Round the World in 80 Ways

Hungary 13th June 2012

Waking in our Slovakian Pension to the soft patter of rain falling in the courtyard outside told me that it was going to be a wet ride today. The Pension Oaza was a total surprise in that it was quite a swish place with a good restaurant decked out in an African theme of palm trees and bongo drums and a good chef to round it off with. The owner greeted us in the morning as we packed the bikes telling us that breakfast was available...... at McDonalds just a kilometre from the pension - we politely declined breakfast and set off in the cold rain.

Slovakia is a lovely country with rolling green hills and small mountains and I am sure it would look even better bathed in sunlight than the low level cloud that we were seeing today. The ride south was uneventful (no kamikaze cars, lorries or sheep today) and we soon found ourselves at the Hungarian border where we bought ourselves a vignette allowing use of certain roads in the country - no vignette can mean a hefty fine.

Hungary differed from Slovakia in many ways aside from the money (Forints) and the language. In Slovakia the journey would be slowed by reaching a village every couple of miles or so whereas in Hungary there seemed to be towns and then nothing other than long straight roads over flat terrain between them. The major difference for us today was the parting of the clouds to reveal sunshine and blue sky which started to cheer us up.

By 5 o'clock we were getting tired and hungry ( we hadn't eaten a thing all day) so we found a hotel in the town of Bekescsaba in the south of the country. The Hotel Fiume was built in the 1890's and looked far too grand for us but a quick check with the receptionist had us in for a twin room at 12000 forints (about £36) including breakfast and free WiFi.


Hotel Fiume, Bekescsaba

Showered and changed we took advantage of the changed weather and ate outside on the pavement terrace of the restaurant - 4 big beers and two huge helpings of Goulash (well you have to don't you !) set us back just £21 in total - we had to scurry around to find notes small enough to leave a tip !