04 August 2008

Monday 04 August 2008

After an exceptionally hot and sticky (uuugh) night, we skipped breakfast at our digs and hit the road just after 08:30.

The early start lasted just long enough to get around the next corner into the town centre. Breakfast was purchased from a supermarket and consumed al fresco (posh for eating outside) in the park.

Our plan today is to reach Eger, Hungary. A distance of some 50 odd miles, quite a bit of climbing and hopefully, mostly spent on 'B' and 'C' roads.

Finally set off in anger at around 09:30 in already extremely hot conditions. Forecast today is for 33 degrees Celsius....

Followed Route 2203 North (yes, North though what we were doing riding North during a North to South ride is a reasonable question) and followed this in delightful countryside to Gyongyos, Hungary.

Our first refuelling stop was made at their mega Spar. Pop and ice cream later, we were back on the road trying to dodge too much radiation.

From Gyongyos, we followed the 'A' road Route 3 for a couple of kilometres and then turned off once again for 'man's country' and some more 'C' roads.

Almost immediately, we were into Hungarian wine producers territory completely surrounded by vineyards.

Rolling countryside with the odd barsteward of a hill and lovely quaint villages were the order of the day all the way into Eger.

On arrival, unusually, we immediately spotted directions to the the camping site. More unusually, the site was where it was supposed to be though at the top of a real killer 1:3 climb. Just what is needed at the end of a day....

We pitched and without further ado, marched into the town centre for a gander.

We were expecting a medieval hill town and were somewhat surprised to find a bustling modern town centre complete with ultra modern shopping mall.

Despite this, the centre was very nice and we made full use of both its supermarket (ha Tesco's again!) and a very nice restaurant for dinner.

Pigged out, we tackled the mile and a bit walk back to the campsite for a gentle lie down.

Chatted to our neighbours on one side; some nice French lads and stoically ignored the Poles on the other who'd invaded our space and pitched within feet of our tent.

Tsssk. Johnny Foreigner, just doesn't know the form.

Tomorrow we have our delayed rest day, this time back on normal schedule. There's quite a bit of housekeeping to do so we're unlikely to get back into Eger until late afternoon.

Today more hot, hot, hot miles. Total 53 miles and a quite hilly 625m of ascent. Total trip 2421 miles.

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.

02 & 03 August 2008

Saturday 02 August 2008

Breakfasted at our pink hotel. Very nice. Surrounded by young Polish on their way to supporting Robert Kubica at the Hungarian Grand Prix tomorrow.

Our plan for today is to cross the Slovakian/Hungarian border just outside Sahy then cycle the 50 or so miles into Budapest, Hungary. We also plan to use tomorrow as a rest day to look around Budapest as neither of us have been in the past.

Left the hotel slightly late at around 09:30. Chatted to a nice Bulgarian/Swede chap (he couldn't make his mind up which nationality he was) who had motorcycled up some of our intended route from Greece. Good vibes and no nasty surprises.

Left Sahy, Slovakia and immediately crossed the border into Hungary. Our 8th country of the trip. Border, largely another Euro non-entity though there were a couple of bored looking guards pulling the odd caravan over.

In all the border confusion, we missed our turn off for the boonies but realised within half a mile or so and corrected our mistake.

We followed Route 1201, a secondary road both very quiet and picturesque. So much so, we agreed we could easily have been cycling around the cottage in Brittany.

Carried on for approx. 25 miles before an ice cream/pop stop at Szob, Hungary. No sign of Granville (allegedly of Hungarian parentage) or any stuttering Arkrights....

From Szob, we followed the river Danube until Nagymaros where we caught a little, bitty RORO ferry across the river to Visegrad.

Had a bit of a payment panic as we'd not been able to get any Hungarian cash since entering the country and we nearly missed the ferry as tickets were cash only. Miles came to the rescue by running around the town and finding an ATM that we'd previously thought was a phone box.

On the ferry, a nice Hungarian chap (also alleged cyclist) gave us lots of advice and apparent important info. on what we were about to embark on. Most we found, to be not necessarily so.....

Once on the south bank of the Danube, we picked up Route 11 (again a secondary road) and followed this along the river bank into Budapest.

Had a bit of a production trying to find the campsite as both Tom Tom and Michelin were telling porkies.

After a few circuits of what we thought was the correct area, we stumbled across 'Mini Camping' which is exactly what it proved to be.

The campsite was just like a big backgarden though clean enough and with most of the right kit.

Following the advice of the Marty Feldman like owner, we went for a stroll to pick up provisions for the evening meal. Unfortunately, Marty had neglected to advise us of the nearby ghetto which proved to be a 'nice' surprise.

Having circumnavigated the nasty area we came across that paragon of civilisation..... Macky D's.... Oh dear. Yes, we must admit, tonight we ate at that dreadful place.

In our defence, there was naff all else on the menu except perhaps a nice stabbing in da hood!

Had a pleasant evening constitutional along the banks of the Danube then found our way back to Gullivers Kingdom that was our itsy bitsy campsite.

Today again a pleasant and not too hilly total of 57 miles and 275m of ascent. Total trip 2309 miles.

Sunday 03 August 2008

Our miniature campsite was a bit of a rockers paradise until the early hours. Unfortunately, for Tracey, this lead to a sleepless night. For Miles, earplugs saved the day (well night anyway).

Overnight we had a bit of a rethink over our plans. We'd come to the conclusion, Budapest was not really an ideal cycle tourist destination. Too big and too many multi lane highways choked with too much traffic.

We decided to forego our planned rest and exploration day in favour of an early exit during the quieter hours of Sunday morning. This would hopefully enable us to avoid the worst of Budapest's rush and save our nerves and collective sanity.

We packed up and set off shortly after 09:00 in already very hot conditions Temps yesterday were near 30 degrees Celsius and it seemed not much lower overnight.

We followed a riverside bike path for a couple of miles towards Budapest centre until it petered out into a construction site.

There followed a myriad of turns, bumps, crossings and intersections but we somehow managed to avoid getting off route. Uncle Tom Tom was again most helpful.

We picked up Route 31 out of the city and got our heads down to crank out the miles.

Traffic very light and countryside East Anglian flat (once again) though scenic.

Due to the heat, we took regular pop and ice cream breaks though sadly CAKE once again was absent from our daily menu. Double disaster, looks like choccy will also be deleted from the preferred supplies list as it is now rapidly turning to gooey liquid.

We continued to enjoy the light traffic and pleasant surroundings until we arrived in Jaszbereny, Nowheresville, Hungary.

We did a quick circumnavigation of the town and cleverly followed 'bed' signs but missed the hotel they were pointing to.

After another circuit we showed real restraint in asking an ice cream vendor for directions whilst avoiding sampling the product.

In very short order, we were booked into a rather basic Guest House and in the downstairs bar cheering for Lewis Hamilton at the Hungarian Formula 1 Grand Prix. Shame we were not able to get tickets as the Hungaroring is just outside Budapest.

Dinner was taken in the very nice town centre at the 'Arizona Steak House', that well known Hungarian speciality!

After dinner, we completed the evening by stumbling across the hotel we'd been unable to find earlier. Happily, we didn't end up regretting the near miss too much.

Today a very very hot total of 59 miles and 160m of ascent. Total trip 2368 miles.

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.

01 August 2008

Friday 01 August 2008

Pinch punch first of the month and no returns!

This is our second start to a month whilst we've been away. Makes it feel like we've been gone ages....

The plan today was to firstly catch up the shortfall in yesterday's mileage (due to the thunderstorm) then knock out another 60 or so miles to the nonentity town of Sahy, on the Slovakian/Hungarian border.

Sahy was chosen as our destination as it a) Had a campsite marked on the map and b) Was roughly 60 miles from our last overnight stay. Arbitrary or what?

The day dawned hot and sunny again and after enjoying a decent enough breakfast at our hotel, we hit the road just after 09:00.

Breakie is very important to hungry cyclists (as is any form of calorie consumption) and this one comprised of peculiar choccy 'cornflakes' with hot milk (looked a bit like a bowl of black toenails!), cheese on toast with fried eggs for Miles and sloppy scrambled eggs for Tracey. Mmmm.....

Unfortunately not all our kit had dried fully from the previous evenings rainstorm and we squelched our way out of the hotel in still soggy shoes. Trench foot anyone?

We hit Route 66 (no not that Route 66, that's for another day....) and dispatched the 10 or so miles from yesterday in a speedy 30 minutes. No hills and we were flying.

Arrived into and exited Banska Bystrica without drama thanks to a little routing advice from good old Tom Tom. We turned south and picked up Route 69, a secondary road that ran parallel to the main E77.

We must admit to a minor navigational faux pas here that had us scuttling across the 4 lanes of dual carriageway to pick up the smaller road which we had somehow missed.

Bet the locals don't see many fully laden tandems being run across their motorways by mad Brits!

The 'B' road was wonderfully quiet and took us to Zvolen where we once again joined the 'A' road alternative though now diminished to a friendly and quiet single carriageway.

Our first refuelling stop was taken just before 30 miles when local CAKE, coffee and pop were consumed. Yum.

Refreshed, we hopped back into the saddle(s) and span away the miles to an ice cream break in Krupina. Miles had a greedy 4 blobs, Tracey a self controlled 3.

En route, we spotted a giant knife, fork and spoon at the side of the road. When we say 'giant' we mean about 5m high! Imagine someone giving directions near there; 'Turn left at the fork in the road'...... 'No....the FORK in the road'.....

10 miles or so south of Krupina, we took a lovely 'C' road alternative to the 'A' we were on. Even though the bigger roads were very quiet compared to Poland, we fancied a bit of real countryside.

The first few hundred metres proved to be a very tough climb out of the valley followed by a ridge traverse in lovely surroundings and then a fantastic descent into a parallel valley.

We followed this minor road alternative all the way to our destination of Sahy. Fantastic riding, best of the trip so far.

On arrival in Sahy, we checked out the campsite which was rejected by the Goff quality control department on the grounds that it was crap. We then backtracked as rain threatened and booked into a pleasant (though very pink) town centre hotel.

Dinner was taken in the hotel restaurant followed by more in room gonking.

Hungary tomorrow, Budapest beckons.

Today a very pleasant and not too hilly total of 72 miles and 420m of ascent. Total trip 2273 miles.

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.

31 July 2008

Thursday 31 July 2008

We've been away 6 weeks today! Yay!

Started the day with an attempt at breakfast in the Butlins canteen. Suffice to say, our first impressions didn't change with repeated exposure. Cereal was OK mind.

The plan today was to reach Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. A distance of approx 60 miles and the last instalment of the Tatra's for us.

The day dawned hot again though more overcast than of late which helped to keep temperatures more manageable on the ascents.

We left the hotel at around 09:30 to pick up Route 537 where we left off yesterday and straight into a delicious descent. This helped us to knock out the first 10 miles or so with little effort and in very short order. About bloomin time!

We crossed the main E50 motorway (uuugh) and continued on our way via Routes 18 and 72 in very light traffic.

Once complete, these two roads would see us traverse the Low Tatra's to add to the High Tatra's already knocked off over the past two days.

Shortly after crossing the motorway the road headed in an upwards direction from which it didn't deviate for the next 15 miles and nearly 700m.

We spun away with tired legs and flagging spirits until about halfway to the summit. A roadside restaurant beckoned.

Coffee, pop and choccy later, we were re-energised enough to complete the rest of the climb.

As the road levelled we took in the view, sipped some water and pointed Disharmony II downwards for the mother of all descents. 20 miles and 750m of descent later, the road levelled out.

At a confusing set of roadwork's, we attempted to make life difficult for ourselves by taking a wrong turn but after a couple of miles we discovered our error and turned tail.

We passed through the town of Podbrezova which appeared to have the biggest steel re-processing plant in the known universe. In fact, the plant seemed to be the whole town. When we get proper Internerd access, we'll check out what secret mission is being carried out there.

A few miles later we pulled over for the obligatory CAKE, coffee and weeee break. Shortly after stopping, we were sent a message from the Big Man and the heavens opened.

What followed was an uninterrupted couple hours of the heaviest rain, the thunderiest thunder and the ...oh you get the message!

We waited out the storm for a suitable lull and in full Gore-Tex, made a break for freedom.

30 seconds later, it all came down again. How we laughed.....

Within minutes we were drenched and had to pull in again as we could see neither the road nor the other road users.

We were still in good spirits though having effectively 'finished' the Tatra's on schedule and the warm rain and head to toe bath did nothing to dampen our mood.

Happily, in a slight let up, we spied a big orange sign advertising an hotel in a small town that we had just passed.

Our plan to reach Banska Bystrica was rapidly abandoned 10 miles from target in favour of an earlier finish with half a chance of drying out before morning.

'Abart Tarn' instructed Tracey and we legged it back up the road and splished and sploshed our way to the digs for the night.

We were pleasantly surprised with the hotel, the food and the price. Three out of three ain't bad.

Bet you can't guess what we had for dinner!? You bet, that Eastern European staple.....pi...oh you've guessed already!

Back to the room for a well earned gonk. Hopefully tomorrow will see a reduction in the climbing for a bit.

Today a moderately hilly, spectacularly descending and jolly damp total of 53 miles and 745m of ascent! Total trip 2181 miles.

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.

30 July 2008

Wednesday 30 July 2008

Another hot and sunny day dawned very early for us due to noisy helicopter activity over and near the campsite.

At first we thought it was the Feds air patrolling Dogsthorpe until we remembered we were in Poland....

Turns out the helicopter was ferrying building materials up to the mountain huts in the Tatra's but they could have started their racket a bit later on....

The plan today is to carry on our traverse of the High Tatra starting in Zakopane, Poland and ending 50 or so miles later in Podbanske, Slovakia.

The eagle eyed may have spotted another border crossing and this will be our 7th country notched up on the tour.

Headed off into the bedlam that is Zakopane at 09:30 and stopped off for daily supplies from Tesco's (yeah we know, lack of imagination or what?). This included a significant supply of their fake Mars bars to get us over the big mothers to come.

Made short work of the 3 miles or so we had to backtrack to pick up Route 961 that would lead us into more trouble than we could imagine.....

The main benefit of our taking this particular route was a significant reduction in traffic as most of the roads are too steep or narrow for anything bigger than a car.

Just starting the first climb of the day, we heard a rather unfamiliar, for this trip, pfffffft noise from the back tire.

Our first puncture was mended by Miles at the roadside and involved replacing the inner tube as the valve stem had ripped away from the surrounding rubber.

Within a few hundred metres of taking the 961, we started climbing and that seemed to set the scene for the day.

The first climb was a couple of miles of 1:10 that had the sinews popping and veins on our temples standing out.

There followed a number of other very steep climbs, mostly long and happily often shaded. However we were still dripping with the effort and had to make frequent stops to take on liquids and calories in various forms.

The continued ups and all too short downs started to knock the bejesus out of our legs and even though this may not have been our longest day or one with the most climbing, it was certainly our hardest yet.

Around midday, the Polish/Slovakian border was crossed at a scabby little bridge with nary a murmur. No fan fare, no trumpets, nothing. Tsssk.

After passing into Slovakia, the surroundings became very Alpine and we rode through a number of lovely high villages not unlike those in the Western Alps in France or Switzerland.

This area is very popular with walkers and climbers both active and would be. Each village was bulging at the seams with day trippers out doing their thing.

We continued to grind the miles out crawling our way to our destination. Due to the hills, the average speed was very low and it was taking us hours to cover ground we would normally knock off much more quickly.

Approaching Stary Smokovec, about 15 miles from our destination we were both running on empty. Emergency CAKE and coffee was consumed in the town before we coaxed our quads into taking some more punishment.

After another 10 miles or so of hard effort, the road levelled out then swung steeply downhill. TFFT!

We dispatched the last 5 miles at an average speed of 30 mph almost without turning a pedal.

Presently we found ourselves stood in front of what purported to be Slovakia's equivalent of a 4* hotel....yeah right.

Despite all the hard miles, we couldn't resist cycling to the hotel door which involved riding up 500m of 1:10 ramp. That did for what was left of our legs and we dismounted like a pair of crippled John Waynes.

We checked into and checked out the facilities of the hotel. Nice in parts but no luxe fest. Dinner was eaten in the hotel restaurant which was doing a good impression of a Butlin's camp canteen but we had no legs left to carry us anywhere else.

Yesterday and today we have dispatched the High Tatra's, tomorrow, the Low Tatra's are on the cards. Lets just hope they are slightly less damaging to our poor beleaguered quads...

Today a massively hilly total of 58 miles and 1300m of ascent! Total trip 2128 miles.

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.

28 & 29 July 2008

Monday 28 July 2008

Rest day in Krakow. The day dawned hot and sunny again, bit of theme developing here.....

Today we had elected to take a side trip to the Auschwitz memorial museum and concentration camps.

Those that have been will know what a harrowing experience it is and how difficult putting this into word is.

Suffice to say, it is very difficult to comprehend the extent of mans' inhumanity to man and this all happened within a generation.

We spent most of the day at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz Birkenau where the majority of the prisoners were kept (read 'processed').

On our return to Krakow, we had a very nice meal at an Argentinean restaurant which we rounded off with Argentinean Pancakes. Be assured, these are just like normal pancakes and nary a mention of the Malvinas!

A very enjoyable day off. Back to the grind tomorrow.

No miles ridden and no height gained. He he.

Tuesday 29 July 2008

Today is our last full day in Poland. Our plan is to ride approx. 60 miles south from Krakow to Zakopane on the Polish/Slovakian border.

After a humoungous Ibis breakfast we winched our straining bellies onto Disharmony II and set off at the sprightly hour of 09:00....straight into the Krakow rush.

The day was set in the now familiar pattern of very hot and very sunny.

Throughout we were accompanied by the three H's; Hills, Heat and Horrible Traffic.

We dodged the traffic along the main E77-7 and subsequently Route 47 only stopping for lolly and bum breaks every hour and a half or so.

Today was the hilliest so far and this plus the heat knocked the stuffing out of us. Fortunately, we were fresh from our rest day so were able to still make our planned destination.

As a testament to steepness of the ups and downs, we recorded another trip highest speed today; 46mph!!

We arrived at Zakopane at around 16:30, called into Tourist Info to find where the camp site was and cycled a couple of extra miles to our preferred choice.

YES! We are back in the tent tonight (by choice). Campsite quite busy but large enough to absorb the numbers booked in.

Miles did a bit of tandem fettling whilst Tracey showered. He then spent 45 minutes removing all the post fettling tandem filth.

Dinner was eaten at the site café (quite nice) followed by blogs, notes and an earlyish night.

Tatra's tomorrow, we can feel our collies wobbling......

Today was a real grind with the horrendous traffic, heat and hills. We knocked out a total of 67 miles and 1425m of ascent! Total trip 2070 miles.

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.

27 July 2008

Sunday 27 July 2008

Breakfasted at our hotel that was once again deserted after all the frivolity of the previous evening.

On our way down, we heard such a commotion we thought 2 dozen guests were trying to check out and were all querying their bills simultaneously.

Turned out, the 3 hotel kitchen staff were having a very high volume discussion about something obviously very important. This continued throughout our breakfast and had us on our way sharpish with the beginnings of headaches...

Our plan today is to reach Krakow, Poland a ride of about 50 miles. This will be followed by our scheduled rest day which we are both looking forward to as the legs are starting to feel a little heavy.

Weather once again very hot and sunny - scorchio! Wind, either across us or somewhere on our backs.

We easily found our way on to the E77-7 and followed this south westerly all the way to Krakow.

Though the planned mileage for today wasn't particularly high, no one mentioned the flipping hills!

The landscape was very pretty with all the crops ready for harvest, rolling hills and lots of woodland.

The hills were a mixture of short/sharp little tinkers and big grovelling, drawn out monsters. Happily most were followed by fantastic, speedy descents and we recorded our top speed of the trip so far; 41mph!

We made the customary stop after 1.5 hours for the triple delight of ice lolly, choccy and pop. Don't tell our dentists!

This stop was followed by another an hour or so later for more pop and choccy. Sadly, as per yesterday, no CAKE.

After grinding out a couple of real mingers of hills, we arrived at the outskirts of Krakow.

Unexpectedly (for Tracey), Miles pulled over to the side of the road and gesticulated wildly at the cycle computer. No, he had not gone mad(er), we had just clocked our 2000th mile of the trip. Hurrah and double hip hip hooray!

Without too much of a do, we followed the main route into the centre of town, spotted a likely IBIS hotel and checked in. No grief, no aggro just a nice cool, clean room for a couple of days.

This is by far the easiest city and/or large town we have visited yet for cycling access. Minimal pot holes, no cobbles, very few (so far) tram tracks and little traffic insanity. Lovely.

We watched the last stage of the TdeF live (in French for extra atmosphere) then explored the Old Town for a likely suspect for the nights dinner haunt.

We walked along the bank of the river Wista into the Old Town. (yes, yet another Old Town) and onto the Market Square.

Apparently, this is the biggest market square in Europe and it certainly..... was.

After our very quiet journey down the eastern side of Poland when we were often the only guests in the only restaurant or hotel in town, we were suddenly faced with an absolute hubub of people, restaurants and bars.

Wow! What a tranformation, Poland had come alive.

We ate a lovely meal on the square and watched the tastless horse drawn Landau's go past complete with their payloads of tourists.

Later we watched fire eaters doing their thing (obviously hadn't seen the Gaviscon ad on British telly) and then we saw a Romanian Gypsy band performing the closing set of the '10th Crossroads Festival' whatever that was (is).

The music was very much like South American Salsa complete with full brass band section so David P would be happy enough....

After a last couple of (alocohol free) beers on the square, we walkede back to the hotel somewhat happy with our lot.

Rest day tomorrow - happy days....

Today we knocked out another red hot and flippin hilly total of 49 miles and 720m of ascent. Total trip 2002 miles. Ye haw!

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.