September 22, 2014
Esztergom - Budapest: Arrival.
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At breakfast we joined Johann and Birgit at the table, pure coincidence, but perhaps not altogether surprising. They complained about the state of that road out of Gyöyszentivan as much as we did. Breakfast was disappointing, not a lot of it, little variety and no fruit juice. Again Johann and Birgit set off ahead of us and like us, bound for Budapest. It would be a much bigger coincidence if we were to run into them again in the capital.
The weather took a turn for the worse today. Yesterday's north-westerly breeze had increased in strength and there was no sun, so it was considerably colder. Still, on the bright side, the wind would be at our backs; all day. We took a look at the centre of the town, before riding back round in a loop to where the cycle path out of town would be.
We were back on a pre-loaded GPS track today, so Garmin úr would be back in proper action, still no map. I didn't see any sign directing us onto the Danube trail, but we were definitely on it, until that is, it ran out again and we were back on highway 11.
A route sign, after 4 kilometres, directed us back towards the river. I figured there must be more riverside path, There may well be, but it would have taken a ferry to get to it. Had we chosen the ferry, we would have still been in Hungary. A little to the west, the Slovakian border veers north from the river.. We decided to stay on the right bank and rode back to highway 11.
Not far beyond Visegrad, we took the ferry to Szentendre Island at Kisorosz. Szentendre, by the way means St. Andrew, so Hungarian isn't always mysterious, although I was yet to figure this out; similarly Györszentivan – Györ St. John. There was no designated path here, just an empty road, until we reached the first village, Totfalu [not a clue], where the traffic picked up a little. We were getting hungry, but where to eat? It appeared that Szentendre Island was not a picnic destination. Near Surany we settled on a bus shelter, in which someone had placed an apparently unwanted, rickety garden bench.
After a few kilometres along the island ,we took another ferry towards the town of Szentendre. This bit was awkward, we had to cross the, by now, very busy highway 11 twice. Down by the river the Rendorszag [[right with you now, Carsten, that's Polizei or police to you and me] had closed off the road by the river, to traffic. I presume for some kind of festival, because we came upon a group of young teenage girls, all dressed in bright orange vests and black shorts, doing a synchronised skipping routine, keeping time to The Witch Doctor Song and watched by a group of appreciative parents [you'd hope]. I like a bit of weird, from time to time and this was a high scorer. We should have spent more time in Szentendre, but Barbara had booked an apartment in Budapest, online, for two nights, in Erzebetvaros, District VII. We were due there, to meet the owner at 7pm.
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There followed a pleasant, but short stretch of off road path, through a sort of park. This ended at a puzzling [for cyclists, see map] major traffic junction which took us a long time to negotiate. It included lifting the bikes up some steps, eventually placing us on the bike path beside highway 11 again, which we tracked to a junction in District III, just inside the Budapest city limits. It was around 5 pm. We took a left turn off highway 11 and with the aid of the local bike route signing and Garmin úr, I thought we might make it to District VII a little quicker. We were initially aiming for Ujpest, which is in District IV across the river. We had a long run through a leafy, obviously aflluent part of the city, before arriving at the big green bridge which takes the railway and bicycles across the river. Following my nose again, I turned off the bridge early, onto the Nepsziget peninsula, almost entirely green and devoted almost entirely, it seemed, to one sporting activity or another. We rode to its southern tip, without knowing it was a peninsular and that at the end of it would be water. Fortunately, there is a bridge to the left bank, unfortunately, a bridge with several long, steep flights of steps. We had the choice of either riding back to the rail bridge or humping the bikes up and over. The bridge seemed to be a hang-out for long-term drunks and Barbara was less than comfortable, but over it, we went.
On the other side of the bridge is a smart-looking new housing development, unlikely, I would think to provide shelter for the nearby down-at-heel drinkers. We picked up another city bike route for a while, until I put Garmin úr back into action to find Kis Diofa utca. It wasn't a relaxing ride. Apart from riding in the, admittedly, well-behaved traffic, I witnessed an explosion. Fortunately Barbara was a block or two behind me so luckily didn't. It would have only lifted her anxiety level. I pulled up at a junction, heard a loud, but slightly muffled bang, then 50 metres down the road to my right I saw a 5 metre high. thick pillar of flame. It almost immediately subsided into black smoke. By then the lights turned green and Barbara had caught me up, so we rode on by. I had no idea what caused it and I didn't speak of it until much later.
We arrived at the shabby apartment block, in what looked at first sight in the dark, a near derelict street at 6-55pm. The landlady's daughter was there to meet us and let us in. We stowed our bikes on the small balcony, overlooking the restaurant of the hotel next door. Her flamboyantly dressed mother [should have taken her picture] arrived a few minutes later accompanied by a plumber, there to fix a problem with the shower. After half an hour or so, wrench wielded and formalities completed, we were on our own. It was a decent enough room, big, with a small kitchen in the hallway between it and the front door, a shower room and separate toilet. I almost immediately shot out for food and drink at the corner Spar. Back indoors, I smeared some chicken thighs with mustard and lemon juice and stuck them in the tiny oven; home cooking. We stayed in, eating and drinking and had a moderately early night. Budapest is for tomorrow.
Today's ride: 89 km (55 miles)
Total: 1,841 km (1,143 miles)
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