From Vienna, we continued on the Eurovelo 6 route, following the Danube through Slovakia, Hungary and into Croatia. Our visit to Slovakia was brief but very enjoyable – after passing through an old, rusty gate which used to mark the beginning of the ‘Iron Curtain’, we had a delicious coffee in Bratislava. The Bratislavans were impressively sporty, and as we left the city we were accompanied by a stream of cyclists, rollerbladers and joggers, all following the Danube path. The same evening, we popped over the border into Hungary and camped in a patch of woodland where we were disturbed to discover, by torchlight, that hordes of huge black beetles were dropping from the pine trees to scurry around in the leaves at our feet. We didn’t sleep particularly well that night!
A couple of days later we found ourselves cycling along the Danube in blazing sunshine into Budapest. This felt like a huge milestone – we had now cycled more than 2,000km across Europe from snowy France to sweltering Hungary! We spent a lovely weekend in the city, visiting the thermal spas, wandering the streets, and consuming large quantities of vegetarian food (J – I wanted a kebab!).
The day we left Budapest proved to be one of the most difficult of the trip so far. We had begun to settle back into cosmopolitan life (flat whites again!), and so it was always going to be a challenge to set off into the unknown, but as we left the sky clouded over, the temperature dropped, and we immediately got lost in a bleak industrial part of the city. Luckily, a helpful Hungarian cyclist set us back on our way, and as we carried on into Southern Hungary, our moods improved. For the next two days, we cycled through the beautiful Nemzeti National Park, often on dirt tracks or across the grass, camped in woodland, saw deer and woodpeckers, and felt revived. Finally, we popped across the Danube for the last time, and we were in Croatia! We reached the city of Osijek on Harriet’s birthday, and were greeted in our hotel, at 11am, with two glasses each of eye-wateringly strong plum liquor which set us up very well for birthday celebrations! After a tipsy day exploring the city, we were ready to head into the mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina...