Unmapped Escapades

If anybody’s still looking at this, I posted the last couple sets of pictures to Flikr. 
This set shows Banska Bystrica and Banska Stiavnica in Slovakia and the ride between those two towns.
This set shows Monica, Annette, Genny, and me in Budapest. 

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A pre-war apartment with 20-foot ceilings, 10-foot windows, 3 bedrooms, and a full kitchen.  Long, exploratory walks through the city.  Afternoon naps.  Evening beer gardens.  Renting a car to drive to the town of Eger and spend the afternoon wine-cellar hopping in the “Valley of the Beautiful Women,” trying to discover the best maker of [...]

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Shhh. Come a little closer. I’m gonna whisper it right in your ear.
“Slovakia.”
That’s it. Slovakia. Visit as soon as you possibly can. Right now, the Slovaks have it all to themselves, and the Vienna to Krakow to Budapest travelers are seriously missing out. Even our trusty (not!) Let’s Go [...]

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My handlebars creak. My warped wheel groans against the brakes on each rotation. My un-greased chain squeals.
Okay, so my bicycle doesn´t exactly weep, but it comes close to it, and so do I. My thighs burn. My shoulder bag is soaked in sweat. My body and mind are exhausted.
We´ve spent the last 2 days cycling [...]

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When we crossed the border from Lithuania into Poland, our Lonely Planet guidebook suddenly became obsolete, and our knowledge base, our bible, is now Let’s Go Eastern Europe. It’s a book that’s designed to blow you through Eastern Europe at a pace of about one country every 2 days. It points out the [...]

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A folk singer friend of ours tells a story about playing a series of gigs in Arizona, driving from one town to the next.  The towns were small, conservative, and boring, and as the band worked their way toward Phoenix, the big city became Eden in their minds.  On their final approach, a chant was [...]

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Yay!  We’re on the train, not the bus, which heightens the comfort level of the next 8 hours dramatically.  On the negative side, it also heightens the stress level as the bikes take up a lot of space between the seats.  There’s no tuckng them away underneath.  Just hoping wagon #2 stays relatively uncrowded.
This gives [...]

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Vilnius seems to be a city that is at ease with itself. It’s grittier, grungier, graffitied…er than the other major Baltic cities. Dress is down and personality is up. There’s a lot more laughter from alterna-chicks than clenched cheekbones of high-fashion vixens.
An example of the fun-loving Lithuanian personality (and the reason we’d [...]

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Monica’s parents visited Riga 6 years ago. Denis said that what he remembered of the city was that it was full of women wearing miniskirts, tight tops, and high heels. I say that he’s right. I also say that’s not the only thing that makes Riga a wonderful place.
Riga is alive. [...]

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The LP guidebook has begun the slow process of redeeming itself. The writer of the Latvian section gave stunningly glowing reviews of a town northeast of Riga called Cesis. “We just loved Cesis,” the section began. Well, the writer was right.
We got off the train in Cesis, with thoughts of riding our [...]

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