A three bridge day: crossing the Danube twice and the Tamis river once. As we crossed the Danube leaving Belgrade, I had deja vu of trying to ride across town in Charleston, SC. Fortunately, there was a wide enough sidewalk to push my bike across the bridge. Bridge number two was across the Tamis river. Mike plunged ahead as I held back. “I’ll walk it,” I said. “Ok. I’m going to ride.” He disappeared into the sunlight. We have a rule, “Do not follow. Make your own decisions.” We have to make our own decisions within our own comfort zone. I came to a narrowing that prevented walking and forced me onto the road of busy two-lane traffic.
Kralja Petra Street. “There is no other street in Europe that provides such an amazing assortment of different architectural styles along a stretch of one kilometer – Baroque, Academic, Secessionist, Art Deco, Modernist, Oriental.” We were dazzled.
We lolly-gagged this morning, as we had such a short day ahead. Coffee at a cafe, a stop at a pastry shop for some unknown but delicious delights, and a grocery store stop for emergency food (Snickers Bars) in case things went sour during the what we assumed would be 15ish miles into Belgrade. The wind was bustling but the sun was shining.
We pedaled up to the one-way mirror glass on the outside of the small office at the border. We had read we should be prepared for up to 3 hours to cross the border. We had asked the proprietor at the Inn in Osijeck if this was true. “If you are a truck, be prepared for 3 days. A bicycle? I think you will ride right through. It will be like nothing.”
A white stork preparing for motherhood in Osijek, Croatia
Maybe like you, I am pretty ignorant about the former Yugoslavia, and the seven countries it split into in the early 90s: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Serbia. And I cannot begin to comprehend the dissolution in an evening while writing this blog.
Mike crosses the Szechenyi bridge on our way out of Budapest
Budapest (pronounced Budapesht) is a truly magnificent city with architectural buildings that would take a student of the discipline a lifetime to absorb. A melting pot of cultures and foreign occupation, it was originally two cities: Buda and Pest.
We rode down the Danube river trail from Komarno, Slovakia for about 30 miles of *interesting* terrain.
And into Hungary:
Crossing the Danube from Slovakia into Esztergom, Hungary
Hungary was occupied by the Celts, the Roman Empire, invaded by the Mongols, was part of the Ottoman Empire, shifted to the Habsburg emperors, was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, occupied by the Germans, behind the Iron Curtain for decades, and joined the European Union in 2004. (Whoosh!) During the Cold War and up until 1989, an electric/barbed wire fence (an electric Iron Curtain fence!) separated the country from Austria. In April 1989, the Hungarian government ordered the electricity in the barbed-wire border to be turned off. This was the first crack along the entire length of the Iron Curtain. In May of 1989, border guards began removing sections of the barrier. In June, Hungary and Austrian Ministers of Foreign Affairs held a symbolic fence-cutting ceremony at the border. In the first few weeks of opening the border, there was a parade of Hungarian cars driving home from Austria with washing machines strapped to the top.
The EuroVelo 6 route is a cross-Europe designated bicycle route from the west coast of France to the Black Sea. In France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria, the route is clearly signed at almost every turn. Slovakia is trying hard, and signage is good, but sometimes confusing, and sometimes along *interesting* pathways. We have only traveled about 20 miles down the Danube on the Hungarian side, but we have yet to see a marker. The route markers, we have been warned, get worse. In Romania for example, the route is marked on the web map with a dotted line, as in, “conceptual” route. This is no surprise. We spoke with a young Romanian woman in Straubing. We told her we were riding to Contstanta. “You are very brave,” she said. She told us she was in Straubing to earn money. “No jobs in Romania?” I asked. “Oh yes, there are jobs, but no money.”
Today for the first time in 1600 miles across Europe, we were forced onto a two-lane shoulder-less busy highway for 10 miles as we rode to our destination for the evening, Visegrad, on the Danube Bend, where the river turns due south, a mere 30 miles from Budapest. (For you future Eurovelo tourers, there are lots of resources, but the best app we have found for navigating is MapOut. Google does not work. Not even close. Some people we see are using paper maps.)
We have ridden hundreds of miles on roads like this. But this was the first in Europe! And so our (my) senses were on high-alert. Riding skills require focus and a bend in the elbow. Oh, and it was raining and late in the afternoon and I was tired.
Alas, Visegrad arrived. We booked a room on a retired river boat for the night. It is very quiet and we are watching the river flow by like a torrent out our window.
With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad flow by like a torrent. Thoreau
Tonight’s lodging
There are castle and palace and fortress ruins here. Am I growing jaded? The castle ruins are atop a large hill and grant a great vista to visitors. We will admire from below. We had a bowl of Hungarian goulash for dinner, which was not near as good as the Hungarian Jocai bean soup. I have looked up recipes for this soup and they all say to use pinto beans, but the three different places we ate this soup definitely did not use pinto beans. It was some gigantic type of kidney-like bean. Anyone know what kind of bean that is?
Addendum: Success this morning at breakfast from our waitress regarding the bean! Horse bean!
When I think of a cosmopolitan city, I would not in a million years have included Bratislava. We crossed another non-border border from Austria into Slovakia this afternoon and into the heart of old town Bratislava.
Bratislava
This is by far the most diverse and, outside of Oktoberfest in Munich, the liveliest town we have visited. (It’s Saturday, which may have something to do with the liveliness!) With a population of about half a million, it is the capital of Slovakia. I cannot quite wrap my brain around the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and who owned what before WWI, but it was the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, in Sarajevo, which was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914 and is now the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which kicked off the war. At the end of WWI, Czechoslovakia was formed from the collapse of the A-H Empire. Then along came another world war and the Eastern Bloc was formed at the close of that war, and existed from 1947 until 1991, ending with the collapse of the USSR. Czechoslovakia was in the Eastern Bloc.
To visit Czechoslovakia, you had to cross the Iron Curtain. I rode a train from Munich to Prague in the summer of ‘74. My dad had met a young woman, Elena, in 1973 in Spokane, Washington, who was in charge of the Czech pavilion project for Expo ‘74. My dad was a general contractor and built many of the buildings at the Expo, including the Czech pavilion. Dad invited the Czech team to our home, and mom, as always, welcomed strangers. I was in Europe the summer of ‘74. Elena returned home in the summer of ‘74 and my dad encouraged me to travel to Prague to visit. Crossing the Iron Curtain at the time meant you were tracked at all times. I remember crossing through “no-man’s land,” which in my memory was about a quarter mile of desolate nothing, and barb wire and guards on the Czech border. The train stopped and border patrol boarded, checking every single item I carried, which was one backpack, but again, in my fallible memory, it took hours for the patrol to scour the train. No one smiled.
I was met at the station in Prague by Elena, and enjoyed several days of sight-seeing around Prague under her wing. I remember a visit to the counryside and her relatives for a picnic lunch. The women were plump and wore long cotton dresses with drab scarves tied around their heads and tucked under their multiple chins. One spoke a few words of English to me. “Elena should have stayed in US,” the woman confided to me. “No good here. No free.” I think I smiled and nodded. The conversation stayed with me all these years.
I barely noticed when Czechoslovakia was “freed” from Communist rule in 1991. I barely noticed when the country split in two, to become the Czech Republic and Slovakia. (Of note, Czechoslovakia is the only Eastern Bloc country that divided without warfare, known as the Velvet Divorce.) While I remember Prague as an enchanting city, I did not visit Bratislava. So, I knew nothing as we approached the “border” of Slovakia today, and I had no expectations of a city so vibrant and full of life as it was today.
The no-border border crossing from Austria to Slovakia
Slovakia is a small country with about 5 million people, that speak Slovak. There are a couple hundred thousand people in the Czech Republic that speak Slovak, but that’s it in the world. So, guess what. Everyone thus far we have met (and a little web search tells me) most people speak English here. The “new country syndrome” hits hard when trying to read signage, but it feels comfortable to ask questions on the street. It was a little emotional riding into this free country by bicycle no less, all these years later.
There were hoards of tourist groups in town this afternoon. I noticed a little plaque on the wall across from the outdoor cafe where we ordered a bowl of bean stew. The plaque said something about Mozart. Then, along came a gaggle of short-grey-haired ladies with a tour leader holding a banner that said “Amadeus.” Mozart allegedly played a concert right here on this street in front of the cafe where we sat when he was six years old. No one seems to be able to verify it, but I imagine the tour leader expounded in great detail about little Wolfgang pulling his violin bow across the strings as his father stood by with a watchful eye.
Along with the tour group of short-grey-haired women (and a few bald men), there were large groups of Asians, some hispanics seated next to us, what appeared to be a group of young Roma’s (gypsy is apparently no longer politically correct), and a sprinkling of dread-locked black-skinned beauties roaming about. Even a bride strode down the middle of the street, followed by the string of wedding celebrants.
And then there was us, in our scraggly sticking out helmet hair and black spandex bike shorts. I wonder what people said of us. No picture needed. I think we at least added to the cosmopolitan feel of the city.
We are on the Danube tonight, watching the lit-up tour boats slip by. It’s about time for a waltz picked out on our tinny plywood ukuleles.
The Blue Danube Waltz63 miles, 1900 feet of climbing. Working our way southward!
Yesterday morning, I had never heard of Melk or Tulln. Vienna? Yes. The Danube? Of course. Today we traveled fifty miles down river from Melk to Tulln along one of the most scenic and popular stretches for river cruises in Europe. A common Upper Danube cruise departs from Vienna, travels upstream to Melk, then back to Vienna and on to Budapest. And there are amazing numbers of people on e-bikes touring up and down river, wineries setting up tables for wine tasting, while grape harvesters were in the fields picking grapes.
Vineyards and castle ruins
With our way of bicycle travel, we rarely know what we are going to see until we see it. Other than reading up on important works of literature written by local authors from where I travel, I am remiss at researching history and sights to see until after I have traveled through them. Such was today. The Wachau valley?! We rolled leisurely on narrow lanes through the acres and acres of vineyards thinking, “Wow! This must be wine country!” Indeed! The Wachau valley wines are renowned, especially for crisp dry whites (my favorite, and which I am now sipping as I write in a tiny local pub in Tulln). Along with the vineyards and orchards, we counted 12 castles along the route. With brilliant blue skies overhead, the chilly temperature (45 degrees) was undaunting as we pedaled our way toward Vienna.
Terraced vineyards…and castles in the Wacau valley
We have met at least three couples that are bicycling this stretch. One group is riding from Passau to Vienna. Two couples we met yesterday are riding from Melk to Vienna. Another Austrian who stopped to chat while we were enjoying our coffee and picnic lunch along the trail today said he plans to ride next summer from Vienna to Budapest. It is honestly rare to see non-electric travelers like ourselves. I mention this for those bicycle-tourer wannabes out there (I know who you are!) as this is a fantastic stretch of paved, flat trails to ride. Passau to Vienna is about 200 miles and would be an awesome, leisurely week-long trip to introduce yourself to the wonderful world of bike touring. There are folks way older than us out here riding along effortlessly, chatting and laughing, as we are down on the drops of our handlebars huffing and puffing.
Mike wrote a little about Melk last night and the jaw-dropping Abbey. Today we landed in Tulln and a pension 50 feet from the shores of the mighty blue Danube. Yes, it is blue. It is a mysterious blue and continues to change hues as we travel. It is skyblue-mintblue-chalkblue-beautiful. The town is one of the oldest in Austria, but you wouldn’t know it by looking. As we strolled through the town square this evening, it reminded us both of Greenwich, Connecticut. Although picturesque and charming as other villages, it looks and feels new; the streets are lined with designer clothing and jewelry stores. And the jewels were still on display in the windows at 8 at night when everything was closed up. I am hoping that says something about safety and lack of crime as our bikes are secured in a little shed with trellis sides. Mike’s cousin Susie asked where we keep our bikes at night. We do lock them up, but we use the trust system as well. Probably too much, and we know this will change as we wander further into Eastern Europe. There is a town in Slovakia, in fact, that is known as the bike stealing capitol of the world. It is not uncommon for people to step away from their bikes for five minutes and their bikes disappear. One traveler wrote of going into the post office for five minutes and returned to no bike. His travel plans were upended and he was forced to return home. (Note to self!)
We are about 20 miles from Vienna. We are catching the train into Vienna tomorrow for the day. We will sight see and hope to catch La Traviata tomorrow evening at the Vienna Opera House. (Wish you were here, Libbabe!)
I nearly ran over this little critter today. I swerved and missed then screached on my brakes and turned around to say hello. “Hello Mr. Mantis,” I said. I swear its head tilted up and looked me in my googly-glass-shielded eyes. Praying mantis are considered a sign of good luck in so many cultures. I have already confessed my obsession with signs and wonders and good luck charms. So it should come as no surprise that I got off my bike and knelt down and whispered to him, “Danke schon.”
From Passau, on the border of Germany and Austria, we pedaled down the Danube (Donau) about 15 miles to our first ferry, and crossed the non-existent border into Austria.
These ferries are part of the Eurovelo routes, and we wondered if they would still be running. Some ferries ended in September, others run until the end of October; the bicycle season. We got to ‘cruise’ the Danube!
Mike mentioned in yesterday’s blog: would we notice a difference crossing from Germany into Austria? The biggest difference is: no English. I asked at a way-side campground as we pedaled toward Linz, “Sprechen sie Englisch?” The woman looked at me like I was from Mars. Later in the day, we met three young graduate students from Germany, who spoke impeccable English. “Yes,” they noted, “the Austrians do not speak English.” A little web search on this idea seemed to confirm it. “Americans are notorious (and regarded as extremely obnoxious) in expecting that people will speak English. Outside of tourist areas, people do not speak, or speak very little, English.” (Anne Marie, what do you think?) Okay, so we are continuing with our google translate app, smiles, and attempts to pronounce German. I do believe a smile and a try gets you a long way down the road of communicating. Just a side note from the young (twenty-something) Germans we met with their impeccable English. They told us graduate programs in Germany are 100% in English. Mike’s business experience with German internationals would concur, the German businesspeople spoke perfectly, with very little accent. It is a real challenge on a telephone call. “Hallow, sprechen sie Englisch?” I asked today as I called a tiny gasthaus in Ottensheim, just a few miles shy of Linz. “Nein.” “Danke. Auf wiedersehen.”
Our routine is to ride until noon, stop and rest. Fire up the camp stove for coffee. Eat what we might have with us (variable) and decide where to spend the night. How much energy do we have left? Today, a lot, as the weather and terrain were as good as it gets. Oh, and the view! Boats and barges and autumn colored foliage and paved trails and a myriad of bicycle riders in bright bicycle garb! Most on electric bikes passing us with nary a wisp of breath. Some wearing down vests from the lack of effort. It looks appealing… well… maybe in another ten years.
Lunch stop along the Danube. Mike fires up the campstove for coffee.
We could not help ourselves from singing “The Sound of Music” tunes as we pedaled down the river (my daughter-in-law’s favorite movie of all time). While Julie and Christoper were spectacular in this movie, the show was received very poorly in Austria. Apparently, Maria was a bit of a grouch, and actually quite “cruel” to the young Von Trapp children. Also, the Germans did not like the movie, as it portrayed the Nazi occupation unfavorably. Salzburg would not name a trail after Maria as she practiced “too much violence” with the Von Trapp children. And “Edelweiss”? Not Austrian. A Rogers and Hammerstein original. Maria was never a nun, and not hired to be their governess, but a teacher.
Ah, Hollywood. But the Von Trapp children were great singers. In fact, the Von Trapp grandchildren grew up in our home community of the Flathead Valley, Montana. They still continue to sing and perform, and currently live in Portland.
The Von Trapp grandchildren singers
We did manage to figure out how to use the telephone, (exit code for US, then country code for Austria, then no extra zero) and secured a guesthouse room for the night. It’s cooling down overnight and nudging us inside. We secured a room with a view in Otthensheim where first settlements reach back to 4000 BC. On the mighty Danube, it boasts the first ferry that ever crossed the river. The proprietor is Italian. We switched to “Grazie” and “Prego!” Fried anchovies with onions, minestrone and lasagna for dinner. Best ever. Of course there is a castle here, too.
We are working hard on our next ukulele tune. It has something to do with the Danube.
Room with a view, on the DanubeSchloB castle in Ottensheim, Austria55 miles, 1500 feet of climbing. Working our way south and east.
Zephyr Old World 