Live from the banks of the Dunaj

What would you call that? Slovakish? Slovkenglish?

We are now in Komarno, two days into our ride to Budapest. We changed our route from the original. Instead of cycling on the Hungarian side, we have been on the Slovak side. The path stays closer to the river there--it's more of a straight shot.
We spent last night in Gabcinkova, at a little pension. $30 for a room and breakfast for two. It was a cute little town, as have been most that we have pedaled through so far. Very few lawns, but huge gardens for every house, and lots of chickens. Watched England v. Portugal in the restaurant and spent the entire game deciphering the menu.

The ride has been nice. The Danube Cycle Path is on a dike and follows the river on the Slovakian side. Yesterday we rode 38 miles from Bratislava to Gabcinkova. It was so flat! Nothing like the 38ish miles from Bellingham to Deception Pass. We even had a bit of a tailwind! And it didn't rain, though it's been rainy lately.

Not so lucky today. Apparently, they start early in Slovakia. Some sort of wake-up bell rang forever at about 7, and shortly after they were working away at some construction of some sort in the room across the hall. So we were up. Got our breakfast (bread and meat), but passed on the beer that everyone else was drinking. Hmm.

On the road there was a very slight headwind and about 10 miles out it started to sprinkle. We put on the raincovers and keep on going. Here the path veered away from the river through some sort of swampy nature preserve. I saw some nature, but not much. Lots of bugs, a giant rabbit, cranes, other birds, tons of snails.

We turned off onto the road (which was very unbusy) because the path turned to "mountain bike suitable," and we weren't really interested in that. It was raining harder now, but our raincoats are solid, and we were staying dry on top. The feet were getting a bit soggy, though. Anyway, we had a bit of difficulty finding the turn off to meet back up with the trail. We went about 2 miles out of the way, and eventually found our path once again. However, it was still "MTB" designated, which meant a slightly soft gravel road.

Our speed was more than cut in half, to about 5 mph, and we started looking at the map for an alternate way. We saw a side road that linked up with the big highway, and decided to take it. It was a hard gravel path, and was much better despite huge puddles and some deer that Erin was sure were vicious wild Slovakian dogs. We had met our first dogs earlier, with Erin spraying her pepper spray haphazardly and myself outpacing them except for a slight tug on the pannier. He let go quick.

Komarno is an odd town. Not as charming as some of the smaller ones we've been in. Lots of old Communist buildings still. It does have some impressive architecture, though, and if we hadn't left our camera cord in the pension you might have gotten to see some of it. Komarno is a border town, and we were planning to go over to Hungary to see some castles, but we're sort of beat. A long, slow, wet slog for us today. But still fun. Much more fun now that we've finished it.

Erin had her first fall the first day. She just stopped and fell over on the side of the road. She's got a wicked bruise that's getting better every day. Every hour even! Pictures of that, too, when we can.

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