Where's Grayleen?

Bicycling across Europe has been on the top of our to-do list ever since a very good friend of ours made us incredibly jealous describing his week pedaling across the French countryside complete with frequent stops at cafes and wineries and nights spent in chateaus. Our yearlong budget doesn’t afford places like France and Italy, but we do have the luxury of a whole lot of time on our hands. We ended up budgeting a full two months of time to explore eastern Europe by bike – so exciting!

Aileen checks the maps

We picked Vienna as home base because that’s where Aileen’s super-supportive extended family lives. From there we were able to acquire bikes, paniers (luggage bags), a toolkit, extra inner tubes, maps, and the like for what turned out to be a real song. Aileen, who decided long ago that the only way to bicycle across Europe was wearing a dress, was prepared with three gorgeous dresses purchased back in Turkey. With a borrowed bike from Aileen’s aunt helping tremendously, our total equipment and dress outlay was way less than expected at under $300. And our stay with family had another added bonus: we were able to fuel up big time on delicious home cooking; we’re still burning those calories off weeks later!

On our first morning we headed east from Wöllersdorf and into Burgenland, a major wine and relaxation region of Austria over by the Hungarian border. These first days were across flat, green farmland and through picturesque little towns. Austria is etched in my mind as rows of cute houses trimmed with window boxes of blooming flowers. I’m still baffled by the fact that these flowers seem to be perpetually in bloom whenever I visit the country.

In general our route took us east across Austria and then north to the Danube river which we would follow all the way to Budapest. We saw a touch of Slovakia in its capital, Bratislava, before entering the Hungarian portion of the Danube.

Each day followed a very clear and rewarding pattern: wake up and eat breakfast (smuggle leftovers for a snack), bike through beautiful scenery, eat lunch in a cute, small town, bike some more, find a place to stay in another adorable town, eat dinner, and fall early into a deep, blissful sleep. It’s been great, but it doesn’t make for a compelling play-by-play: “Aileen pedals hard and, seeing a slight incline ahead, downshifts. Her cadence jumps to around 80. Gray follows close behind…” Instead, here are some highlights:

- Riding through parks of wind turbines. These things are huge and oddly beautiful and ugly at the same time. We got to ride right beneath them and stopped to stare straight up in awe for quite some time. We did learn an important lesson: windmills mean wind and, most importantly, you never want to find yourself riding a bicycle when you’re facing the same direction as the windmills.

- Győr: We rolled straight into the main square of this Hungarian town and didn’t leave for hours. The centerpiece was the fountain that was designed to be highly interactive. We watched scores of kids running around half-naked trying to predict just where the next jets of water would emerge. In the evening we watched the Germany / Australia world cup game along with what seemed like the entire town on an immense jumbo-tron set up on the opposite side of the river from our seats amongst the temporary stadium bleachers. Too bad I picked Australia to root for, ugh.

- We happened unexpectedly upon a super-crowded water park in the tiny, tiny town of “I don’t even remember the name” in rural Hungary. Who knows where all these people came from. We couldn’t pass up such an obvious gem and ended up spending the better part of a day lounging on shaded grass, swimming in the wave pool, and relaxing in the mineral pools.

One side of the world's best town square in Vac, Hungary

- One morning we passed by a you-pick strawberry patch. Not having a set agenda is great. We turned right around and picked to our hearts’ content. No joke: these were the best strawberries I’ve ever tasted.

- The recent flooding of the Danube was really interesting. Aileen’s family spent a lot of time warning us about it before we took off and luckily it’s now back down mostly within the banks. It was amazing to see just how high the water had been so recently. At some points we could see in the leaves of the trees that the water had been something like 10 feet over our heads as we rode down a cycle path. It must have been terrible for the folks who live here.

- Vác: This little town a days ride from Budapest has the very best town square in the entire world (you heard it here first!). Complete with delicious restaurants and seemingly endless dessert cafes, the square is both beautiful and functional. It even has a skateboard park. Full disclosure: Aileen thinks this is only the second-best town square in the world because Győr’s won her heart. We say move Győr’s fountain to Vác and end the debate.

After a brilliant trip, we spent several days recuperating in Budapest, exploring the beautiful historic castles of Buda and the restaurants and clubs of lively Pest (the two towns on opposing sides of the river were joined in 1873). And then it was time to head off again! But that will have to wait for the next post.

More photos from this leg of our journey are here.