May 26, 2013

Komárom to Esztergom 57 km, 1163 km total
14C cloudy

El Greco Kávéház, Galéria és Vendégház 
(El Greco Cafe Art Gallery & Guesthouse / http://www.elgrecocafe.hu)
Double ensuite 12820 HUF ($57) per night
Triple ensuite apartment 18630 ($83) HUF per night
.......Including breakfast



What About the Largest Fortress in Eastern Europe?

Breakfast was pretty decent, cheese omelets, fried eggs with bacon were added to our customary fare. No dark bread though.  

Junko and Hiro must have read up on the Fort Monostor. "It is a very important fortification", Junko said with the hope that we all would be as enthused as she was. I waited for reaction of everyone else. We had already discussed stopping at the Fort when we rode near it the day before and unanimously agreed not go. Now it would take over an hour back track AND visit. We had about a 60km day planned which is longer than our usual target of 50km. And, the weather was uncertain. I felt we should skip it. Yolan was on the fence and pulled up a photo of the fort on her Nexus. And Dave figured that just being 'biggest' was not a good selling point, especially for a relatively young (1850-71) fort. He checked the distance and route on our phone so everyone would understand where we needed to go if we went. He wanted to skip it too..... and we did skip it.


 
Komárno on the Slovakian Side of the River

We crossed back over the Danube to the Slovakian side of the river where the town is called Komárno. The bikeline route map led us past a church with a lovely town center and pedestrian mall. This would have been a neat place to spend the night. Dave led us past a less historic fort on this side of the river then into several dead end streets.

Soon we recovered the cycle route and entered the gravel path on the dyke. Barriers with openings for cyclist appear every 500 meters or so. It was tough and slow going on the loose gravel. It was scenic with lots of wildflowers in the fields and several horse ranches. 

 
The Donau remained just out of sight behind continuous groves of riverfront trees. 

 
Roman Camp Ruins of Kelemantia

And after about 5 km we passed the Kelemantia, an important archaeological site where a Roman military camp stood from the 2nd to the 4th centuries. This Roman settlement measured 175 x175m and had 20 towers and 4 gates. We saw some piles of stones and markers indicating where we would have seen towers or gates if we would have ridden by here 1700 years ago. It is very impressive if you use your imagination.

 

Moca Means Purple Poppies (Not a Coffee Flavor)

Soon after this site, we were able leave the rough cycled route early and connect to main smoothly paved road. Car traffic was light and the pedaling easy. Just before Moca, we came across a huge field of purple poppies the likes of which none of us had ever seen before. Incredible! Of course we had to stop and take a closer look.

Soon we passed small vineyards and we hoped in vain to find a small farm selling local wine. (Nope)



Basilica Beacon  

From the small town of Mužla, we spotted the imposing Basilica above Esztergom guiding us like a beacon. 45 minutes later, we pulled up across the river from it in Stúrovo for an even better view from across the river.


 
El Greco Art Cafe

After we crossed the bridge we quickly found El Greco Cafe Art Gallery and Guesthouse. The door was locked and no one was home. We called on the phone and couldn't get through. We didn't know if we should call using the long prefix or assume the cell phone knew our location and would fill it it in. We’d get a few rings then it would click off. So we waited. The landmark ruins at the foot of the famous domed Basilica leaned out from the cliff side above El Greco.
 
45 minutes after we arrived, the spunky elderly owner pulled up in his car to let us in. We parked the bikes on the inside terrace. And after we were shown to our lovely and spacious rooms, the owner made us some fantastic coffee. He is a painter and has expositions in the Cafe/ Gallery. Several of his own paintings hung around the cozy rooms as well. Sadly, communication with him was a bit trying; he spoke only Hungarian with only a smidgen of German. After he served us the gourmet coffee, he demonstrated how to run the beer tap on the bar. Then he motioned to a tip jar. We suspected he meant we could help ourselves to beer and just put our payment in the jar…. Or not…. The El Greco Café was closed and did not open during our two day stay.

We were very pleased with our rooms and Dave and I shared a large studio apartment with Yolan. Hiro and Junko had the next room, a nice size double. We relaxed until dinner time. Dave went out to explore.


 
Faded Glory

....At dinner time, we went to two doors down to the recommended restaurant but he was closing for the evening as we arrived. Dave led us around town to the other places he had scoped out; pizza, Chinese, many bar cafes, serving beer and hamburgers. During our hunt, we got a grand tour of Esztergom and it's neglected rundown buildings, newish looking high school, revamped and modernized central plaza. It is an odd mix of old classical buildings and new. This once was a very important Capital and one writer described Esztergom by saying "...there is a certain charm in the faded glory of the past.’ It struck us as an apt observation.

And, finally, we got to Restaurant Mediterráneo, one of the fancier places in town. Dave and I ordered soup and salad and split a lamb shank. It was the perfect amount of food since the portions were large.

 

May 27, 2013
 
Ezstergom Day Two

A nice breakfast was served to us by an elderly woman in the El Greco Café. We assumed she was the gentleman’s wife. She didn't speak English, Dutch, Japanese or German either.

We were a bit surprised to hear Hiro's and Junko’s plan to visit the Visegrad Castle by bus. We had a full day with only the Basilica on our agenda in Esztergom. Sure there are other churches and a handful of museums, but the Basilica is the only ‘must see.’


 
Side Trip to Visegrad Castle (29km)

The "I" on our map was not the tourist information office we've become accustom to but a travel agency. We went in anyway. The woman was kind and answered all our questions about how to get to Visegrad Castle and soon we were standing on the curb near the bank waiting for the bus to Budapest via Visegrad.
 
Visegrád is famous for the remains of the early Renaissance summer palace of King Matthias Corvinus (1440-90) of Hungary and the medieval citadel. It is near a dramatic and extreme bend in the Danube where it ceases traveling east and flows due south. They call this the 'knee' because of the way it looks on a map. We wanted to get to the castle just for the views!

The bus left us off on the highway next to the Danube. We could see the Castle high up on the ridge. Yep, that is definitely a bicycle ride fit for masochists. We took a taxi to the top.

There were signs directing us to various stops along a self-guided tour of the castle. Most of the displays were about castle life, armor, torture, dress, etc.. The Upper Castle served for the safekeeping of the Hungarian royals between the 14th century and 1526. The sky was gray and the views were disappointing. But we could see far up and down the river valley!


 
Yolan is NOT 65 (Yet)

Our return taxi left us at the bus stand on main road by the river again. As we waited, we discussed seeing many people who didn't pay to get on the bus to get here. Dave remembered seeing on a Budapest website that those over-65 can ride free. Perhaps they have the same on these rural buses. Hiro and Michelle were going to give it a try. Michelle said ‘65’ and was waived on through by the driver. Hiro said ‘70’ and walked on. The driver called for Hiro to come back. He needed pay! Yolan didn't pay either. How, we asked? I just said “65”, why not?


 
Esztergom Basilica

As our bus arrived in Esztergom, we got out near the Basilica. The weather was not the best and it even started to rain lightly. We had planned to buy tickets for the observation cupola but the foul weather quashed that idea. One can also buy tickets to see the museum, crypts and the treasury. We did not. We were happy to visit just the main Basilica (free) to see the magnificent marble in the 72 meter high neo-classical chapel. This version of the Basilica was consecrated in 1856.


Hiro and Junko write:
 
Esztergom
西暦1000年にキリスト教に改宗した聖イシュトヴァーンの町。ドナウ河畔の丘の上に立つ古典的な列柱に支えられた壮大な大聖堂。祖先がアジア系のマジャール人(ハンガリー)がヨーロッパの列強に伍するためにキリスト教国にならざるを得なかったという。
今まで東西に流れていたドナウ河がここドナウベンドで南北に流れを変える。それを上から見る為にビシュグラードという町に行った。
山の上の城跡からドナウを見下ろす。私達がいつもしていることだ。この旅がドナウの流れと共に進んでいることを新たに想うのであった。

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References: 

....1) The Danube Cycle Way; Donaueschingen to Budapest by John Higginson
... 2) Bikeline Maps & Guides; Donau-Radweg 1, (5 books in the series)

Our plan in a nutshell; 2900 total kilometers at 50 km per day - 2 days riding for 1 day off for a total of 58 riding days & 90 total days - April to July, 2013 :)