23rd day Splitz to Linz

Distance: 128km
Total: 2610km

Waking up from a big feather pillow, could just stay sleeping - and its cloudy, haven't rained yet though - road is dry. Packing up and remembering something about breakfast from last night, going out and seeing breakfast served for one, not being sure its for me, not touching before getting confirm. Eating and eagerly watching coffee pan that's kept warm by a candle.

Getting on bike, its warm and very humid. The shorts I put on biking shorts are obviously too much, and despites they don't really stay on anymore - have I lost something from my waist, haven't used them since Slovakia.

Taking a lot pictures of castles hanging on cliffs over the Danube - ruined and not. Manage to also get my hands on small Danube cycling info booklet with maps and some services listed. As landscape flattens the cycling route has quite bit of dry Danube mud on it, and after a few kilometers my legs are also sandy.

On 60 kilometers find small town and pizza/kebab place in after a bit of wandering. Eat kebab, which is totally different than any kebab I've ever eaten. Gives good energy boost and is by all means decent. Next 40km go smoothly, and I get lost from the route only once - and that actually ended up speeding up the progress as smooth flat and not much trafficked local road allows higher speed without slow downs.

Then I see it - there's McDonalds, think I ate in one last time in Poland. And these things come with Wi-Fi, so I finally get to connect to the interwebs and post the blog updates! While this all goes on - there's thunderstorm outside washing the cyclists on eurovelo, quite convenient timing for me though. Leave when only random drops are landing anymore. The random drops keep landing the rest of the day until I find a small campsite just outside of Linz, with no Wi-Fi AGAIN.

Oh, and first technical problem came in form of front brake cable snapping up - leaving me with only rear brakes. Fixed it with spare cable I had with me, but need some solution to keep the new cable end from disassembling itself.

22nd day Petronell-carnuntum to Splitz

Distance: 150km
Total: 2482km

How to locate a campsite; put it next to highway - check, put it next to railway - check, put it where planes down for landing on nearby airport - check. All 3 checks applied to the last night's campsite and as  a result - I had bad night.

Was on move earlier than usual and morning chill is awesome to drive in. As had pretty much nothing to eat decided to grab something from next little shop along the way. Wrong! The world is different today - it's Austria today, no more small shops everywhere. Kept looking around for one while driving to Haslau for ferry... boat ride to other side of Danube. Had to call the boat from other side of river with number provided in a sign. Boat came about 10 minutes to my shore that was a muddy havoc created by the flood, got the bike lifted on board. Was short but interesting ride on river flowing so rapidly.

On the other side was nature reserve full of water and all kinds of things brought by the flood - the eurovelo went on top of the flood barrier and gave some excellent views to the messed up lands below. While driving towards Wien met a Slovakian guy traveling in the same direction, chatted about various things during the 20km ride together.

Wien was another big city with a lot buildings and traffic, nothing particularly interesting - well maybe the Europe's largest oil refinery. There was plenty of ice cream stands, beer tents and expensive restaurants - both on land and on ships anchored on shore 'permanently'. About 15km after Wien and 60km of day saw something resembling a general store with food. It turned out to be some fancy shop selling fancy stuff - including fancy food, bought some fancy 'make chips' and fancy carbonated juice (wouldn't call it lemonade). Enjoyed my filling breakfast of these 2 items around 1pm.

Somehow not being totally satisfied made little adventure off eurovelo to find a proper food store. Found one on 75km mark and finally got decent breakfast. This made me look for way  back to Danube for next 10 kilometers. Awesome to try navigate without a map... Danube must be in direction where water flows, right? Maybe, but roads don't always follow this awesome sense of direction.

Rest of the day was pretty nice riding along Danube with some nice sights - shame phone/camera battery was dead so no pictures. Campsites are always there when you don't need them, but when you need one, none to be found. I was pretty confident on landing on campsite as there was one every 10km most of the day - and then last 40km - none. Also the river had gone now to a pretty sharp valley, which kind of killed the chances of finding stealth camping place. Was reading some info table on information point thingy, which was of course in German, but figured out the accommodation prices; 70-150 hotels, 30-60 for pensions (a lot variance though here) and 20-25 for these zimmer things. Not really knowing what the summer thing is, just went in one to few to find out; first one had some old woman shouting from window in German, think it was something like 'go away foreigner'. In second one, didn't meet anyone, but it had offensive seeming German text along with lolcat with a gun. From third one I got a room, no much common language was found, but think I got the basics - at least price was 23€. Word breakfast appeared once, but let's see what morning will bring...

20th day Nagymaros to Gyor

Distance: 120km
Total: 2214km

Day started as usual with tent warming up, this time though there was background 'music' coming from nearby railway, which seemed to have plenty of traffic. Decided to make it a easier than two last days - and driving eurovelo 6 along the Danube (no hills) should work with this plan. Also there's quite a few camping sites on the way, so no stress about them.

After under 2 kilometer drive from campsite was ferry crossing and eurovelo 6 seemed to cross here, so let's get over. Stream was pretty strong as Danube was still bit flooding, the ferry had to keep adjusting all the time when it was being loaded in strong stream. Along the same ferry came German supported cycling group of elderly people to the opposite direction.

Eurovelo was pretty messy when going near Danube, but there was very good parts also - like cycling highway. There indeed was loads and loads of other cyclists of different kinds - at least if we compare to earlier parts of  trip.

There was a castle in Esztergom called Bazilika with the biggest catholic church in Hungary within it. Much of the eurovelo went along the general road after Esztergom, which was lightly trafficked though. Some confusion was caused by eurovelo sign to follow the road and next to it sign forbidding the use of road by bicycles.

Ate snack hamburger in Sutto and continued the hot journey as temperature had risen around +30°C. After Komarom eurovelo took odd turn off the Danube, followed it while until it became mud/dirt track in forest and just gave up and took proper road (road 1). Road 1 had also no bicycles signs, but there I went. There was not much traffic, although there was quite some cyclists on it.

Found campsite bit before Gyor, clock wasn't much but decided to just take it as had good 120km under the belt. Its rather small campsite without Wi-Fi, but it has swimming pool, which came handy for cooling down. On downside there's a lot mosquitoes and Hungarian 'pusta' is hard to get pegs stay in ground properly - hope it won't storm at the night.

Had some discussions with German guy who was working in the area and later with dutch couple with camper,  who also offered a drink. Apparently the small planes flying at evenings on low altitudes are spreading some anti-mosquito gas to kill mosquito plaque in the river valley.

21st day Gyor to Petronell-carnuntum

Distance: 118km
Total: 2332km

Tent wasn't as warm as couple past days, thanks to cover from bigger trees. This is first campsite where I've over eaten breakfast on, which was good start for the day not needing to worry about breakfast. It was becoming another hot day, though leaving early before 9 actually made first couple hours pleasant.

Found the eurovelo again in Gyor, which has baroque era centrum. After a while wind picked up on fields, which were everywhere as the terrain had become totally flat. It was headwind that made progress slower but on other hand cooled the ride a bit.

Had quite some florints as cash and I was closing the Slovakian border, so few kilometers before border picked restaurant and went in; waitress didn't speak word of English and menus were in German. Picked something as expensive as possible to get rest of florints gone (costed whole 1590 florints!), and managed to get a lot chicken along with potatoes and salad.

Kept cycling the eurovelo which been pretty good today and suddenly noticed that all signs are in Slovakian again, must have crossed the border somewhere. Whole Slovakian part of eurovelo was in great shape, even getting trough Bratislava was really easy even though going right next to centrum.

3rd country today was Austria, and it was indeed different; info panels and road signs everywhere, too bad the route became also rather hard to follow with about 5 turns for every kilometer. Also on Austrian side the huge damage to crops from the floods and buildings became obvious as the riverside was one huge rebuilding/clean up area. Found campsite after bit of searching, and its tiny with full of cyclist tents, mostly by Czech cycling party. Again no Wi-Fi though :/. Tomorrow deeper into Austria and out of my current map...

19th day Rimavska sobota to Nagymaros

Distance: 146km
Total: 2094km

It was warm wake up with the sun heating up the tent slowly in the morning. As my alarm rang also the music started from the nearby pool. Didn't see anyone interested in my camping in the morning, so just left the campsite.

It was becoming a warm over +25°C day right from the morning. Ate some breakfast on roadside restaurant - had to order from German menu and bananas chicken with rice appeared soon in front of me. Some 20km on busy road 50 didn't really taste much good. After Lunesec though it was small and nice road for next 30km - around Hungarian border there was no soul for about 5km, just some abandoned border buildings. Roads became worse and buildings better on Hungarian side.

Hungarian florint has healthy 293:1 exchange rate towards euro, and withdrawing 5000 florint bill seemed like a lot money - they ending up to euro soon though. There was a lot Romani people in southern Slovakia, but they pretty much disappeared on Hungarian side. It was easy ride to Balassagyarmat, where I made a mistake - I went to a pizzeria where you're not supposed to go when you're hungry, but when you know you will be hungry in near future - it took over hour for pizza to arrive.

Rest of the way to Danube was on very busy road with steep up- and downhills, a lot sweat in that temperature, drank like in Lithuania again. Finally descended to the Danube and found eurovelo 6 route, which doesn't seem too fast to cycle on, but good 20km/h is achievable and don't need to worry about cars. Route has a lot turns, so backtracking at times is very likely. Also there's a lot dirt on the route and pretty unpleasant smell from earlier flood (early summer central Europe flooding).

Found campsite next to Danube and unfortunately dirt and smell apply on it as well. This is very likely southwest night on this cycling trip. Heading to upstream tomorrow.

18th day Smokovec to Rimavska sobota

Distance: 169km
Total: 1948km

My alarm didn't go off in the morning as cellphone battery was totally empty - wonder what happened to it. Well woke up hour later than planned so was on road hour later also. Said byes to the couple owning the penzion (penzion Lesna).

Day started with 20 kilometers  of steady uphill in chilly but sunny weather. Came down to valley from Strbske pleso and had day's first free kilometers coming down. Then headed west along road 18, which was built annoyingly going up and down, also the strong headwind made the downhills feel more like flat. Met also bunch of other cyclists and one of the had been to Rovaniemi as organizer in ski jumping competition.

Then took the  road 72, which I would follow almost all rest of the day. First was getting over Nizke tatry mountain range, to sum it up; 2 hours of climbing for about 15km and then doing nothing for 15 minutes for about 15km - at least it was straight forward first up then down and not midway solution, Norwegian solution would of course been a tunnel.

Reached Brezno and couldn't find any place to eat easily - all restaurants seemed too complicated, as eating there would take forever. Left Brezno hoping to spot something on way, only to end up eating in restaurant which takes forever - though didn't this time. Ate some traditional Slovakian Hausky (most likely misspelled), it was macaroni (a lot of it) in sheep cheese and little fried bacon on top. Not becoming my favorite food by the way. Also passed camping site little after Brezno, but only 100km done after rest day - must carry on.

Next up is another pass, smaller than the earlier one, but it had great descent through very steep and narrow valley on a narrow curvy road - such a pleasure to come down. Rest of the day was slight downhill along the river while the kept getting smaller and changing to rolling hills and (wheat) fields.

The campsite I was aiming for was unfortunately 6km to undesired direction from road 72 and 50 intersection. Made it there though only to notice its kinda not real campsite, but some relaxation area. There was WC and locked shower, which was supposed to be given access by some man, who never showed up. Dunno what morning will bring, but definitely not gonna hunt him down to pay for no service camping.

Tomorrow's plan is to reach Hungary and the Danube.

17th day Break day - Tatra mountains

It feels so good to wake up and not needing to load bike and make/organize, but just slowly get up and go to ready made breakfast. Breakfast was better than in the polish hotel, it was standing table - but quite limited to a few things.

Headed right out after the breakfast towards Tatranska lomnica, about 3km walk downwards mostly in mostly sunny weather. Found the cable car station from the northern part of the ski resort village and took one to Skalnate pleso, 1751 meters above sea level. The views along the cable car ride were already great, and even greater up at Skalnate pleso - also the air was chillier. There was another cable car from Skalnate pleso to the peak of the mountain Lomnicky stit, which I decided to not to take because of thick cloud starting just above Skalnate pleso station, and also because of really salty price on it. Climbed however for a while up one ridge line to get nice viewpoint to surrounding valleys and their devastated forests. There was windy storm in 2004, which felled most of the forests on higher slopes.

Back down in Tatranska lomnica had some unusual thing (to me) occur; there was a public toilet that coated 20 cents to use - well that's not unusual really, but the lady in a box collecting the 20 cents was pretty odd sight. After recovering from this exotic experience, took the electric train to Stary smokovec about 6km away. Didn't do much in Stary smokovec apart from eating and fruitless attempt to gain knowledge of camping sites in Slovakia from information center.

Rest of the day passed mostly doing not much more than marking camping sites to newly bought map of Slovakia, that I was able to find online. Also had some relaxation after hard doing not much day.