Day 25, Gyor to Esztergom, Hungary, 108 km

Half way point!

Today we turned the corner and half done with the trip.

It rained on us again last night, so we packed up wet gear again. Today we left the Danube and rode cross country. The villages were small, roads primitive, and road signs few and far between. At one point we got hopelessly lost and had to ask a farm wife for help. She was quite helpful, though she didn’t speak a word of English or German. She got one of her teenage kids to help, who was studying German.

Another time Joc said he spotted marijuana and we had to investigate. Jon, our gourmet chef was able to clue us in - it was wild hemp and not the real stuff.

We found a lot of the heavy industrial factories had shut down and abandoned…moved to China. Many of the towns had new industrial parks with electronics factories moving in. The country side is a lot like Germany and France, just smaller farms. The big castles and cathedrals we saw in Germany and Austria are mostly gone. Also gone are the smooth bike paths...I really need a mountain bike for many of the beater roads and paths.

Coming out of a town after our lunch, four of us were going over a rough section of road and Terry bumped a curb and did a fall into tall grass. Since he is a big guy, he hit hard on his elbow and knee. For a moment we feared this was our fourth accident with broken bones. After five minutes, Terry shook it off and insisted on finishing the ride. He was lucky, getting only bruises and hurt pride…a tough guy who is determined to ride every inch.