It was cold when I left the hotel the garden would be fantastic in summer with the goldfish pond- wee swimming area kids play and sun loungers, but that morning it was cold I wanted to give up I felt I had done my time, first stop was the tourist info the girls English was limited there I wanted info on where i could take a train to from there? she didn't know or didn't understand but gave me directions to the train station which is called a vasutallomas! In this part of the world (don’t ask me to pronounce it)! This was a total waste of two hours once I got to the ancient looking eastern block style post communist station, the staff spoke no English and were unhelpful after much hum and haw they said no bikes allowed and no info as to if it were possible anyway? I don’t think it is after a later conversation I think Hungarian trains stay within Hungary unless leaving from Budapest, (I think)
All this trying to find a train way to get further downstream meant i set of late, the sun was out but it was still cold i circled around town a little lost to end up back passed the duna hotel. then I found my way out of town out through the suburbs over a canal bridge then eventually back onto flood dyke through the countryside it was beautiful, Miles and miles of flat tarmac flood dyke through a nature reserve
whilst cycling this section i seen a cycle tourist in the distance you can tell the type, there was front and back panniers slow moving, I caught him reasonably quickly, I cycled up beside him, Hello do you speak English? yes ! he said he had cycled down to here from the nordkap he had family in Belgium, that he had stayed at for a while but the rest of the journey was self supported working where he had to, he mostly slept wild camping living on a budget, he had a solar panel to charge his phone but said that at least every two weeks he had to find someplace to camp with electricity to give the phone a full charge
we got round to discussing hopes dreams desire stuff i mentioned the route from Alaska down to ushua that i sometimes dream of doing, he said he wouldn't be doing that as the Americans and Canadians dont like him because he is Colombian! true enough i suppose, although i did say to him the Canadians dont mind as much,or he could just start the journey in mexico make it a south american journey,
we spoke in a mixture of Spanish and English and it was great for me to get an opportunity to practice my Spanish and i think good for Juan also as he got a few new English words, it was well over twenty mile of traffic free flood dyke, we cycled together chatting before we reached the ferry over to mohacs my destination for the night Juan was cycling on hoping to get to the border, you have to buy your ferry ticket at a kiosk before boarding, we had timed it perfectly the ferry had just arrived, i bought my ticket for me and the bike all down the Danube i had got used to knowing the bike gets a ticket also sometimes more expensive than mine,I then asked the girl for the same again i would pay for Juan as he is obviously on a tight budget and had been good company he was very grateful, it was a quick crossing i got him to take a picture of me, we discussed maps and routes I was interested to see how he was finding his way to Greece as he had no physical map, he was using a web page not an app! opencyclemap.org what a resource this is every cycle map in the world was instantly view-able! I had a look at it and zoomed in on cycle tracks at home awesome web page when i zoomed back out you could see that Holland for example was totally covered in cycle routes,
Juan had Instagram i clicked to follow him and then we said goodbye as i went to tourist info to see if it were possible to get a train from this side of the Danube further downstream, it wasn't possible so i went for a beer and find somewhere to stay for the night it was still early to stop cycling but this was the biggest town near the border with Croatia tomorrow there would be a big days cycling over the border and then on to a town big enough to have a hotel,
My hotel that night was right next to the shore and a church which rang its bells every half an hour starting at 06:00! I went out for dinner and found a great bar in town for dinner and beers with good rock tunes playing and staff that spoke good English perfect end to the day,
No comments:
Post a Comment