Rolling down the Danube

The first of September was Jodi's birthday, and her wish was to start cycling, so we did! But we started in the shallow end... After figuring out how to get all our stuff onto the bikes, we managed to leave the flat by 3pm. We cruised out of Budapest, and covered all of 31km before we decided to hop on a train for the last bit of our journey. We were eager to get there earlier, for that night we stayed in a fancy palace hotel, in the town of Ràckeve. We went out for dinner, slept a grand sleep in a grand room, and started the next day with a game of tennis.

Ready to roll

Birthday girl at her palace

The next couple of days we headed south along the EuroVelo 6 bike route, which follows the Danube River all the way to the Black Sea. We had it pretty good. The land was flat, and the route well signposted, on quiet roads and often on separate bike roads. The only hard bits were when the bike roads were of sand and gravel, making for slow progress. We rode through (mostly) pleasant farmlands, with the odd industrial area that's inevitable on a major river.

Which way do we go? (Baja, Hungary)

Cruising on the embankments along the Danube

On day 5 we crossed the border into Croatia, and hit the first hills of our route. Our progress was aided by a big dose of ice-cream, and an encounter with a local cyclist, who offered us some local spirits from a hip-flask. That day we rode 130km, arriving to war-torn Vukovar on the Danube. The other side of the river was Serbia. According to Wikipedia, the damage this town suffered in the 1990s was the worst in Europe since WWII. Needless to say it was a sobering sight.

Vukovar, Croatia

We spent one more day cycling, arriving to Novi Sad in Serbia, but then we ran out of time. We had already organised to meed friends in Turkey, so we counldn't just take our time. We visited Belgrade for a day, then took a 24-hour train ride to Istambul. Luckily we had an entire 6-berth sleeper cabin to ourselves, because the bikes had to fit in there as well.

Cycle touring is hard (bikes get top bunk)