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!!
Velodyssee 