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Day 12: Bratislava to Komarno…no wait, Esztergom

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Today was an odd day involving a bike shop trip, some frenzied bike repairing, a tram trip, a long walk to the train station, lengthy delays and some on-the-fly rerouting of this out penultimate day. However, we saw one of the most impressive cathedrals in Europe as a bonus. I had been fretting about the bike most of the night and so got up early and headed to the “local” bike shop which was very firmly in the doughnut-of-shit which surrounds the historic centre of Bratislava. When I asked for brake pads, the hipster dude manning the shop supplied me with a box of random brake pads and suggested I searched through it. And, at the bottom of the box were these beauties. Eight euros and we were back in the game. I high tailed it back to the hotel and spent a miserable and dirty hour fitting the brake pads and realising that they didn’t fix the problem. Trying to do proper bike repairs using a crappy multitool that I bought 15 years ago was not an enjoyab...
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Day 11: Vienna to Bratislava

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A shorter day between two of the great capitals of Europe but there was a surprising amount of this in between. 20km of this in a perfect straight line. The Artist “Boutique” hotel in Vienna was absolutely lovely. We may have been the only people staying there and a team of 5 chefs and waiters served us fresh eggs and coffee until we were bursting. I did some early morning “repairs” on my bike’s rear brake calliper. As long as I wasn’t intending to actually use the back brake then it was going to be fine. As we rolled away from the hotel, a car edged out of a junction and reflexively I pulled both brakes. Great, that’s 70km of brakes squeaking and binding that I had to look forward to. Getting in and out of major cities is always a pain in the bum and Vienna was no different. Cars, roads, bridges, rivers, tramways. Always interesting… After some cycling under graffiti-stained motorway underpasses we were expelled into the Vienna’s Prater...
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Day 10: Melk to Vienna

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Another long day and, although the last 40km were a grind, there was much to see on the way. Ready to go. The Hotel zur Post surpassed itself on the breakfast and we were ready to go pretty early. It looked like a cooler day and so we were keen to get out on the road before the heat built up. A combination of nurofen, paracetamol and wine seemed to have taken the sting out of the dental problem but it was something that was going to have to be dealt with in Vienna. I hadn’t started the route at the right place so there was 3km of quite difficult navigation getting to the bridge over Big D to get to the northern bank. Getting to the north bank included a 22% incline which we sensibly walked. Up on the bridge we had a great view down the Danube and the area we would be cycling through. Big D in all it’s glory. The northern bank of the Danube is known as the Wachau and is one of the main tourist destinations in Austria. The vall...
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Day 9: Linz to Melk

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This was a long and, by the end, a tough day. The main square early in the morning in Linz. Our “boutique” hotel managed to do the business overnight with decent aircon although, once again, a non-functional heated towel rail. We had a filling breakfast while sitting in our slightly moist kitchen and, after some necessary bike maintenance, we were on the road around 7:30. We negotiated the terrifying urban tram tracks and young people stumbling back from a long and obviously enjoyable Saturday night.  We crossed the river onto the northern bank where there was a lovely riparian park with people running, walking and playing with dogs. It was very pleasant and a lot more salubrious than the other side bank of the river which was heavily industrialised. This was perfect in the early morning. The southern bank had more of a Mordor-on-the-Danube vibe with blast furnaces and large industrial facilities. For those of you missing the gravel pile photos of ...
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