|
|
This is a memorial to those shot on the banks of the Danube by Arrow cross militiamen
"The Shoes on the Danube Bank is a memorial to honor the Jews who were killed by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest during World War II. They were ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away. It represents their shoes left behind on the bank.” https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8810/2...808b699e_b.jpgSara Pics-12 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8732/2...476f2f21_b.jpgSara Pics-11 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
Also as predicted it was a beautiful sunny day when we awoke. The plan today is to head 27 km south west to the moto24 shop where thanks to Dirk we had arranged for oil changes with just 1 days notice. We arrived at 9 and they were ready and waiting for us.
https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8619/2...c7762515_b.jpgScreen Shot 2016-07-29 at 21.37.22 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8632/2...657dff3d_b.jpgBudapest-2 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c5.staticflickr.com/9/8668/2...0dedfd70_b.jpgBudapest by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
That done we headed back north initially to Budakeszi in a fair amount of traffic.
https://c6.staticflickr.com/9/8671/2...73411bd8_b.jpgScreen Shot 2016-07-29 at 21.36.30 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Once we started towards Pilisszentkereszt it thinned out. https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8621/2...2f08493e_b.jpgSara Pics-19 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Finally you enter the park and the road was narrow and winding thru the trees. At Esztergom you hit the Danube again and we ran south along it to the village of Visegrad where you can get the ferry across for about 4 E each. It runs every hour and was just returning to our side when we pulled up. It is a barge pulled across the strong current of the river by a tub boat and so not a true ferry in that sense. https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8275/2...15e1f76c_b.jpgScreen Shot 2016-07-29 at 21.38.02 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8871/2...17848f70_b.jpgSara Pics-21 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
On the other side you arrive to the village of Nagymaros and then follow the river on the other bank for a while before heading north east to Felesotold our destination near to Holloko.
https://c3.staticflickr.com/8/7541/2...480f9359_b.jpgScreen Shot 2016-07-29 at 21.38.37 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr On the way you pass hundreds of fields of corn and sun flowers. https://c7.staticflickr.com/8/7602/2...07a468b6_b.jpgSara Pics-20 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c5.staticflickr.com/9/8675/2...e34aaf72_b.jpgSara Pics-22 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7499/2...27bb1726_b.jpgHungary-7 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c4.staticflickr.com/9/8162/2...cc0e2cf7_b.jpgHungary-5 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
This small village in the hills has many of the old traditional style Hungarian houses in the ancient part of town and at the base of the hill where the castle sits.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7482/2...ba011350_b.jpgSara Pics-23 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c4.staticflickr.com/9/8640/2...8d2e8ef7_b.jpgSara Pics-24 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
From near to Holloko we went south a short way and then east and into the parks.
https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8687/2...82f167b5_b.jpgScreen Shot 2016-07-29 at 21.40.46 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Part of the route we took was an unmarked crossroad thru the trees. We saw mostly people fishing and picking mushrooms. The road was paved once and is still pretty good, but just off the centre track it is deep bog and very slippery. https://c6.staticflickr.com/9/8860/2...73ec292b_b.jpgSara CC by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8748/2...4a4d0723_b.jpgHungary by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Feel like your going Mad sometimes? https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8429/2...1defb33d_b.jpgSara CC-2 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
Once we got back to the more major road we knew we were on the right track since there was a steady stream of Saturday bikers coming towards us. Also when you get to some intersections there are big signs that say bikers this way with an arrow. The best part of the road was after Sirok and until Lillafured thru the Bukki Nemzeti Park. This is a great narrow curvy road thru a dense forest.
https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8531/2...761a5345_b.jpgScreen Shot 2016-07-30 at 20.38.46 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr From here we routed thru Miskolc and to the wine region around Tokaj. Wine has been made here since BC, but its fame is mostly because of Tokaji aszú wine, the world's oldest botrytized wine. “Noble rot is the beneficial form of a grey fungus, Botrytis cinerea, affecting wine grapes. Infestation by Botrytis requires moist conditions. If the weather stays wet, the damaging form, "grey rot," can destroy crops of grapes. Grapes typically become infected with Botrytis when they are ripe. If they are then exposed to drier conditions and become partially raisined this form of infection brought about by the partial drying process is known as noble rot. Grapes when picked at a certain point during infestation can produce particularly fine and concentrated sweet wine.” https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8149/2...49c4ab87_b.jpgHungary-6 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
Then we rode south west to the small town of Tiszadob. To get here you had to cross the river on a small cable ferry. We stayed in a traditional Hungarian house with a straw roof.
https://c5.staticflickr.com/9/8701/2...fc42eff9_b.jpg https://c4.staticflickr.com/9/8627/2...9914db5e_b.jpgSara CC-3 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c2.staticflickr.com/9/8836/2...ea9a07a1_b.jpgHungary-3 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8879/2...72506a75_b.jpgHungary-4 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Hungary is a nice country. It is very clean. The people are friendly and the drivers are very courteous. They have Goulash which is very delicious!! "Goulash is a soup or stew of meat and vegetables, seasoned with paprika and other spices. Originating from the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, goulash is also a popular meal in Central Europe, Scandinavia and Southern Europe" |
Today the mission is to get to Transylvania (Timisoara) and so we booked it south in eastern Hungary to get to Gyulac and the Romanian border. These may look like highways, but they are secondary roads with very little traffic until you hit the A1 after Arad.
https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8274/2...f3f8f655fa.jpgScreen Shot 2016-08-04 at 18.32.37 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c4.staticflickr.com/9/8199/2...6590082c_b.jpgSara CC-4 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
You pass the old and defunct Hungarian border control booths and then pass the welcome to Romania sign before you get to the new border controls. Despite both Hungary and Romania being in the EU there is passport control for the Schengen zone, which Romania is outside of. So not sure why the Hungarian official wanted the bike title, but she did and they exit stamped the passports of course. For Romania they stamped us in, but did not care about the bike papers, and neither wanted to see our green card insurance. They were quite keen to look at our route map on the pannier and all the country flags.
https://c6.staticflickr.com/9/8899/2...58b61ae4_b.jpgSara CC-5 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c2.staticflickr.com/9/8683/2...033894c6_b.jpgSara CC-6 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Entering Romania at Arad there are a lot of grand avenues and buildings. We continued from here onto Timisoara. https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8599/2...05c8ac5a_b.jpgSara CC-7 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
Our destination is Oravita only 110 km away, but of course we made a 360 km loop out of it to get to and ride along the Danube.
https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8727/2...6883ee37_b.jpgSara CC-9 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8614/2...af119f2e_z.jpgScreen Shot 2016-08-02 at 21.15.39 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr We booked it south on the main road to get to Orsova. From here we looped west along the Danube. https://c6.staticflickr.com/9/8887/2...9c972076_b.jpgSara CC-8 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
On the way there is a huge rock sculpture.
“The rock sculpture of Decebalus is a 42.9 m in height and 31.6 m in width carving in rock of the face of Decebalus, the last king of Dacia, who fought against the Roman emperors Domitian and Trajan to preserve the independence of his country, which corresponded to modern Romania. The sculpture was made between 1994 and 2004, on a rocky outcrop on the river Danube, at the Iron Gates, which form the border between Romania and Serbia. It is located near the city of Orșova in Romania.” https://c2.staticflickr.com/9/8601/2...bcce98b5_b.jpgRomania-10 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c2.staticflickr.com/9/8157/2...f438f95b_b.jpgRomania-11 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
We turned not again at Moldova Veche and here the road is a good windy mountain crossing in dense forest. This is the first country we have been in that the GPS routing is a real problem. Despite putting waypoints on your road of choice the Montanas just will not route. It is weird especially since the road signs clearly indicate that This way is the correct path to your destination. Because of this we were thankful for the paper map and road signs.
The “one horse” town or Oravita is old school Soviet era buildings. https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8572/2...29935a79_b.jpgRomania by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr The forecast has gone from nice all week to rain and thunder for the next 2 days. This will require some alteration to the plan as we do not want bad weather for the Transalpina and Transfagarisan roads. |
Today it was almost a straight shot east from Oravita to Novaci at the base of the Transalpina road.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8607/2...3f31aef9_b.jpgScreen Shot 2016-08-02 at 21.17.35 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr The first part is on a narrow windy mountain road. It was a bit drizzly and fairly foggy, but at least there was little traffic. This goes thru the Cheile Nerei-Beusnita National park. https://c5.staticflickr.com/9/8733/2...f5becce0_b.jpgSara CC-11 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8765/2...94a3304f_b.jpgSara CC-12 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr You then hit the main road for 20 km and take the road to Targu Jiu. The GPS will not route this way for some reason. This is also a small windy road thru the Domogied-Volea National Park, which has a lot of thermal springs.The road then crosses more farm like lands and you get to the Carpathian foothills. https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8372/2...b4c07fc2_b.jpgSara CC-13 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8600/2...8b87a93b_b.jpgSara CC-14 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8676/2...f5c45ca3_b.jpgSara CC-15 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7469/2...8b67de8e_b.jpgSara CC-16 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
| All times are GMT +1. The time now is 05:08. |
|