Danube/4

The Danube is a river of great significance in times modern and medieval, connecting several large cities and serving as the political delimiter for many a country in the region. It also happens to be the second-longest river in Europe - starting in Germany, meandering through several countries all the way into Ukraine - and finally opening into the Black Sea.

But that’s just the physical/political aspect of it - this river also happened to be the subject of some casual discussion among a few friends in the Netherlands sometime in June earlier this year, and it sowed in their minds the seed for an idea…an idea that culminated into a motion of those three people cycling along the river for nearly a quarter of its length, just a couple of months later!

But then, aren’t most deliberate experiences sparked by ideas that initially don’t seem to transcend the realm of the verbal or the mental?

This blog post tries to address as far as possible within this medium our experience as it unfolded over almost three weeks of travelling. I must state upfront that the experienced version simply cannot be described accurately in words - it truly was amazing (but also much more than amazing), it was really enjoyable (calling it merely enjoyable hardly does it any justice), it was incredible (…), and so on - basically, only those who’ve experienced it firsthand would know what it’s like, and to the rest it’s all a mixture of interpolation and approximation from words. Nevertheless, I thought it’d be a good idea to document it in a way that tries to capture the feeling as closely as possible and create a mildly coherent narrative surrounding the experience - and possibly even motivate more people to take it up at some point!

Perspectives

Just as everything that borders the abstract is dimensionalized (for instance, a family car can be looked at in terms of its performance, or from a social angle as a nostalgia-inducing machine), I felt that looking at this cycling experience from two perspectives - a chronological one and a reflective one - would make the overall description more complete in a certain sense.

In this post, I’ll highlight the timeline of everything surrounding the journey, and describe things that came along as time elapsed, without necessarily going too deep into the “broad picture” and “meaning” of most of it. There is certainly a lot on that front too, and I’ll cover that perspective in a subsequent blog post that’s more reflective in nature - as you can imagine, an experience of this sort does evoke all sorts of mental flows, and it does change some aspect of your being - so it deserves its own little space.

But for now, it’s only about going with the ticks of the clock during the trip.

Layout

Following the cliche that a picture speaks a thousand words, I thought it best to have a visual explanation with some comments interspersed as need be. This, with a small caveat: since the internet is already filled with several photos and videos of all the places we visited, merely posting those things again doesn’t really add much - so I decided to post photos/videos that are somewhat specific to this journey and/or idiosyncratic in one way or another. Maybe that affects the coherence of the narrative, but well, this isn’t a very complicated story to begin with! Just three people, bicycles, and a river.

A compilation of video snippets from the trip can be found here.

The Ride

First, a brief background needs to be provided to highlight the relative spontaneity of the trip, and the preparations that went (or rather, didn’t go) into making it happen.

Day -1: bipedal to buying pedals

July 2021: Though I had a lot of intangible enthusiasm about cycling such a distance for the first time - after hearing and reading so much about such journeys, and the romanticization of it - I was thoroughly underprepared in a material sense. So much so that I didn’t have a travel bicycle meant for the purpose, no tickets booked, and given 2021, not even a vaccine shot taken until July - and no leaves taken at my workplace either. It seemed fairly unlikely that the trip would materialize ever, leave alone in just over a month’s time. But it really had to start somewhere, somehow.

And start it did with getting a bicycle.

However, I really did not want to spend a lot of time and effort on it. Compromising on my peace of mind looking through catalogues and catalogues of travel bicycles - all so that I could get a perfectly optimized fit for myself? Sounded like a bad idea! I just wanted a decent one that’d be good enough for such trips.

Luckily, I happened to know a friend who’d done a route from the Netherlands to Greece (gulp!) a couple of years prior, and thought it’d be wise to get some advice on bicycle selection from her…

…one phone call later, my mind had already decided that I’d buy the exact same bicycle from the exact same shop as she did! It was almost like a control experiment, just with a shorter distance - with the reasoning that if the bike works from NL to Greece, surely it can work from Munich to Budapest! I thought (and still think) it was a reasonable line of thinking.

The Cube Travel in all its fresh glory

And this was the outcome! A lovely little Cube Travel, ready to brave the EuroVelo 6 tarmac and trails.

This set the wheel rolling, since this act was the first form of the trip materializing, and it also meant that things were serious! Pretty soon there were loads of calls involved for planning and identifying potential pitfalls, tickets (partly) booked, and necessary vaccine shots taken (though uncomfortably close to the starting date). But our determination levels climbed day by day, and we became increasingly confident of being able to do the journey.

A view from the Corner of Holland

For me, personally, a quick 65 km round from Delft to Hoek van Holland and back meant that the new Cube Travel was also kind of litmus-tested for its ability to do long routes!

Now, all that background information aside, it’s time for (mostly) pictures and maps to take over, and the journey to actually begin!

Goodbye for the next few days, Delft!

FlixBike from Amsterdam to Munich

Day 0: Munich

Fast forward to 12th August, and we find ourselves in Munich, almost prepared for the ride.

Freshly arrived in Munich!

Nothing too eventful - just some walking around, followed by some last-minute shopping from a Decathlon outlet there - and visiting a couple of friends.

Day 1: Munich to Landshut

Finally on the move, on six wheels!

Luggage to be loaded on the bicycles

Going through the Englischer Garten on a trail

Water under the bridge Bridge under the water. Couldn't go over it and had to take a long detour instead.

The campsite at Landshut

Mostly a smooth ride, with some unexpected detours and heat.

The Isar, next to the campsite

Set up our tents, walked around a bit, had some food, and found mostly empty streets. It’s a quiet place, Landshut. Quiet but riddled with mosquitos thanks to conducive weather conditions at that time!

Day 2: Landshut to Deggendorf

Another hot day! A quick stop at a Radlbauer outlet nearby to check the gear casette of one of our bikes followed by some lunch at a very unexpectedly American restaurant - American in the sense of the menu, the theme, and the decor.

An American lunch

Then we got on the road to Deggendorf.

Still no Danube in sight

A pretty little tunnel on the way

It took us a while before we were intercepted by a river.

Not the Danube! The slightly meandering Isar again on the way

Still the Isar, with some silhouettes

And some nuclear fission en route.

Unexpected power

Just before sunset, we finally crossed paths with our watery companion for the next few days!

Finally! A glimpse of the Danube on reaching Deggendorf

In case the Danube runs dry...

Some quick setting up of our tents.

A roof over the head

Our campsite was quite close to the DIT and thus we came across a lot of students as we wandered around a bit at night.

Deggendorf city centre at night

Day 3: Deggendorf to Passau

Finally, now our journey actually involved cycling next to the Danube!

Deggendorf city centre during the day

Riding next to some corn fields and pretty little towns

There's something intriguing about signboards

We took an intermediate stop in a town called Vilshofen an der Donau for some coffee.

The might Danube as viewed from a bridge near Vilshofen

The streets of Vilshofen

Reached Passau in the evening, set up our tents right away. The weather seemed a bit ominous though.

The camping site in Passau, next to the river Ilz

In fact, after a brief walk in the evening and getting inside a restaurant for dinner, we saw that a yellow warning had been issued by the government - and sure enough, in no time were there incessant rains outside! Our dinner thoughts mostly revolved around wondering if our tents back at the campsite would still be intact, and whether we’d fastened everything correctly.

But until then, we thought it best to gobble up some delicious Vietnamese food.

The restaurant that sheltered us from heavy rains...

...and gave us such good food

In general, sights after heavy rainfall turn out to be really beautiful.

Post-thunderstorm Passau by the Danube

On returning to the campsite after dinner, we were relived to see that our tents were still intact - but one of them tents had been leaking and there was a lot of water accummulated inside - and thus we had to squeeze the three of us in the lone surviving two-person tent. Quite a lesson in heat transfer.

The thunderstorms also left a few visitors in the tent

Day 4: Passau to …?

The title has a strange …? because we decided we’d figure out our next stop later in the day as we rode - maybe we’d read too much of Kerouac to really need a concrete plan.

The day was fairly okay but a bit cloudy.

Of course, there had to be some of these around for breakfast

On we rode.

Passau = "Dreiflüssestadt" -- it's where the Danube, the Ilz, and the Inn join

I must admit that the point where the rivers meet doesn’t really look all that majestic from the ground as compared to the aerial view.

The road away from Passau

A brief stop on the way

We crossed over into Austria in a matter of a few hours and soon reached a town called Schlögen. Time for some coffee.

A campsite at Schlögen

The clock hadn’t even struck 17.00. Though we’d arrived at a campsite, the thought that we hadn’t cycled enough made us feel that we could go further for at least 30-odd kilometres more - and so we continued.

Some scenic parts on the way

We kept going and going, and…

Attention! Life-threatening falling rocks!

There was no way we could get past this block - the Danube on one side, and steep hills on the other. Great.

What do we do, what do we do? We thought we’d find a way to take our cycles to the top of the hill on some steep trails and then find an alternative road. No map application on the phone helped because these trails were all undocumented.

A trail on which we tried to take our cycles

We failed - we got to a point up the trail but then the foliage was too dense and the gradient too steep to get our cycles through. And lots of thorny plants around.

After getting back down to the cycling road, having failed

So we decided to go back about 10 km and take one of the roads meant for vehicles. Since it was on a steep hill, there was no way we could cycle - and so we pushed on and on, testing our leg muscles to their limits. What was a bit of a relief was that there were no cars on that road.

Slopes and slopes

The road led to a town called Haibach, located at the top of the hill. Still a few kilometres.

We're extremely tired, dragging ourselves on and on, and we see this smiley saying "anticipation is the greatest joy". Thoughts of vandalism start running loose in our heads

We finally managed to reach Haibach. Given the time, we thought it best to call it a day and find a place there.

Finally, Haibach! The gradient is evident

Not sure what kind of faces to make after reaching Haibach

Pretty soon it started raining, and we weren’t able to find any vacant rooms.

A church where we almost asked for shelter

So Haibach being not an option anymore, with rain and darkness around the corner, quite reluctantly we decided to move on. A quick look at the map and we saw that there was a place called Aschach an der Donau about 12 km away.

So, with a bit of risk, we rode down the other side of the hill - on a road meant for vehicles - and it had also begun to rain quite heavily; but we didn’t have options at that point.

There are no photos from that brief period, but it was the most stressful, adrenaline-filled part of the trip…yet. It was also strangely beautiful to see things go by through a blurry filter of raindrops!

Fortunately, we managed to reach Aschach in three pieces without anything undesirable occurring - it was around 20:00, and had become quite dark. We’d reached just in time.

My phone's camera captured this water colour photo in Aschach

We had dinner at a really nice restaurant, but had to struggle again to find a room given how late we were requesting - but after three attempts we finally got a room at a Pension. Very few words can describe what a warm shower and a bed felt like at that point - it had been a really long day.

Cuts from thorny plants we'd encountered earlier in the day

Lekker rustig.

Day 5: Aschach to Weidersdorf via Linz

After a good night’s rest, we thought of cycling to Linz - but seeing that accommodation options were fairly expensive, we decided to push ourselves a bit further off our initial course. We ended up booking an AirBnb in a small town called Weidersdorf, located about 50 km from Linz.

Now we just had to get there. It was to be a long ride.

Wandering through the streets of Aschach, ready for departure

The Austrian countryside near Aschach

Water water everywhere, lots of drops to drink

We reached Linz in the afternoon, and walked around a bit. A fairly large town, that.

The Linz city centre area

You never know whom you run into in Linz

We realized we had to book our train tickets for our journey back to Munich a few days from then - so we made a quick detour to the Linz Hauptbahnhof and got the last three tickets available for our train(s) from Budapest to Munich on our planned last day. Phew.

The Linz Hauptbahnhof (the main station)

Back to Linzing around.

Sorry, people of Linz, but the Linzertorte is overrated!

Pretty soon we left for Weidersdorf, late afternoon around 17.00. 30 km done, 50 more to go!

Just another bridge on the Danube

It was mostly a smooth ride, but towards the end we got a lot of undulating hills.

Climb climb climb

At the top of a hill

The beautiful Austrian rustic landscape

You never know what you get passing through the Austrian countryside. In one of the villages, some people stopped us on the way and gave us a couple of these bottles saying that they contained “true Austrian liquor”. Weird, but very kind of them, I guess?

44 percent

We eventually reached Weidersdorf at 21.00 in nearly absolute darkness, and after a bit of searching around, finally managed to locate our AirBnb. It turned out to be a really lovely place, and a nice resting spot after such a long and tiring day! Also had a quick chat with the landlord, and got to know some interesting things about the village and its surroundings.

After a few minutes, sleep time.

Days 6 and 7: Weidersdorf, a virtual conference, and the Austrian countryside

There’s a point to be noted here. One of us, Satwik, (as of writing this post) is a PhD student, and during the course of this trip had a couple of virtual conferences in which he had to present his papers - the first one being during our stay in Weidersdorf. So we took a couple of days off from cycling, and Satwik presented his paper and attended the first virtual conference.

A minor inconvenience, carrying a laptop on his cycle for 800-odd kilometres and attending two conferences en route, but OK. Maybe that made the trip even more memorable? I doubt people usually go for long cycling trips with the intention of making pit stops and presenting research findings at virtual conferences while at it! Oddly special, I think.

In case you forget where you are

The other two of us - we just walked around a bit and checked out the surroundings, but relaxed for the most part; we were also carrying some books, so we read a bit and had some discussions.

A welcome change, the act of not cycling for a couple of days!

Google Maps isn't all that accurate outside popular places - this "Billa" was supposed to be open from 09.00 to 21.00, not destroyed

I managed to squeeze in a 10k loop around Weidersdorf, next to some ÖBB train lines, exploring the lovely countryside.

A nice running path next to the train lines

One of ÖBB's 60-tonne angels

A mysterious flugplatz I came across during my run

The funky side of the town

Two days later, with Satwik’s virtual conference wrapped up, we had to break our break and get back on the road. Still a long way to go!

Day 8: Weidersdorf to Emmersdorf

Some quick breakfast, a short cleaning stint, and we were good to go!

Just next to our stay, on our way out. Goodbye, Weidersdorf!

Getting back to the Danube

A quick stop for some lunch in Ybbs an der Donau.

Steckerlfisch at Ybbs an der Donau

Being photographed

Yet another bridge over the Danube we had to cross

It was a very smooth journey (probably the smoothest so far) since we were quite well-rested, and we reached Emmersdorf around 18.00…

Our camping zone for the night in Emmersdorf

…but we didn’t realize that finding food after 19.00 was going to be a challenge…

Walking around in Emmersdorf in search of food

…and eventually ended up ordering something from Lieferando from across the river.

The phone camera fails to capture the beauty of what we saw

Day 9: Emmersdorf to Tulln

Easily waking up, after a quick breakfast, we left for one of the oldest towns in Austria.

Through some vineyards close to Krems an der Donau

A brief stop for lunch in Krems an der Donau.

For some odd reason this sight reminds me of Porco Rosso

Some beautiful sights en route

Some small old towns

Pago, apparently manufactured somewhere in Austria

A mysterious plant near Tulln

Almost there, Tulln!

Reached Tulln comfortably around 19.00, walked around a bit, checked into a camping site, set up tents, and spoke to fellow cyclists around. Time for some rest.

Day 10: Tulln to Vienna

A very lazy morning. Woke up late, checked out from the camping site and had breakfast at a cafe nearby.

Time to get to the first capital city of our journey!

However…barely an hour into our ride, Nitin’s front tyre went flat. Not a problem, we had a puncture repair kit…

…but with an empty tube of binding glue. Great.

So basically there was no point of having the kit - but fortunately he also had a spare tube, and so we ended up replacing the tube of the front tyre. First thing to do in Vienna - buy glue, lest we encounter another flat later on.

In progress

Despite this hiccup, we reached Vienna pretty early - around 15.00 - given we had to cover only about 45 km overall that day.

On the outskirts of Vienna

We found an AirBnb, dropped our stuff there, and as usual, went for a walk around.

Some nice old Viennese architecture

The unexpected warmth of Bombay in Vienna

Our trip would have been incomplete without seeing Kurt Gödel's student house

Art

We chanced upon the Vienna Film Festival while walking around. Got to see a amazing concert from 2019 by David Garrett!

It came as no surprise that Vienna is often considered among the most liveable cities in the world. It needs to be visited again and explored in depth.

Day 11: Vienning around

We thought of taking a break from cycling for a day and appreciating Vienna a bit more.

Which meant that I could go for another 10k loop in the morning.

Running along the Donaukanal in Vienna

Running next to the outer castle gate

Again, we went for some lunch followed by a walk in the neighbourhood.

Since we weren't going into Czech Republic, we thought of compensating for it by having lunch at a Czech restaurant

And again, our PhD student had to attend a virtual meeting for preparing for his second conference. So we all sat in a cafe - him attending his meeting - and the other two sipping some coffee and reading books. Quite a slow, chill, afternoon.

What conference preparation looks like. Witness

We also checked out the University of Vienna nearby.

Back to being a student

And that was where our Vienning ended. We had to get going the next day for our second capital city on the list.

Day 12: Vienna to Bratislava

Not a short journey. So we were on our way a bit earlier than usual (though 12:00 hardly counts as early by any standard!)

After leaving Vienna behind

It seemed like people didn’t want to go beyond Vienna along the Danube. While we crossed lots of cyclists between Munich and Vienna, the traffic seemed to have dropped suddenly on this leg of the trip; there was almost nobody for kilometres at a stretch apart from just the three of us. It was a slightly different experience.

Near the Austria-Slovakia border, in Hainburg an der Donau

An art installation in Hainburg, expressing the chaos witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic

Coming closer and closer to Bratislava

Please don't bungee jump under the bridge

Late evening, we were in Bratislava - and this time, instead of AirBnbs or campsites, we were staying put at a hostel - so it was going to be a different kind of experience. The hostel was also somewhat “hippie” themed, and quite aptly called the Wild Elephants Hostel. Interesting.

Quite an artistic reception area

After some quick showers we got out for a walk to check out the vicinity.

In the old town area

Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, others are just born silver

The old Slovak National Theatre building

What's up? Strange umbrellas

What's up? Things I don't know

We had dinner at a restaurant that’s apparently one of Europe’s largest, the Bratislava Flagship Restaurant. Good food.

Ahhh, the good old Kofola - who drinks Coca-Cola anyway?

Day 13: Bratislava

Yet another “rest” day. Which meant another 10k for me to explore Bratislava in motion!

Running through the old town area of 'lava

Running on one of the many bridges spanning the Danube/Dunaj

Suddenly I find myself surrounded by glass buildings

What's up? UFOs

Once done with my run and subsequently a quick shower, we went to a bookstore + cafe nearby, with the intention of spending a good couple of hours or more there. Our PhD student had his second conference to attend. The same “protocol” - him busy with his conference, the other two busy with their coffee and books.

Some nice art in the bookstore

When Satwik got some free time, we quickly went around looking for some lunch. What a surprise it was to find a nearly authentic Indian restaurant nearby!

Tempted to say we were in India

After a really surprisingly delicious lunch, we headed back to the same cafe. We also walked around a bit in the bookstore to see if we could find something interesting - and I eventually ended up buying Dubliners and Tender is the Night. But first I had to finish some pending reads on my Kindle.

The Bell Jar and the Cappuccino

Once the conference was over, we decided to visit the Devin castle.

Sculptures around

Since the castle was a bit far, we had to take a bus. Got to see some more of Bratislava we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

The Devin castle

The town of Devin as seen from atop the castle

The Danube

What's up? A bus stop indicator

What's up? Signboards

That was Bratislava for us. Just some Lángos at night, and we were ready for a good night’s sleep.

Day 14: Bratislava to …?

Again, we thought of cycling up to some point that was comfortable enough, wherever that may happen to be. And so we bid adieu (or zbohom?) to Bratislava around lunchtime, and on we went.

On our way!

At some point the Danube became really wide. It felt like a huge lake of sorts!

Wiiiide

It started raining really heavily yet again - and so we decided to take shelter in a restaurant en route - and also replenish our calorie supplies while at it. Looking at the weather we toned down our ambitions a bit and set Győr as our stop for the day - it was still about 40-odd km away, so not the shortest of distances. We found a room for three people pretty easily through Airbnb and booked it right away, before getting back on the road.

Post-rainfall scenes

Some trail cycling en route

Pretty soon we got on a bridge crossing over into Hungary, our final country in this journey!

To get to the other side

Finally in Hungary!

We reached Győr late in the evening, and after some quick showers walked around and explored, just as usual.

Just a bridge

We could hear some loud singing in the distance, and we followed it to trace its source - and to our surprise, we came across a concert along the Rába, with artists playing rock music, singing in Hungarian - and that made the experience all the more local! We hadn’t been to a concert in several months, and at that point COVID-19 didn’t seem to be a thing in Győr. It felt really special.

Hungarian rock

Also got to taste some local food.

Some nice food

Some roaming around at night.

The streets of Győr at night

Interesting architecture

A bridge to remind you which country you're in

We got back to our room late at night, and got some much-needed sleep.

Day 15: Győr to …?

Yet again, we weren’t completely decided on where to camp or stay after leaving - and deferred our decision until later in the day - having it be determined by weather conditions and our mood as we rode. For now, we just had to get in motion.

The rustic side of Hungary

We took a lunch break in a village called Gönyű.

Digitally connected, everywhere

"As if it flowed from my own heart in spate, Wise was the Danube, turbulent and great." (from A Dunánál)

And on we went, passing through lots of villages en route to wherever we were going.

Passing through another village in "Magyarország"

Mid-journey moments of reflection

And then we saw the return of trail cycling.

Some lovely landscapes en route

Offroading a bit

Continuing with the offroading experience

Riding for most of the day under the powerful sun had quite some visible physical effects.

The beauty of melanin doing its work

As the same, all-powerful sun slowly went down, we took a break and looked for nearby places to camp at - and not far off, near the town of Süttő, did we find a lovely little spot - camping site Eden.

Camping site "Eden"

Checked in, unloaded our stuff, set up tents, and…didn’t explore. There was nothing to see around. So we just had dinner and slept early - the next day was going to be a 100+ km ride to Budapest, and also the last day of this long adventure! We certainly needed some rest.

Day 16: Süttő to Budapest

110 km to Budapest - it was going to be quite a long ride! We thus decided to leave a bit earlier than usual, around 10:00 instead of 12:00 or so - and accordingly had some quick breakfast before that and packed our bags - almost ready to go! Well, almost…

A slightly cloudy morning, but okay - we're almost ready to go!

…now, what followed immediately thereafter was a very bizarre set of happenings - we somehow(*) ended up having snacks and singing songs with a Hungarian family, who were camping a few hundred metres away - instead of being on our way to Budapest. We spent a lot of time with them, in a strangely interesting setting - we were speaking in German to one of them, our “translator”, and were getting responses from the rest in Hungarian - a single word of which we didn’t understand. Yet we all felt a kind of warmth they show only in movies - it was really beautiful in a way - but that also meant we were losing crucial time needed to make it to Budapest at a decent hour of the evening! By the time we realized it, it was 13.00 already! We just had to leave - and so we somehow said an awkward goodbye to the family and hurried on our way to Budapest.

(*) - the details are a bit too bizarre to be explained in brief through text - ask me if we meet in person.

Hello there, you little devil

Given it was afternoon already, and our having to go a really long way to get to Budapest, we briefly contemplated adjusting our plans a bit. The shortest cycling path would have taken us 65 km instead of the planned 110 km along the river - and we naturally thought it made sense to take the shorter path and make it comfortably in time.

Well…all it took was 5 minutes for our newly Danubized, purist minds to override this reasoning - and instead stick to the river route and go the longer distance as planned!

And so we chugged along the original path, come what may, even if that meant reaching Budapest late at night!

Cycling in Hungary wasn't as "friendly" as in Austria and Germany

Such a mysterious language, huh?

Where does this take us?

Pretty soon we had one more issue - we had to wait on one bank of the river for about half an hour for a ferry to arrive and take us to the other side.

Waiting for our ferry near Szob

On the ferry

We alighted from the boat in Szob and saw that Budapest was about 52 km away. Still a lot to go, and it was around 18.00 already - but no option. Keep going.

Stop Szobing and crying, and get going instead

Some paths en route

Some more paths en route

We realized at some point that we were not going to reach Budapest earlier than 22.00 - and we didn’t want to go to bed hungry, obviously - so we decided to have a quick stop in Vác for dinner even if that meant pushing our arrival even further.

Uh-oh looks like it's going to rain

Barely a quarter of an hour once we got back on the road, it started raining pouring - pouring to no end - an endless stream of water! And in no time did it get completely dark as well - and we also happened to be going through a forested patch for a long period of time - so it felt like a very surreal (and borderline scary) experience! Thankfully, it was still a cycling path that we were going on…

… just until we weren’t. All of a sudden we got out on a highway - and that happened to be the only way to get to the city - and so for quite a stretch we had to cautiously ride on the extreme edge of the road hoping our cycle lights were visible enough. That it was raining heavily, that we were extremely tired, that there were no streetlamps, that we still had 25 km to go, and most importantly - that we were on a highway - got us extremely anxious, and I’m sure that was the most adrenaline-filled period of the entire trip! We truly had the best saved for the last, and it was quite scary, to be honest. Naturally, with these circumstances, I didn’t bother to take any photos at that point.

We kept going on and on, and fortunately found cycling tracks next to the highway after a stretch of a few kilometres. Some respite, the continuous downpour notwithstanding.

We ended up reaching our hostel in Budapest at 00.00, completely soaked and cold, and after some really warm showers just crashed into our beds! I don’t think any feeling I’d had in 2021 compared to the comfort I felt as I tucked myself under those warm blankets after all that cycling throughout the long day.

This photo fails to capture the relief we felt

We’d made it, and finally finished our reallly long adventure!

Day 17: Budapest

Woke up a bit lazily, quite understandably. Our wet shoes and clothes that we’d left to dry near the window had actually dried, quite surprisingly. There was quite a void that we felt, not having anywhere to cycle to, and so we just walked around. Of course, Budapest being the culturally intense city it is, we came across a lot of buildings of significance.

St. Stephen's Basilica, looking from the west

Looking from the southeast

Some nice architecture.

Interesting to see how the building curves

Quiet people in Budapest

Couldn’t resist my temptation yet again - and so I went for one last run during this trip! Ran mostly along the banks of the river, and as usual, found some nice sights.

The Danube

One of the many bridges I crossed

Confused weather

The Parliament House of Hungary

With the iconic Tram (Line 2) in front of the Parliament House

We were done. We just sat at a cafe and did nothing - just taking in our experience from the last few days, trying to fathom everything. We were really done.

Day 18: Budapest to Munich

Just some wrapping up, nothing to do - just checked out from our hostel and got going. Got to the station early enough and boarded our train for Munich via Wien and Salzburg. There was a bit of an adventure there as well since we had to cycle on the platforms because of some absurdly short layover times of around 8 minutes. But we managed to get to Munich eventually.

To Vienna

Happy section in the train

The bicycle compartment

Lands we once cycled through

Hello, Munich, my old friend

Conclusion

For the Bayern Munich fans out there...

The Isar was quite angry about being ditched for the Danube

A FlixBus from Munich to Amsterdam, with a short stop in Nuremberg. As a bonus, we got to explore a bit of Nuremberg, walking around a bit and observing, and practising the last few “Ich mochte”s and “tschuss”es before returning to the Dutch flatlands.

Subjects

Time flew by pretty quickly.