The Plan

The Plan: Two months of unassisted cycling and camping through Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and wherever else our legs may take us.

The Route: Starting in Brussels and flying out of Berlin are the only given at this point. We plan to cycle parts of the Flanders Cycle Route, Rhine River and the Danube River. We will also be using the EuroVelo and regional cycling routes.

Accommodation: WarmShowers website (like couchsurfing for cyclists). We are also planning on staying at campsites, backyards of friendly locals or in the wilderness.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Day 43: Budapest to Memento Park - 33km

We woke up at noon after a later-than-expected night out and grabbed a quick lunch before cycling to Memento Park. It was made after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 as a place for all the old communist statues from around Hungary. We weren't really sure what to expect: a park with a heap of decaying Stalins and Lenins or something more organized. It was the latter. The irony of the capitalization of communist trinkets, such as fridge magnets and passports was probably the park's most interesting feature. We paid 1500 forint ($6) to get in, but would have had to pay an extra 2500 for a guided tour had we not just missed it. There weren't any explanations for any of the statues, save for a few titles. We spent about 30 minutes at the park than rode back an hour and 30 minutes to Budapest.

On our way back, we saw our first cyclist injury of the trip. An ambulance and bus had pulled over on top of the bike path and there was a mangled bike lying in the street. My guess was that the bus had turned right into the cyclist as they were trying to cross the street. It was a grim reminder of how vulnerable you are on a bike when you're not separated from vehicular traffic (which countries like Austria, Holland and Belgium do really well!)

Rather than try and cram in a visit to the Thermal Baths, we took the advice of our hostel's manager and tried another one of his restaurant suggestions. The first two had been good but this one was incredible. Every single thing about the meal was fantastic. It didn't even cost much because it was in a local area. We finished it off with some fabulous Tokaj dessert wine and tasted some more great  Hungarian  wine straight from a cellar to finish the night. 



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