Cycling the Hungarian Danube: Gyor to Tata to Esztergom to Budapest

Vast sunflower field somewhere north of Budapest.
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Finding our way out of Gyor was a challenge.  Not only had the number of bikers on the "trail" seriously dwindled, so had all evidence of the trail.  Needless to say, then, the families with baby trailers had hung up their hats in Vienna.  We dove in with the few bikers we met to try and decipher the trail map to get outta Gyor.  No easy task!  But we managed and were rewarded with little traffic and interesting towns along our way.

I convinced Tole to take a shortcut off the trail map (we'd been convinced for some time that the route, which seemed wholly random in its off-river course, may have been orchestrated so as to bring tourist business to certain towns along the way), and we arrived a short time later in Tata.  We were sacked, but happily looking forward to another promised spa complex with "huge pools."  I can only say - Lonely Planet, you lied to us!!!  I don't know about you, but when I hear "spa" and "complex" together, a pretty sophisticated, hopefully deliciously pampering, operation comes to mind. This spa complex involved a run-down camp ground, several huge pools of slimy green goo, one actual swimming pool, and a lot of awkwardly-clad teens (we´re talking sequined swimsuits) and their families.  (Sadly, we have no pictures to document the straight up wrongness of the situation.)  We gave back the key to the "motel room" after finding it to be in worse shape than the tent cabin I slept in at Camp Red Rock when I was 10.  We turned tail and pedaled back on into town, where we had a nice swim in the lake and called it a day.

Mmmm, pork knuckle

Budapest at last!
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The next day, the riding was good and we looked forward to getting back on the river.  But soon Tole got a flat and discovered a busted tire seam - bad news, indeed, because it requires a new tire instead of just a change of the tube.  At this point we concluded once and for all that his Schwalbe tires, bought on Ebay, must be fake.  Luckily, Tole remembered the "dollar bill" trick (for real, he had a dollar bill in his tool bag just for this purpose).  He folded up the dollar bill and put it inside the tire to keep the tube from pushing through the rip in the seam.  It actually got us all the way to Budapest!  On the way, we stayed the night in Esztergom, where we ate dinner at the famed Pork Knuckle Inn.  Delirious anticipation consumed Tole as he contemplated his tender pork knuckle dinner, and happily, he was not disappointed.  Mmmm, pork knuckle.  What is pork knuckle, anyway?  Maybe best not to think too much about it.

Trampolines in the city park!
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Riding into Budapest was only slightly problematic.  After some trouble figuring out which side of the freeway to ride on, and how to get across the freeway, we were home-free.  Budapest turned out to be awesome.  It's a beautiful city.  Vienna is grander and more classically majestic, but Budapest has a more rugged and lived-in charm that gives it a really great vibe.  But this is not to say it lacks in pure aesthetic appeal.  Hilly, historic Buda faces across the river to the Pest side, where the strange gothic parliament building dominates the waterfront.  Very cool.

Dude on horse statue.
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But, our first order of business in Budapest was to visit one of the famed Turkish baths.  We went to the baths in the City Park, which is a truly beautiful place.  We were psyched to soak our tired muscles in some hot water, check out the steam rooms and saunas, and maybe get a massage.  Because we would need to pay separately for a massage, we brought in our backpack with some money, towels and other small things.  We did a good job watching it for a few hours, but we got a little too comfortable, it seems.  One trip into a steam room without the backpack found us, well, really without the backpack.  It was gone!  Luckily, we had left our credit cards, passports and other money either at home or in our lockers.  We did want to find the backpack nonetheless, hoping maybe they'd left our guidebook and other small things and just taken the money.  After crazed searching of the huge spa complex, I actually found the thing thrown into a corner in one room.  They took Tole's Oakleys and the cash.  Luckily, though, they'd simply left my non-Oakley sunglasses and some other things.  We were thrilled just to get it back, as the whole thing was really our own dumb fault.

View from Castle Hill.
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We also had a hell of a time jumping on the pay-trampolines in the city park, where Tole was both the only adult (until I joined him), and the only person to pay for 5 jumping sessions in a row! Who remembered that trampolines are so darn fun???  We also got more than our money's worth at the House of Hungarian Wines, where you pay one price to taste as much wine as you like for 3 hours.  Turns out, Hungarian wine isn't so great, but you don't care much after the first several tastings.  A lot of our time in Budapest we spent just running errands, but that provided a perfect opportunity to get out there and roam the city.  Highly, highly recommended town.

Sampling some goods.
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Next we planned to say goodbye to the Danube, but hopefully meet up with it again on the other side of Romania, where it breaks into three branches and creates a massive delta before spilling out into the Black Sea.