Distance cycled: 53km
Time in the saddle: 6.5 hours (yes the going was slow)

Set off early this morning – just a tad worried about finding our way…thankfully last night’s prep paid off and we found the bike path easily. The initial part of the trail was on moderately busy roads, and residential side streets – while the city sported elaborate historical buildings, the residential areas were more austere than the Austrian towns.

Some interesting houseboats along the Danube on the Slovakian side.

Once we got beyond the city it was a mix of riding through tiny villages, paddocks and forest. All on unsealed tracks. The villages were rural, most houses had small vineyards in their yards, lots of chooks etc and nearly all had dogs who didn’t like bikes,so we rode along to a chorus of barking (thankfully none got out).

The Hungarian bike trails are somewhat different to their Austrian counterparts – the statement in our map book that “some paths were not wet weather resistant” was a gross understatement. One 17km block was totally water logged – so we slogged along up to our axles in mud with our pedals churning like paddle steamers. We shared the track with two other couples for a while slipping & sliding along. They didn’t speak English but we had a good laugh (the universal language).

After a couple of near misses and the inevitable sliding (not very gracefully) off the edge of the road into some poor farmers crop (which is now squished) we decided to be a bit more careful and walked through the gluggiest parts – imagine our shoes at the end of it!

Rode a long stretch through a wind farm, with huge wind turbines all around us – it was blowing a gale – we were going downhill, pedalling frantically and barely making any headway. Took us about an hour to ride 5km!

Riding through the forest was again slow going but absolutely beautiful – expected to see Robin Hood and his merry men jump out at any time.

Our hotel for the night is back on the Slovakian side of the river. Luckily we had no trouble finding it because we were absolutely exhausted! I am sure we will both be in a world of pain tomorrow, with stiffness setting in fast!