Cycling the Hungarian Danube: Vienna to Bratislava to Gyor

Sort of an inside joke. For reasons inexplicable, I am "little dad."
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We said goodbye to Vienna, and I left it a little souvenir in the form of my skin scraped onto one of its many curbs.  Yes, I fell again, on a curb again.  I am a uniquely talented individual.

Aside from that, our ride along the Danube to Bratislava, in Slovakia, was uneventful.  We still enjoyed a mostly paved and car-free bike path.  We hadn't the faintest what to expect from Bratislava, a former Soviet bloc town that until a few days prior was wholly unknown to either of us.  We were pleasantly surprised to find a gothic, cobblestoned old town with a much more authentic, untouristy feel than any of the cities we had visited in Western Europe.  Our delight quickly went south, however, upon learning that on this lovely summer Saturday evening in the hoppin' tourist mecca of Bratislava, there were no available rooms.  But wait!  The nice lady at the tourist office booked us into a hotel a ways outside of town.  A ride of about 5 kilometers through an industrial, ugly part of Bratislava led us to our concrete behemoth Soviet bloc style hotel.  The woman behind the bullet-proof glass reception desk (huh?  should we be frightened or just marvel at the bizarreness of the situation?) kindly checked us in after demanding both our passports and up-front payment.  In the end, though, the room was not too bad at all, and the experience was perhaps an interesting peek into Soviet bureaucracy and, ahem, architecture.

if you are bicycling all day, little sounds better than a thermal bath house!

In Gyor, an awesome town in Hungary, just after a yummalicious dinner and some quality time in the town hot springs complex!
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Next morning, we headed back onto the trail, and enjoyed a beautiful ride to the Hungarian border.  We learned along the way that Slovaks are cuckoo for rollerblading, as there were more blades than bikes on the path.  Many of the bladers were bikini-clad chicks, bringing to mind some sort of post-Soviet Eurotrash Santa Monica boardwalk, minus the ocean, sand and fashion sense, but I think Tole didn't mind.  ;)

Upon entering Hungary, we immediately learned that the paved, signed, car-free bike path was a thing of the past.  From here, it was largely a hit-or-miss quest to find the right streets, and signeage became something occasional and mistakable.  First stop in Hungary was the unique and cool little city of Gyor.  Our Lonely Planet Hungary book tantalized us with tell of a town thermal bath spa complex, and thoughts of it occupied our minds all day long.  Upon arriving, we swiftly checked into a cute, cheap guesthouse and proceeded immediately thereafter to the spa.  Let me tell you, if you are bicycling all day, little sounds better than a thermal bath house!  We were stoked, and the reality did not disappoint.  This place was cheap, and had a myriad of indoor and outdoor pools and slides!  Even a swim-up bar that made me a mean pina colada, and a not-too-shabby Bloody Mary for Tole.  It was no Tabacon (Costa Rica), but we were happy, happy.  After that we had one of the best meals of the trip.  Stuffing a turkey breast with farmer's cheese and fresh peaches, then proceeding to bread and fry it, has got to be one of the best food ideas ever.  We also had, amazingly, a spicy and yummy "Mexican" chili stew.  Ah, Hungary, our bellies rejoice at our arrival in your spice and meat-loving country!