Day: May 27, 2024

Monday, May 27, 2024

I’m back for another update. On Saturday, I checked out of the spa hotel and rode the length of Magrit Island. It’s a big park. Really lovely with different gardens and activity areas.

I heard a bunch of kids and sounds like a little carnival, so I stopped. I think the idea was carnival type activities you might have done in medieval times?!? Maybe?

So, in this one, the guy in the funny hat gets a kid to come up to the “catapult” (a net strung across 2 poles). He has a bunch of round stuffed animals with ears and he shoves an ear through the net. The kid pulls in the ear, stretching the net, lets go and fires the stuffed animal at a ring in the ground. So lame and yet so funny.

Here we have rock’m sock’m knights.


And in this one, the guy revs up the crowd really well. The kid on the ground has on 4 sleeves (one in each arm and leg). I think maybe they represent something (dragons???). The other kid has on a special shirt. And on the mark, she runs over and pulls the sleeves off the other kid while the man counts. It’s literally over in a couple seconds! Again, just so lame, but I couldn’t not watch!

Then I headed off to the nearest full train station, on the Pest side. The plan was for me to ride the train down to the far end of Lake Balaton to meet Rick. So, I got to the huge station. Can’t figure out where the human ticket office is. Try the ticket machine but can’t find the station name I need. Sit around got a long time trying to figure things out on various apps and decide that the train line to from Lake Balaton connects to station Buda Deli (on the Buda side of the river), but I can’t figure out the connection from there to the station where I am, on the Pest side. So, I went looking further for a ticket office and eventually find it outside.

The first lady I talk to doesn’t speak English, so she points to her right, so I go to the next one and she also points to the right. On the fourth and final one, she speaks a little English. I say I want to go to station Balatonberemy and she says “Buda Deli”. So, I ask how do I get to Buda Deli station and she points at my bike! So, I biked there! Got the ticket and all went well from there.

Rick met me at the little station right near a naturist camp where we stayed 2 nights.

While there, I tried to figure out where to go next. I really wanted to go to some farm in Austria that would be more or less along Rick’s path, but the problem is that there aren’t that many and when I’d find one I liked, it turned out I’d have to bike 3 miles up a steep hill to get there from whatever station (which would actually mean me pushing a bike up a hill for 3 miles). And train connections moving from Hungary to Austria (or for that matter, even within Hungary – see previous train story), can be tricky. Each line is run by independent operators. So, you can’t necessarily even get a ticket all the way to your final destination until you get to a station where you shift from one operator to another.

I finally decided to just head to Salzburg, Austria, which is on the border with Germany, so a short way back to Munich when it’s time. Rick thought I could do it by going to Gyor, Hungary, then getting a train to Salzburg from there. And that was mostly right. The unexpected part was on the first train when one of the conductors told me, in Hungarian, that I needed to get off the train at Celldomolk. But when we got to Celldomolk, there was a little 2-car train to Gyor right there. Hop off one and get on the other! (I make sound easy, but I literally needed help getting the darn bike up and down stairs of the train every single time.)

At Gyor, again I found a ticket office, and while they didn’t speak much English (they spoke Hungarian and German), they got tickets for me and my bike (yes, a bike requires its own ticket) with no train changes all the way to Salzburg! And I had plenty of time for a bite of lunch before the train. Got to Salzburg around 7 pm tonight. Checked into a hotel, found a nearby restaurant for dinner, and settled in to do THIS!

Sounds very hectic, but it wasn’t horrible. Just takes time to figure stuff out. And the language barrier adds a bit of uncertainty. But it all worked out fine. And Salzburg is full of English speakers.

240527-A route too far

Saturday I left Zamardi in a flood of bicycles. Huge packs (herds? Ahh pelotons) of cyclists. I took some glee in being able to pass people.

Fortunately soon thereafter everyone turned to catch the ferry (mistakenly including me, as I was at that point following the cyclists in front of me). A peninsula on the other side of the lake provides a short ferry point for cyclists riding partway around the lake. Hundreds of cyclists awaited the ferry.

That significantly reduced the flow. All in all, the 100 km along the southern coast of Lake Belaton was spectacular — well-marked (mostly) level path, spectacular views, multiple parks and beach access, and plenty of bathrooms.

I made great time, arriving in Balatonbereny a couple of hours before Linda. I scouted out the train station, texted Linda, and headed to the campground to settle in.

Rail staff helped Linda load her bicycle of the three steep steps onto the train, and take the bicycle off the train. When her train was due to arrive I biked back to the train station to pick her up.

We spent Sunday lounging around on the beach, working on taking some of the edge off of cyclist’s tan, and taking a swim in the (cold!) lake. And doing laundry. Always doing laundry.

We also spent a lot of time on Sunday determining Linda’s plan. She wanted to stay at a farm or other agro tourism location, and generally follow along my path.

As we work through that I started to get frustrated. I was headed for a mountainous border, and there aren’t typically a lot of different ways to cross a border. To get Linda in front of me with a train required multiple train changes, including cases where the train schedules didn’t overlap until the next day. Or taking the train back to Budapest and then come back around. It began to look like I would need to travel with Linda instead of cycling.

However, we came up with a plan. My first step in the process had been figuring out that it was fairly easy to take a train to Vienna via Gyor (the rest of the conversation not helped any by me constantly getting Gyor and Graz, one of my intended destinations, mixed up). We were trying to get Linda to Graz.

Linda asked if the train via Gyor could also go to Salzburg. From there she can rent a car, wander about, and return the car directly to Salzburg when I get there. With only one train change (although it ended up being two), on trains that ran every hour or so, so no rush between train transitions.

I left Linda at the train station Monday morning, and headed out towards Vasvar, where I intended to camp for the night, 80 km away.

When I turned away from the lake several things happened. The incessant stream of cyclists dropped off significantly. I rejoined EV 14. Climbing began; I came across several 10% grade roads today — some in my favor, some not!

I ran across an environmental solution I’ve run into before, telephone poles that have a specific platforms on the top for storks to live. Today I saw a nest with the mother store can multiple fledglings.

I spent almost the entire day on dedicated bicycle path, barring my own foolishness. That which was not dedicated path, was back roads. Most of the day I stayed on asphalt, with the occasional exception.

Arrival in Vasvar included a steep descent (which I’m always bitter about, as I worked hard to gain that elevation that I just lost). I rode down a steep hill to the out-of-the-way campground which, more significantly, was closed down. I had made good time for the day, and had arrived at 4:00 p.m. Examining the math, I could either ride another 35 km towards Munich to the next probably open campground, or ride four kilometers out of my way to another campground nearby, with no other options from there. I chose … poorly.

I chose the closer campground. The route then required a road that did not permit bicycles. But at that point I was committed, with no alternate route, mostly riding on the shoulder with the occasional big truck passing me by.

Arriving at the second campground, I discovered it was also abandoned. Damn. I retraced my steps (again, on a big road I was not supposed to be on) back to Vasvar. On the way into town I saw a sign indicating accommodation 1200 m ahead. Winding my way through the city, following signs, I found a B&B. No one present, I was dialing the number on the sign when the owner came out to tell me that they had no rooms. He kindly directed me to another one down the street.

Which was also closed. I spun back around and went halfway between the two places so far, and started studying my map. The owner of the first B&B saw me and called me over in Hungarian. Keep me in mind I don’t speak any Hungarian (and unlike other Romance languages, I can’t make heads or tails of any Hungarian), he told me in Hungarian to wait a minute, and he would call around. He called several places that were full but on his third try found somewhere where, via Google translate, he told me the host would arrive in an hour and pointed it out on a map.

Having some time to kill, I cycled to two other B&Bs that were closer, figuring a bird in the hand is always better. But to no avail. I also checked out booking.com, and Airbnb, neither with options anywhere nearby. So I cycled to the recommended location and waited. And waited. One problem with the waiting was burning through daylight, further limiting my choices if this didn’t work out.

Then the host drove up. In Hungarian, he explained I should bring my bike inside, and I should wait. Then he went about frantically cleaning the apartment. When he was done, he showed me the room. Pointed out the price. Showed me the Wi-Fi password. Explaines that he has a real job; the cleaning is normally done by someone else. He also asked if I cared about registration? I told him whatever worked best for him. And he handed me my passport back unopened. Broken bits and pieces of that accomplished via Google Translate. But most of the time I generally know what people are trying to tell me, if only because it’s the same conversation I’ve had so many times.

And I had a place to stay (even if it is under the table). Even comes with an exercise bicycle. Just what I needed.

By the time I had gone to the other campground, visited the first, second, third, and fourth B&B options, before finally navigating to my final destination, and waiting for the host, then waiting for the host to clean everything and get me settled in, it was 7:30 p.m. I walked back into town to check what my dining options were, which as I expected equaled zero. Worth noting that between OSM and Google Maps, the error rate for things being open (meaning still in business) is extremely high.

I walked back to my B&B and made dinner. There’s a supermarket across the street, so I won’t have any problem resupplying in the morning.

By the point I found a place to stay my intended 80 km for the day had worked out to be just under a 100 kilometers. Tomorrow, barring incident, I’ll pass a 1,000 kilometers for the trip so far.

Linda successfully settled into her hotel in Salzburg.

Whike I will leave Vasvar following EV 14, careful examination of the map suggests an alternate route along a river valley 25 km from Vasvar. Passing 3 castles. Looks like a shortcut! What can go wrong?