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Tour date: 1-17 June 2005. Total distance: 1400 km.
Bicycle Tour: Eastern Europe (Italy - Slovenia - Croatia - Hungary - Slovakia - Austria - Czech Republic)
Thomas Driemeyer2005-10-16 14:37:51
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the first hotel we checked out had all the charm of a Soviet jail. But in the center we found a beautiful baroque old town with cobblestone streets, on a steep hill that overlooks the town. Most of the attractions are lined up on a single main street. We found a small hotel at the back of the hill.
The next morning it was raining, not just occasional light showers like two days before, but continuous cold rain that did not stop all day. The temperature had dropped to 8 degrees C. We decided to take the train all the way to Budapest, rather than spend all day riding almost 100km in this weather. Veszprem has a train station where trains leave for the Budapest Deli station, which is very close to the old town of Buda. The train took two hours.
Budapest is divided into the old town of Buda on the north side of the Danube river, and the new town of Pest on the south side. We chose the Hotel Kulturinnov in the middle of the walled section of Buda. It has a grandiose hall with huge marble staircases but large bland rooms with little decoration, and low-end sixties furniture with mattresses that were probably already worn and lumpy in king Bela's time. The walled old town is beautiful and quiet, and has an imposing castle at the south end with great views over Budapest and the Danube river.
At the south-west corner of the roads ringing the hill with the old town, where the road turns left towards the bridge, we found the restaurant Aranyszarvas, ignored the tourist menu, and got excellent Hungarian food, including the obligatory Goulash soup, which is served in a hollowed-out dark bread loaf here.
Outside the old town, Budapest has sold its soul to car traffic. There are several pedestrian streets that look like anywhere else, except that many of the old buildings look rather dilapidated. Often, only their ground floors that contain high-end boutiques or other shops was perfectly
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See photographs from:
Slovenia Gallery
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Slovakia Gallery
,
Italy Gallery
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Hungary Gallery
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Czech Republic Gallery
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Croatia Gallery
,
Austria Gallery
