worry she says it won’t come to bits. He shrugs and sticks his labels on. I had panniers too without the IKEA bag. He looked quizzically at me too but just the labels on anyway.

We proceed to the next hurdle- Security. Unfortunately for us security in Terminal 2B has just closed. Please proceed to Terminal 2A. We have to walk back 100m to Terminal 2A where we scan the boarding passes and zig zag our way to the never ending fun of the grey trays and mystical scanners. Belts off, phones out, bags into trays. Walk through scanner. Hurrah – no alarms go off. That was OK but we’re beginning to run out of time now.

We thought we were home and dry now. But oh no – the next queuing nightmare hoves into view. Passport control. 10 kiosks with bored looking officers inside. EU passport holders 5 queues on the left. UK passport holders and other fine world citizens to the right. All lines are bunged full.We now have only 25 mins left to departure time and the boards say the Dublin flight is boarding. This doesn’t look good. The queues are barely moving! A shout goes up. All those flying to Shanghai follow me to front of the line. Interestingly the Shanghai flight has the same 12:30 departure time as the Dublin flight. Lots of people ran after the official.

What about us we shout. 5 minutes later the Dublin flight folk are urged to charge to the front. Great we’re getting somewhere now. Two ‘urgent’ queues form. We’re edging forward until our queue stops. There’s a problem with a New Zealand couple immediately in front of us. Telephone calls are made. Guard leaves his kiosk. He returns. Forms are filled in. Then filled in again and AGAIN. What the hell is going on here. Another phone call is made. A very panicked Asian chap immediately in front of us is literally hopping from foot to foot. His eyes are wide in panic. He bows, implores the folk in the line next to us which is moving reasonably quickly to let him in. They graciously do. He gets processed rapidly, he bows his thanks to all and sundry and disappears at a great rate of knots towards the gates never to be seen again. That’s a good idea we think. Carol butts in to the line next to us. Amazingly they let her in. Our original line finally clears. We are now both at separate desks. Panic has really set in by now. We have only 5 minutes left to departure. Carol gets through. At last the NZ guys in front of me are let through and I am at the front of my line. Glower glower. Stamp stamp. We’re through. RUN. RUN. Typically Gate B26 is about as far away as it possible to be. We run. Oh how we run. We reach the gate. 1 minute to spare. Down the slipway. Across the boiling concrete and up the steps. We’re in a plane. The doors close. We’re off. The sweat continues run down my back.

How was that possible. We arrived at the airport half an hour before check in opens and, through no fault of our own except for poor queuing choices, we ended up being last onto the plane with barely 30 seconds to spare! We didn’t stop for coffee or hang around in bars we just queued! I think it was a trial set for us by some higher authority.

Things didn’t end there. When we boarded the plane the Aer Lingus hostesses eyed us with a hint of suspicion for being so late and potentially holding up their plane. So when the snacks trolley starts it’s journey up the aisle there are people buying sandwiches, beer coffee etc (not free despite our ticket saying ‘meal on board’). After the rows in front of us have had their fill surely it’s us next but no it moves right past our row and disappears up the plane never to be seen again. I think those hostesses were secretly taking their revenge for our late arrival. So no refreshments until Dublin 2 hours and 45 minutes away. Best thing is to close eyes and pretend this day isn’t actually happening.

We eventually get to Dublin and after the obligatory crammed bus ride round the a*se end of the airport we are allowed out to find our way through à labyrinth of corridors to another passport check. The mere waft and wave of our U.K. passports was sufficient to gain entry to this close neighbour EU country. At last we could get some food and drink. It was hardly a culinary highlight unless you think tons of grated Parmesan on luke warm chips is your thing! To be fair the chicken burger was OK. Only another two and a half hours to wait for the flight to Glasgow. 17:55 arrived and we negotiated the interminable corridors and bus tour of the airport perimeter in reverse and ended up at a turbo prop dinky toy which offered no drop down oxygen masks. I nervously reassured my wife that we wouldn’t need them ‘cos we won’t be going high enough!

This is the home leg. Time to relax a bit but I’m now desperate to relive the previous two weeks and have a welcome early evening cold beer – courtesy of Aer Lingus. I got the beer but it wasn’t complementary nor indeed was it cold so all together a bit of a disappointment! I knew we were near Glasgow as frost and sleet started appearing on the window of the plane (true – see photo). So my reminiscing about cold beer in a warm evening were sadly shattered by having a warm beer in a cold climate.

Anyway we eventually got home 11 hours after we started and looked out of the kitchen window to find the garden full of diggers and my back hedge gone!

Not sure I ever want to fly on holiday ever again!

Returned the hire bikes to Buda Explorer and explained about the broken front mudguard but the young lady barely cast a glance at it. “No problem. I hope you have had a nice trip”. “Oh yes” we said. “It’s been wonderful”. Then we headed off to be bike-free tourists for the first time in two weeks.

Having had 24 hours for our backsides to recover we can now reflect on the last two weeks pedalling along between Passau and Budapest on our trusty steeds.

The sun shone every day without fail often reaching temperatures of 33 degrees by mid afternoon. The only rain that fell was one shower in the late afternoon in Vienna and one evening in Marbach. Sweat has proliferated from every orifice in the hot afternoon sun requiring many stops for radlers (shandy), fruit fill lemonades or just cold water in a variety of small bars and cafes that have littered the route. Some in small villages others beside the cycle track or by the river. The cravings for Austrian cake diminished as time went on and was replaced by a mad desire for ice cream in a multiplicity of flavours.

Every afternoon after navigating our way to our hotels and checking in there was a mad dash to the room to rip off all the hot, sweaty, sun cream-encrusted cycling gear and to stand under an ice cold shower until a state of torpor set in. After that chuck grotty cycling gear into shower, squirt soap all over it and then jump on it until you think it might be usable the following day. Wring out and hang up to dry and then put it on again in the morning. Most of the hotel rooms had no aircon so quite often another shower became necessary before bed just lower the body temperature enough to be able to sleep!!

The peloton dinner at some suitable hostellerie in the evening was always the best time of the day with cold beer in hand and a pile of food in front of you. The cuisine has ranged from Austrian schnitzels to Hungarian goulashes with a rich mixture of Italian pastas, Asian ramen bowls and Slovakian paprikash chickens thrown in. The dinner table was awash with exaggerated tails of the day’s ride and the trials and tribulations of the long distance cyclist. In fact, on reflection, I think we just forget about the cycling and just concentrate our time on the eating and drinking with a bit of sightseeing thrown in. I think it’s called a Danube River Cruise!!

Some fine sights were seen along the way.

Altogether the peloton completed approximately 640km from Passau to Budapest. The first 330km to Vienna was delightful with excellent asphalt and great signposting. From Vienna to Budapest the surfacing did degenerate somewhat and included more sections of cycling on roads sometimes with reasonably heavy traffic. For quite a few days we didn’t see the Danube at all except for the occasional crossing on a bridge or ferry. All the stopover towns and cities have been well worth visiting with plenty to see and do.

And so we come to the end of another epic cycling trip with our peloton chums. No punctures. One minor mechanical. 300 litres of beer drunk and five tons of ice cream consumed.

Of course we could keep going along the Danube until it eventually enters the Black Sea in Romania … hmmm….!

Today was always going to be tricky. It involved approximately 80km and potentially 2 river crossings by ferry with hopefully a third ferry to end the day from Szentendre to the centre of Budapest.

The day started badly. Overnight in a locked garage my bike had contrived to fall over all by itself and once uprighted it’s front wheel refused to turn. The mudguards had somehow bent out of alignment and were jamming the wheel freezing it solid. After a lot of huffing and puffing plus a few choice swear words we managed to detach the mudguard supports and get the wheel to turn. Much black tape was applied to hold it in this delicate balance with the hope that it would last until we reached Budapest which I am glad to say it did until about 500m from our hotel when it all pinged apart on a busy pedestrian crossing and disappeared beneath a torrent of cars.

This somewhat delayed start meant just a little more added pressure to the already complicated itinerary for the day. The Szentendre ferry was due to leave at 5pm. Miss that and we had to cycle another 24km into the centre of Budapest.

The first of the two cross river ferries we intended getting from the right bank across to Szob on the left bank had ceased operating two years ago, so along with another cheesed of group of French cyclists, we had to back track a km or so to the main road and wrestle with the traffic again. Luckily the next crossing some 16km further downstream was running so we hopped aboard and floated over to Nagymaros. From there we cycled on down to Vac where we hoped to catch a ferry back across to the right bank at Tahitótfalu which sounds like it should be a village in Fiji not Hungary. We arrived just in time to roll down the slipway and cough up our 5€ pp to a Captain Jack Sparrow lookalike. We were the only passengers on the ferry except for a very large concrete mixer. Blooming heck it was hot. Needed cold drinks and fuel. The time is ticking by and this Szentendre ferry isn’t going to wait for us.

We pile on a further 10km and eventually arrive in Szentendre with half an hour to spare hot, disheveled and thirsty. Two other English couples who we have bumped into several times on this trip (and with whom we had shared our bikes-on-train debacle a few days ago) had arrived over 2 hrs ahead of us and had spent a pleasant few hours drinking cold beer in a lovely bar.

Now we don’t have a ticket but they do as provided by their tour company. We try to buy tickets at an automatic ticket machine but it’s bust. Oh no surely we can’t fail at the final hurdle. At 4:30 the crowds begin to gather. A slight shuffling and jostling for position amongst the ticket holders who, when the barriers are lifted smugly walk down the gangplank and nab all the best seats on the boat. As the crush dwindles to a trickle our chance has come – “we don’t have tickets but can we please come aboard your lovely boat to take us to Budapest. We are very hot and tired and can’t face cycling the last 24km through the traffic leading the suburbs into the city”. “Of course – come aboard you can purchase a ticket on board. Enjoy your trip” YES – we’re on. We stack our bikes and panniers in the tangle of other machines including two tandems and go looking for a seat. There aren’t any. They are all full. So we have to stand on deck for the 80 minute boat ride but it was worth it.

Arrive in centre of Budapest. Disentangle bikes. Climb gang plank. Rumble across cobbled quayside. Search for hotel. Nearly get run over by trams. Bike finally pings to pieces on zebra crossing. Try and get across a massive road junction by running with bikes to avoid having to bounce down underpass steps. Find the right street and eventually find hotel cunningly disguised as a building site behind a digger and a very large lorry. Made it. Check in. Go and find cold beer and food.

Just have to hand back my slightly broken bike to the hire company tomorrow and then be a tourist for a couple of days instead of pedalling.

Spent the day riding along another flood embankment with fine tarmac – until we weren’t! We were bowling along merrily until we came across a chainsaw gang sawing up tons of fallen down poplar trees. Route closed. Yikes! Minor detour required onto a more elevated lumpy bottom- bruising track to avoid masses of fallen trees. Some localised whirlwind must have passed through this area a few weeks ago and flattened hundreds of trees. The resultant landscape looked like something out of Game of Thrones and forcing the peloton to hack it’s way through the undergrowth to make progress.

The north bank of the Danube for today’s route was entirely in Slovakia . Our final destination of Esztergom however is just back across the river in Hungary and hence requiring a bridge crossing back over the Danube at the end of the day. Conveniently, the authorities had painted a fat red line in the middle of the bridge to denote the border which I found very exciting but no sign of border guards here.

The Duomo is the mightiest ecclesiastical construction basilica in Hungary. I can personally vouch for the fact that it has 417 steep steps up spiral staircases to reach the top of the dome but once there the view is – well – a nice view of the bridge we had ridden over an hour ago and some nice Soviet style tower blocks back in Slovakia!

The dome from within the basilica is big and difficult to photograph but here’s one.

It also has some big fat pillars.

Had too much Aperol Spritz to write anymore. Have to go and book a ferry now for the last leg into Budapest tomorrow – commonly known as cheating on a cycle trip!!

Another fine hot sunny day. So far we haven’t cycled in any rain or even had a cloudy day. However we have been dead jammy because the day after we left Vienna the city had is highest ever recorded rainfall in a 24 hour period in history and the place got flooded out!

This cycle ride from Passau to Budapest is is supposed to be a ride along the blue Danube. However we didn’t see it at all today apart from a brief view as we passed over the so-called Bridge of Friendship between Komárom and Komárno – and it wasn’t blue. These towns used to be one until June 1920 when the boundaries of the old Czechoslovakia were drawn down the centre of the river and the northern part of the town in CZ became known as Komárno and the south side remained in Hungary and kept the original name of Komárom. The Bridge of Friendship symbolically still binds them together despite the fact there were border patrols stopping cars in the middle of the bridge. The guards took one look at our miserable sweaty peloton and waved us past. So not many views of the Danube today however what we did get was a prolonged but unwanted view of a of a dirty rutted track for 5km alongside another blinking field of corn on the cobb! Our route map did note the prospect of a section of rough surface but this was like off- road dirt track stuff. Muddy puddles, loose gravel, tufts of grass, potholes etc. the combination of which was not particularly well suited to cyclists with very sore bottoms and heavy panniers.

Much huffing and puffing mumbling and moaning eventually saw us through to one of the most beautiful stretches of new smooth blemish-free asphalt you could wish to find. It was essentially just a very wide farm access road on which no vehicles passed at all so this plus a brisk following wind soon cheered up the peloton whose thoughts were rapidly turning to lunchtime refreshments.

We rolled into the next village by the name of Acs and drew up at the first place that looked like it might offer beer and cold water. In fact just imagine an old western film where 4 cowboys ride into town and hitch their horses up to a rail outside the saloon. There was a wooden facade and a veranda with a rail along the edge. Two other mean-looking cowboys with narrow eyes were sitting on the veranda outside the saloon doors. One of them spits into the dust at our feet but doesn’t speak. The peloton look at each other and, not having the same true grit as Clint Eastwood, saddled up again and rode out to find another saloon. Luckily there was one just around the corner with aromas of freshly baking pizzas coming out of the windows. We stopped and refuelled before tackling the final 20K into Komárom.

Not far from our finish for the day we came across a bike sculpture that we thought worthy of a photo, and here it is.

The hotel we are staying in is unlike any we’ve stayed in before. It has the appearance of being taken over by Triffids with plants growing up every wall and into every crevice. It also, somewhat bizarrely, houses a full sized bowling alley in the reception area! It has bedrooms the size of the universe and a very large telly in our room that has a guilded frame around it. There are ancient stone pillars on the terrace and a pool that is promoted on line for swimming in but in fact if you lay in it you could do about two strokes and then hit your head off the wall at the other end. It’s charmingly quirky!

Is it possible to develop a fettish for bacon? I’m beginning to think it is. One member of the peloton spends half her time ranting on about whether this hotel or that one will have bacon on the breakfast menu or ‘ do you think that cafe over there will have dumplings with bacon bits in?’. On the two occasions when’s crispy bacon has been on the breakfast buffet bar she makes a mad scramble to get a plateful before every other guest gets a chance just in case it all goes before she gets there. Every day we have some philosophical discussion about the merits or otherwise of bacon (it must be crispy) and whether there is too much salt in it. I’m getting a bit worried about this.

Also, another member of the peloton has developed an equally baffling fettish for ice cream and most particularly for great bucketfuls of the very dark, very rich, chocolate variety that in any other circumstance could be use to repair potholes in tarmac. I tried some one night and chocolatey it certainly is but try eating it in the quantities he does would make the rest of us mere mortals sink to the ground and crawl back to the hotel on hands and knees with our leaden chocolate paunches scraping along the cobbles.

Frankly I think the two weeks of persistent hot baking sun has had a disturbing effect on their sense of dietary proportion the solution for which is most probably some sort of therapy.

Oh Komarno is quite nice and has a town hall clock which plays a military oompah tune every two hours when a pair of CR Smith double- glazed bathroom windows open and a stationary fusilier is revealed standing to attention. Fascinating. It was worth stopping here overnight just for that.

We liked Bratislava. Plenty of baroque architecture on display many churches, municipal buildings and an iconic castle on a hill. It also had lots of ice cream shops so that seemed to satisfy all members of the peloton! Also the breakfast offering in the Marrol’s boutique hotel was magnificent and included bacon and beans which were a very welcome sight for one peloton member in particular !

We scooted back over the same green bridge we had come over the previous day and headed east towards Budapest. The travel plan for the day was for a 40K ride to a small town called Mosonmagyaróvár which is over the border from Slovakia into Hungary and thence by train to Gyor a further 40K down the line.

The border Slovakia/Hungary border crossing near Cunovo was another none- event with only the merest hint of a sign to mark the border. Half a dozen polizei were hanging around on the Slovak side of the border drinking coke out of cans and smoking lazily. They barely cast our peloton of sweaty dishevelment a disdainful glance as we slid by on the river towpath. Most disappointing. We went past them and took the obligatory team photo in front of the most miserable little Hungary sign post and then continued on towards Mosonmagyaróvár and the promised train ride.

We briskly scooted on and with a bit of a tail wind we arrived at the station about an hour later. We hadn’t booked any train tickets in advance so we roll up at the station not knowing when any trains might be heading our way or indeed whether there would be any space for our 4 bikes. This is a small station with peeling paint and lumpy paving. It’s hot. Two of the sweaty peloton approach the miserable ticket window. In their very best Hungarian they asked for 4 single tickets for people and bikes to Gyor please. Much scratching of ticket lady’s head. She squinted through her thick glasses at her flickering screen and gave a worrying sideways shake of the head – as in a – ‘this doesn’t look possible today’ kind of way. The peloton’s heads droop in despair at the prospect of another 40K in the heat of the midday sun. What do you mean ? Not possible today? But it’s only noon. You must have places. “ No zer ees places but computer she crash. I cannot print ticket”

The train is due in under 15 minutes. The peloton begins to panic. Then suddenly 4 person tickets and 4 bike tickets start printing out. Hurrah we shout. We’re saved. Swiftly gathering up our small bits of treasured paper the next challenge is to get ourselves and the laden bikes from the ticket office to platform 4 in jig time. There’s no lift and no walking across the tracks (except for one of us who pretended to be disabled and tagged along behind a wheelchair and a helpful porter). The remaining three had to bounce our heavy bikes down a load of steps to the underpass and then hoik them up another load of steps to reach the famous platform 4. The platform is quite full of folk already including four other cyclist who are obviously doing the same as us. We eye each other suspiciously knowing that when the train comes there will be one almighty rammy to grab the few bike spaces available on these trains. The clock is ticking down. Just ten minutes to go to departure and a swish double decker train roars into the station. A bit early we all thought but now the races is on. Which end of the bloody train has the bike spaces. It’s usually at the very front or the very back. The jostling for position has started. Some cyclists shoot off to the front some to the back. Meanwhile all the other passengers are piling on and filling the few remaining available seats. Bu**er we are going to have to stand all the way. There doesn’t appear to be a bike carriage. There’s bikes and helmets flying up and down the platform. The train doors start beeping as if to close. Stick a foot in it to stop it closing someone shouts. The call goes up to the peloton -‘Everyman for himself. Get on if you can. We’ll see each other in Gyor’.

So we all start trying to wrestle our bikes up the 3 steps from the platform into the train to squeeze into the lobby sections between coaches. I get mine in and poke a woman in the back with my pedals. She’s already sitting there ‘cos there already isn’t enough seats. I help another peloton member aboard with her bike. Now we are completely blocking the lobby for anyone else. The next thing I know is a very angry looking red faced guard is charging down the platform shouting and bawling for all the bikes to go to the back of the train. He’s physically chasing the rest of our team hurling obscenities at them and forcing them to the rear of the train. Perhaps he won’t notice us two who are already on board in the lobby sections. No chance. I think he shouted in Hungarian – “Get your scabby bikes and sweaty a*ses off my goddam train.” We heaved the bikes back down the 3 steps and onto the platform and ran like hell to the back of the train in competition with all these other confused and panic stricken cyclists. The doors start beeping again and start to close. Stick a foot in one! We get the the rear of the train. Two of our peloton have managed to get their bikes on and are struggling to hoist them onto hangers like meathooks to hang there like freshly killed venison. By this time the guard is apoplectic. Six more bikes are trying to jam themselves into his already full train all at the same time. There’s bikes, panniers, helmets, water bottles, goggles flying everywhere. You can’t get on he shouts. Go away to wherever you came from and don’t darken my train ever again.

My wife not so politely points out that we must get on this train. She has all the tickets in her hand for all our peloton and two of them are now on board but we are not so let us in. We’re British don’t you know. This is the last straw. The angry guard gets back on his train and chucks of our two who have already got on. They unhook their venison and stomp off the train shouting “ You are a miserable chap. Wouldn’t happen in England blah blah”. The fizzing guard, his face now the colour of tomato soup screamed the words “ Get ze next one” And with that he pushed a button, the doors closed and the steam rising from his ears disappeared down the track never to be seen again.

Our peloton and the four other British cyclists were left bemused and angry on the platform. What shall we do next? Will the same thing happens when the next train comes along? When will that be? Shall we just cycle the last 40K? Bl**dy outrage etc etc. Just then a second smaller train hoves into view. it glides into the station. It’s almost empty. It has a bike coach. It suddenly dawns on us this the train we were supposed to catch in the first place and what had arrived first was a Vienna to Budapest inter-city train. Duh! We all piled on had a jolly good laugh and chatted merrily all the way to Gyor.

Gyor: Nice town. Nice buildings. Nice ice cream shops. Just three more days of this craziness left before we can all go home!!!!!

A brisk following wind whisked us around the medieval walls of Hainburg and out into the countryside where yet more fields of dessicating sweetcorn nodded despairingly in the breeze. Despite the fact that we must have now cycled through thousands of square miles of sweetcorn fields we all noted that we have yet to see any sweetcorn on any menu in Germany, Austria or now Slovakia. I don’t know what happens to it all but it must end up somewhere possibly Tescos (other supermarkets are available). In fact the hotel we stayed in in Hainburg advertised the fact that it had an outdoor pool buts sadly it had somewhat grown over and was a pea soup green colour. If you had taken a dip you would probably come out looking like the Green Giant from the sweetcorn ads!!

The excitement grew as we approached the Austria/Slovakia border a few miles down the road. The thrill of passing into a former communist country was somewhat dissipated as there was no big fat line across the cycle track to confirm where the border actually was. To be fair however, there were some Polizei in scrappy huts checking a few cars on the main road but for us international cyclists not a sausage. What we did notice was that the smooth perfect Austrian asphalt that we had experienced to date on the cycle route gave way on the Slovakian side to slightly more pitted concrete with joints. Slightly more uncomfortable for the already saddle sore cyclists. Was this a sign of the things to come. Either way it was better than most roads in Scotland – the pothole capital of Europe. 500m inside Slovakia we came across a WW II concrete infantry bunker BS4 built in 1937 as part of the Czechoslovak defensive fortification system.

We swept on down towards the centre of Bratislava and crossed from the south to the north bank of the Danube over another lattice steel girder bridge much favoured in this part of the world.

We were in the city by lunchtime with all afternoon and evening to indulge in full-on tourist stuff. Churches, castles, palaces, gardens, cafes, ice cream parlours, geegaw gifty shops etc. We arrived in time in front of the Grassalkovich Palace to see the goose-stepping changing of the guards whose job it is to protect the current President from marauding Scottish tourists.

Some memorable bronze sculptures were noted on our afternoon of tourist delights.

Bratislava is a cornucopia of delights and I recommend everyone to visit.

We forced our refreshed buttocks back onto the bikes and headed out of the city centre. After a few false starts we soon reached The Prater which is the funfair area of Vienna and the home of the famous ferris wheel which appeared in the film The Third Man starring Orson Welles and Trevor Howard. A quick 15 min spin for an eye-watering €14 each seemed almost worth it.

After that we faced a 40km ride along the north side of the Danube almost entirely on top of a flood retention bank. 20 of those kilometres were in a dead straight line with no variation in profile, views or landscape. For most of that distance the river was completely hidden. This became more of a mental challenge than a physical one.

The monotony was broken by only a few things. The first was a series of bathing beaches beside the cycle track inhabited almost entirely by nudists who were proudly displaying their nutbrown overall tans as well as their not-so-well honed middle aged bodies. Suffice it to say that we were so busy staring at these mounds of buttocks that we missed a crucial sign for the Donauradweg causing us to have to retrace a couple of miles of our route – back past the nudists again!!!!

Another enjoyable break in the monotony was our passage right through the middle of the Zentraltanklager Lobau de OMV – or oil storage works to you and me. who wouldn’t enjoy a cycle through that on Sunday morning.

Then much further on we had been discussing how little wildlife we had seen on this trip and then lo and behold we spotted a little mole at the edge of the track. Sadly it had met its demise sometime earlier in the afternoon and so that didn’t really count. But then a few minutes after that we saw our first cows (10) a couple of goats, horses (2) and a small flock of sheep. These were the first actual animals we have seen since the start in Passau over a week and 330km ago.

We arrived in Hainburg around the middle of the afternoon. Consumed some cold beer, consumed some meatballs then walked into the town centre and consumed more ice cream from Daniel’s Eissalon. I can thoroughly recommend the honig (honey) ice cream. We ate it on the steps of a fountain overlooking St Philip and St James Catholic Church.

Off the Bratislava tomorrow. Should be fun!!

A day off the bike. Hurrah! Known locally as ‘Buttock – Recovery Day’. Instead it was a day of footslogging along the Vienna tourist trail.

The morning started with a breakfast in a local patisserie (not in the hotel which was going to charge us €25 each for breakfast – bloomin’ cheek). Also frequenting the patisserie was a plague of wasps all enjoying the sweet pastries and looking like they were happy to spend the whole day there. We have seen loads of wasps on this trip and seemingly there is an unusually high number of them this year for reasons unknown.

Talking of plagues – in 1679 Vienna had one. A certain Marx Augustin, balladeer and bagpiper, was known to frequent some local hostelleries, play a few tunes and then spend his money on the demon drink and often to be found face down in the gutter the following morning. However, during said plague, the unfortunate folk who had succumbed to the infection and died were left in the streets for the body collectors who then took them off to the tip to be covered in lime and buried. Yes, you’ve guessed it, old Augustin got pi**ed one night and fell asleep in the gutter and was mistakenly scooped by the body collectors and carted off the the tip with the dead folk. He was tipped unceremoniously into the hole and left there waiting to be covered over the following morning. Fortunately for him he sobered up just in time to realise his predicament of becoming entombed but he couldn’t get out of the hole. This is where his trusty bagpipes came in. A few frantic toots brought the gravediggers hurrying to the side of the pit to find a bleary eyed Augustin trying to scramble out. Legend has it he didn’t catch the plague despite having spent the night in a hole with loads of infected bodies!!

This little story was told to us by Gerty our guide on the 2 hour walking tour around the nooks and crannies of the old town. Highlights included:

After the gruelling 2 hour walk we retreated to a cafe for a restorative coffee and kuchen before the peloton split. One pair to the tasty sounding Naschmarkt and the other pair to the Schloss Schonbrunn. The latter pair enjoyed miles of footslogging through Olympic sized parterres and ostentatious statuary rounded off by a very expensive slice of apple strudel and a very welcome thunderstorm.

Oh well – so much for tourism. Back on the trusty bicycle steeds tomorrow heading towards Bratislava.

Some might call it cheating. Others may say it was sensible. But either way the peloton decided that over 80k in the blinding sun was going to be too much and it followed the advice of many of the tour operators to jump on a train in Krems and glide past a plethora of power stations and electricity gubbins and get out at Tulln, which is what we did. This still left 40k to reach the hotel in central Vienna.

A train pulls in and stops 15 mins before the scheduled departure time and a notice comes up which says ‘please do not board this train’ which we duly obeyed. However several people didn’t and they obviously knew this train had arrived in Krems from Vienna and was simply going to reverse back out again and return to the capital. Once everyone realised what was happening there was the usual scrum to get our 4 bikes on to the train along with about 6 others all of whom had clocked what was happening before us. Consequently we had to play bike chess to manoeuvre about 10 bikes into a space designed for 6. The guard was very understanding and didn’t threaten to throw us off. After that we got a great seat and, in our air conditioned cocoon, we watched wistfully out of the windows as the parched fields and power stations glided (glid?) silently by.

Once off the train we saddled up and headed east towards the cafes, cake shops and weinerschnitzells of Vienna.

We rode across the river over the dramatic 440m long Donaurbrücke Tulln which was built in 1905. The composite steel lattice girder bridge was completely reconstructed in 2009 and only took 16 months to complete. Not bad given that it takes road traffic as well as trains. (We like some good Bridge stats!!)

Finding your way to a hotel in the centre of a big city on a bike in the heat of the day can be a challenge at the best of times but when you have to keep stopping to check the digital map which you can’t see well enough because the sun is too bright, there’s sweat in your eyes and you can’t see anything anyway cos you haven’t got your glasses on, then it becomes a bit of a pain. Stop bike in shade, take off sunglasses, open up rucksack, take out specs case, put on specs, read map memorise a few more junctions and street names and then do everything in reverse order before starting off again. I think I might consider lazer eye surgery. Eventually, after having circumnavigated almost half of Vienna, over bridges, alongside rivers, over tram tracks (try not to get wheels stuck in tram rails), up side streets we end up in the heart of the city among the milling throngs of tourists who stare aghast at 4 bedraggled cyclists dripping with sweat and cursing as for some reason the Mercury Hotel seems to be lost somewhere in the mix.

Of course we found it, checked in and then proceeded to have one of those hilarious ‘lift’ episodes. The lift is very small so can only accommodate two members of the peloton. They get in. The remaining two wait a few discrete seconds before pushing button to call the other lift. Oh dear – too soon – the doors open to reveal group 1 staring blankly at the internal control panel. Sorry we shout and let the doors close again. Group 2 wait for many more seconds this time and then press for the next lift again. The doors open again to reveal group one still in place at ground floor level peering with befuddlement at their buttons and looking vaguely embarrassed. Group 2 burst out laughing along with the reception team. This time Group 2 wait a full 20 seconds – surely they must have left by now- but no they are still in there, smoke coming out of their ears and faces like beetroots. The whole of reception are having a jolly good laugh by this time and Group 2 decide the stairs will be a much quicker option! When Groups 1 and 2 eventually meet up on the first floor landing it becomes clear that they had been madly stabbing the buttons and going nowhere because you have got to activate the lift’s buttons system with your newly-squire electronic door key card. Oh how we laughed!!!

After all that ridiculous malarkey we managed to climb the 364 spiral stairs up to the top of the spire of the Domkirche St Stephan for a fine view over the city. Thank the Lord it didn’t have a lift!!!