We boarded the ship again in Budapest, and traveled overnight to Visegrad. I continue to be amazed by how well we sleep on the ship. Our cabin is on the lower deck, near the engine room, and the steady chug lulls us instantly to sleep.
After a day exploring Budapest on foot, we couldn't wait to get back on the bikes! My only regret is that the skies were overcast, so the light was flat. These pictures do NOT do justice to the magnificent countryside. At times, the landscape was so familiar, we might have been in Pennsylvania or Ohio.
Then the river would reappear, and we would find ourselves in a tiny village, with signs written in Hungarian, and we would remember we were far from the American mid-west!
We cycled through Hungary the entire day, following the Danube as it made loop after loop. The famous "Danube Bend" was one of these loops, although they all seemed great to me! We ended our ride and met the ship in Esztergom, Hungary.
Esztergom is one of the oldest cities in all of Europe. It has been inhabited since the end of the Ice Age, some 20,000 years ago. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary from the tenth until about the mid-thirteenth century.
Our walk through the town was peaceful, almost sobering. The streets were empty, and the town was quiet. Not a spooky quiet, but an old quiet. The town had a very old soul. We walked past the stone wall of a very old church and noticed a carved memorial for the town's WWI and WWII war dead. Even these century-old yet "modern" references seemed out of place and time.
We had cycled through many impoverished villages on our way from Visegrad, and ending the ride in historically significant and once-wealthy Esztergom was like waking in a time capsule.
Bike Talk:
Day 5 - Visegrad to Esztergom - 25 km.