Beautiful Budapest - post bike tour

     Our first impression of this city on the Danube was solely of our hotel and it's fabulous showers. After cleaning up we met with another 6 members of our group and headed down the street to a restaurant close to our hotel for an early dinner. No one eats early here so we had the restaurant to ourselves. Lou and I decided to explore some of the city as it began to get dark and the buildings and bridges turned on their lights.  What a gorgeous city, maybe the prettiest we have seen so far - at least at night.

Parliament Building in Budapest at night

     We strolled across the Chain Bridge and looked into the magnificent lobby of the 5 star hotel in the Gresham Palace. We wandered around the streets and stood admiring St. Istvan's Basilica as the sun set. There was a festival going on in many of the squares around the city so we wandered through the crowds observing. On the spur of the moment, we decided to ride on the Prague Eye which is called the Island Eye.  It revolves high above the city so the lit buildings are spectacular. The next day we decided to visit the Jewish Quarter. There was a huge Jewish community in Hungary (450,000) and 200,000 lived in Budapest before  WW II. The Nazi's didn't start deporting the Jews until 1944. By the end of the war, the largest percentage of Jewish victims came from Hungary.  The most imposing structure connected to the Jews in this city is the Great Synagogue which actually was appropriated as the main Nazi office in this city because they knew the Allies would not bomb it.

Exterior of the Great Synagogue

Pulpit (!) in the Great Synagogue

Interior of the Great Synagogue

     It doesn't look like a traditional synagogue. The Budapest Jews wanted to be part of the larger community so they had an architect who designed it to look more like a church.  It even has a magnificent organ that was played by Franz Liszt when the building was dedicated.  There was a small homegrown festival going on in the quarter and we strolled along with a lot of locals until we had to sit at a cafe and collect ourselves and try to cool off with lemonade and hummus. It does pose a challenge to walk and walk and walk in 95 degree weather so we smartened up and started hopping on and off public transit. It helps. At night, it cools down around 9 or 10 and then it is lovely stolling around the city that is lit up light a fairy tale. 

     The city is divided by the Danube River into two parts: Buda and Pest. The castle and St. Mattias' Church are on the hill on the Buda side. The Town Center, Jewish Quarter, and Leopold Town are on the Pest side. 

     The Castle Hill area is impressive, even though it was hotter than hot. We walked from the statue of the Turul Bird past the Royal Castle and Museums to Mattias Church. We walked through this impressive structure and climbed the towers to view the Ecclesiastical art. Outside the church there is a seven pointy domed structure called the Fisherman's Bastion with an incredible view of the city. 

Turol Bird

Mattias Church

Fisherman's Bastian

     As you might imagine, food is an important part of our tour. The countries we are visiting are primarily known for meat and potatoes and beer. We love the potatoes but aren't really big meat folks or drinkers either but we are doing our best to step up to the plate on the beer part. On the bike tour, the guides provided lots of salads and fruit and when we ate out, we were able to order things that worked for our tastes. Here, we decided to jump in and see what the Food Hall scene is like. We made the pilgrimage to the Great Market Hall and walked through three levels of food and souvenir vendors. 

Market Hall

Pickled everything

We stopped to eat a freshly made Langos which is really kind of a fried bread with various toppings. We opted for the simple one with powdered sugar. 

     There was one iconic site we just didn't make it to. Budapest is known for its baths. There are several around the city and are supposed to be a must-visit. The trouble is that the temperature was 95 degrees and these are thermal baths. It just wasn't appealing. We will just have to return when it's cooler and try them then. 

     We have learned that we can't see everything a city has to offer and will just have to settle for what we can manage: touring the Opera House in all its baroque splendor, going to the New York Cafe full of gilt and mirrors built in 1894 for a drink and pastry, walking through Franz Lizst Square and along the shopping district along Andrassy Ut. We did not get to the many museums and squares chronicling Budapest's communist past. 

New York Cafe

Interior of the Opera House

Vents under each seat at the Opera.  The ducts lead to the Orchestra pit and made for great acoustics.

Budapest is a truly beautiful city with impressive architecture and culture. It's easy to see history in its squares and streets. 

     

Final Ride of the Trip - Day 7

The last day's ride was hilly but short-only about 20 miles. It began outside of Gyor in the little town of Gyorujbarat. We rode through some absolutely lovely forests in and out of the shade ending at the base of the hill leading to the magnificent abbey and school of Pannonhalma. The rabbits rode the last hill, we did not. They zipped back to join us as the guides popped the corks off a couple of bottles of champagne and we toasted ourselves and the week's journey.

The bus whisked us back up to the abbey where we toured the magnificent buildings and saw a film of its history.  The most impressive room was the stunning library with tiers of the books collected by the monks.  This was an amazing impressive collection that must have made this abbey a seat of knowledge. Even today the mission of the monks is education and they have a boys' boarding school in the same locations.  The views of the surrounding valleys were beautiful.

View from the hilltop at Pannonhalma

Library in Pannonhalma

We stopped at a restaurant for our final lunch today instead of our usual al fresco picnic in some park or on the grounds of a church or one time in a parking lot (!). I had fried cheese, really, served on top of ratatouille.  

It's hard to believe that we have ridden approximately 230 miles over the course of 7 days and we are none the worse for wear. Well, my rear end is not unhappy that we have ended this journey. It was well worth the effort, even in the heat.

The bus brought us all to our final destination on this trip, the Buda side of the river Danube in the gorgeous city of Budapest.

Sopron to Gyor, Hungary - hot, lost and found

The next day (Day 5) the bus transferred us out of Sopron to the top of a lake or see called Neuseidl am See. We actually had to drive through Austria for a bit before coming back into Hungary  The directions for today's ride were a bit confusing and unfortunately, the group got separated and a bit lost. Lou and I were OK and that meant we were able to stop and see the wonderful recreation area that was full of kite surfers and wind sailors. The lake is really large and people can rent paddle boats and take cute little ferries across the wide water. As you might guess because of the popularity of wind sports, the area was really windy. No paddleboats today.  We followed the road for a bit on a bike path through some pretty picturesque villages before we stopped for the day. We got a break today -there were not a lot of hills and it was only 38 miles . Sopron is beautiful - full of old beautiful old buildings and squares. There is a Jewish Quarter but unfortunately it just meant there were some really old  buildings but no one ever there to open them.  They had some interesting banners noting some of the residents of Sopron who perished in the Holocaust.

     We ate dinner all together at an outdoor cafe on the square near the Fire Tower.  We all were able to order from various Hungarian dishes including goulash and duck and a wonderful dessert with sponge cake, fruit and whipped cream. They are big on whipped cream here. These old towns are magical at night when they are all lit up. It was warm and lovely to walk around after dinner.

Duck with pickled cabbage and potatoes

     Then next day (Day 6) we road from a town just outside Sopron called Osli to Gyor.  The ride was relatively flat with part of it passing through the Ferto-Hansag National Forest ending in Gyor, a medium-sized Hungarian city with many beautiful buildings, churches and squares. The lunch break was on the grounds of a beautiful church that is on the route of the Santiago de Compostela through Hungary before it joins with the route in Spain. We were able to tour St. Jacob's Church and also see the community building that houses pilgrims on The Way.  The community building was modern and welcoming and had a room with explanations and artifacts from the Camino.  The ride after lunch became the only time Lou and I got lost. As usual, Lou and I were riding alone in the middle of the pack. After Lou took a pit stop and another couple of the group passed us, we headed off again. Turns out, somehow we missed the whole group stopped at a roadside cafe for a beer and they didn't see us. We kept on riding into Gyor. The problem was that the directions were not clear. We wound up in the wrong area of Gyor having gone over the wrong bridge, backtracked and then kept asking directions of people who mostly didn't speak English and we certainly did not speak Hungarian  by showing our map that indicated where our hotel was. We eventually arrived only to find that we were the first. A number of others also had trouble following the directions including one of the guides Tomas.

St. Jacob Church

Today's picnic

Gyor was a town full of squares with fountains and churches as always.  There were many small  cobbled streets to wander and see old, ornate artful designs indicating what was or had been sold in the shop below. There was even a fountain honoring the monk who invented seltzer water many hundreds of years ago, right there in Gyor. This was the only night where the hotel just didn't reach even minimum standards. It was a substitute for the one were were originally booked in which was being renovated. Other than the lobby, which was fine, the hotel looked like a relic out of the Communist Era. It was hot without air conditioning, there was not enough hot water, the rooms were teeny tiny.  But we all went across the river for a lovely last dinner on a patio next to the river.

View from our hotel room

Amazing interior of church whose exterior gave no indication that it even was a church

 fountain honoring monk who invented seltzer water

One of the business "signs" in Gyor

     With the temperatures in the 90's, one of the best moments of the day is a shower to get off the sweat and dust before emerging for dinner. My seat is beginning to question why I am on the bike for as long as I am day after day. It sure feels relieved when I dismount in the afternoon.

Through The Czech Republic to Hungary - Days 3 and 4

I have been trying to master at least a few words in Czech since I got here.  They will not stick. I don't know why I can't remember thank you which is something like djyekwee.  I've got "please" but rarely use it.  I understand Hungarian is even more of a challenge. It has been eye-opening that so many people speak either some or fluent English. It has become the Lingua Franca of this age. This, on the other hand an example of Hungarian. It means "housekeeper" and was a sign on the door in one of our hotels.

Today (Day3) we road through more fields as the temperature rose. There are red poppy-like flowers, fields of them and now vineyards of grapes. We have ridden into the Hungarian wine country. This was the day with a steep hill in the middle of the ride  it wasn't awful but the fact that it was hot with no shade on the climb did made it a bit more challenging. We elected to do what we were told was an additional 12 miles that was supposed to be almost all downhill.  It wasn't. It was rolling hills, some steep and with the heat, it was a push.  Our ride today ended at a sumptuous castle originally owned by the Lichtenstein Family as a summer home.  We walked trough the gardens but it was pushing 90 degrees and was after that long hot 54 mile ride. I noted it was pretty but maybe I didn't fully appreciate it in the moment.

We stayed at a lovely hotel that often hosts weddings and parties. That evening we had a wonderful meal outside overlooking a lake with the group.  This was followed by wine tasting in a cellar run by a man whose family has been making wine in this region for generations.  Maybe you have tasted wine in California but it's nothing like this event in Hungary. The vintner is an older man with a very large circumference. We each got a glass and he took this very large wine siphon  and sucked a large amount of the first wine and gave each of us a generous portion. It tasted like a young, grassy white wine.  We drained the glass and he poured another portion of a second white wine. It was described differently but tasted a lot like the first.  We got another portion of what was supposed to be a moscato.  Somehow, they all tasted the same.  Meanwhile the 15 of us are squeezed into a small underground cellar surrounded by barrels of wine . One of the guides Martina translated all his explanations and stated that there were going to be 8 wines to taste.  When he was describing how one wine was made Martina had trouble coming up with the English word for "skin." She said it in Czech and it became the toast as we raised our glasses for the rest of the trip: Shloopka! The group got louder and louder. Lou and I started pouring our wine onto the rocks under the barrels.  It didn't seem to matter because the wine guys was spilling a lot of wine on the floor as he poured the next selection.  He kept saying that he tried to make the wine as natural as possible and that his wines shouldn't cause a hangover. We decided not to tempt the fates especially because we are such lightweights and to walk back to the hotel on our own before the drinking concluded and a little food was served. Others chose to stay and didn't seem any the worse for wear in the morning.

The next morning (Day 4) we returned by bus to the Lichtenstein Castle for a short tour. It is very well maintained with beautiful wood-carved walls, ceilings and staircases. The castle was first taken from the family by the Nazis and then by the Czech government. Since this was just a summer palace maybe the Lichtenstein family hardly missed it when it was taken.  If I understood correctly, the wife of Lichtenstein whose portrait was on the wall - pregnant was in this condition 24 times. I guess it would have been hard to paint her other than when she was pregnant.  I believe 9 children survived but her body must have been somewhat changed from when she was a lovely young thing.  Her husband used to sit in one of the rooms obsessing over a painting of a nude woman much to his wife's consternation.

This is the painting Lichtenstein obsessed over. 

Hard for a picture to do justice to this amazing staircase.

Today's ride took us through a nature reserve (very bumpy bike path) ending at the ruins of the Devin Castle just outside the Hungarian city of Bratislava. The Morava River and the Danube meet here.  This was the place where many people tried to cross the river to escape from the Soviet controlled Eastern Bloc to the West. There is a monument in honor of those who were killed, died in the escape or were deported to gulags. We even passed  a remnant of the barbed wire fence that kept people in.  At the end of today's ride we loaded onto the bus and transferred to Sopron (Sho-prawn) another UNESCO Heritage City.

The confluence of the Danube and the Morava Rivers

Memorial to people who suffered and died trying to escape communism

Remnant of the Wall

Pedal Part Starts - Days 1 and 2

We connected with the bike tour group after breakfast on Sunday. There are 13 of us from various parts of the US (NYC, Ohio, Arizona, Hawaii, Alaska San Diego and us) as well as Canada and a couple from Australia along with two guides Martina and Tomas and our upbeat and competent bus driver Ondrej (pronounced Ond-jay)  After a transfer by bus we started biking. It became evident pretty quickly that we had a group that varied greatly in speed. The rabbits were a bunch of women triathletes and just plain fitness people accompanied by a couple of young guys whose egos wouldn't let them get left behind. Lou and I were in the middle and then there were two couples behind us. The men in each couple were amazingly fit and included a triathlete who just came off an Ironman the week before.  The women had to go slower and their partners chose to ride with them. Right off we began will a hilly ride through beautiful countryside and passing through small villages. The fields on either side of us went on forever with acres of rapeseed, winter wheat and corn. The villages look like variations on a theme: stucco-like houses all painted ocher with red tile roofs. Every time we enter a village there is a sign that names it - something unpronounceable like Lounovice pod Blaniken, Naceradec and Salacova Lhota. With the accent marks I can't reproduce here, it's hard to know how to say the name. We had a wonderful picnic lunch with a big salad, fruit, cheeses, sliced meats and breads. We ended the 40 mile day by riding into the main square of Telc, a UNESCO Heritage site. Here we were able to stay two nights in a charming hotel on the main square. Telc used to be surrounded by a wall and when viewed from above is surrounded by water on three sides. The castle was closed the day we were there but we walked around to get a feel.

The next days' rides was a big 25 mile loop with a stop for a barbecue lunch at the Rostejn Castle. REI arranged for this very small castle to be open when it was normally closed. It is mostly notable for its tower where we climbed to get a wonderful view of the countryside. Ondjay our driver extraordinaire had gotten here  first and built a fire on which he roasted small rounds of Brie or Camembert type cheese wrapped in foil paper. The cheese melted fondue-like and we smeared it on bread  he also roasted local sausages after he foraged for sticks in the forest. It was a feast with a huge fresh salad and fruit.  This day  too was a bit hilly with winding roads through villages and field after field of crops.  The roads do not have a lot of traffic and often there are trees lining them providing a bit of shade.  We stayed for our second night in Telc and had dinner on our own at a restaurant outside the walled city under umbrellas sheltering us from some evening rain, getting to know some of our fellow bikers.

Some of the buildings surrounding the main square in Telc.

Rostejn Castle

Wrapped cheese and sausages

Building in Telc

2015 Prague to Budapest and Beyond - and so it begins

Prague: our first stop on this new adventure. We came a couple of days early to orient before meeting up with our bike tour group. The first day we headed across the Charles Bridge to the Jewish Quarter -  a compact area of synagogues and a cemetery.  for whatever reason the Nazis allowed the Jews of Prague and the region to collect and archive their treasures. The Jews were killed in the camps but the treasures survive in the museums here.  There are several synagogues, a ceremonial hall and the only cemetery where Jews were allowed to be buried from 1438 to 1787. The tombs are askew and it is said that the graves are 7 and 8 deep with more than 100,000 bodies here.

We wandered around Old Town Square and, of course, watched the chiming of the Astronomical Clock on the Town Hall along with a billion other tourists. Prague is crowded. Walking along the Charles Bridge is sort of like being in Disneyland on a busy summer day.

The following day we climbed up to the Castle Quarter and toured St. Vitus Cathedral. It has a beautiful window by Alfons Mucha and the tomb of Good King Wenceslas (I only remember the first two lines of the carol which drove me nuts)  and some of the Hapsburgs.  The wholes castle area is filled with palaces and the office of the Czech president. There is even a lane  filled with little shops where the servants and goldsmiths used to live.  We ate at the cafe overlooking the city at the Lobkowicz Palace and will return to the museum there at the end of our trip.

We did see lots of stuff with the name Kafka on it but felt we had to take this picture of the fountain  of the two peeing men in front of the Kafka Museum.  I almost took a picture of the some woman who had her friend film her washing her hands under the outflow from one of the guys.

We are returning to Prague at the end of the trip for a few more days so this post is the beginning of a big circle. We will end here in three weeks. Stay tuned.