Unmapped Escapades

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 Eastern Europe tells people who only have a few days to spend it in Bratislava. We didn’t come within 100kms of Bratislava and, still, Slovakia has been the unexpected gem of the trip.

My last post was about Poprad and its surroundings in the high Tatras. At that point, it was the highlight of our trip, but that was before we got to Banska Bystrica and Banska Stiavnica, a UNESCO world-heritage designated town that is not even mentioned in our guidebook.

Stiavnica is a mining town that was built on hillsides. It’s Bisbee, Eureka Springs, Pittsburg, and Krakow (with zero tourists) all rolled into one. If I had money to burn, I’d buy a 200-year-old building - there are quite a few in disrepair though the place is really trying - and make it into a B&B / mountain- and touring-bike travel agency. The hills, though I was literally and loudly cursing them yesterday and today, are the selling point. Vistas in all directions - forest on that hill, field of wildflowers on that one, a castle or cathedral on the hilltop over there. Around the next bend, you’ll ride through a herd of cattle crossing the road. Pictures? It’s not even worth it.

Speaking of pictures, we do have some of Bystrica and Stiavnica and yesterday’s ride between those two towns. However, we don’t have any of today’s ride, the one that I’m calling the best bike ride I’ve ever done. Why was it the best? 80 of the 90kms from Stiavnica to the Danube were downhill, which was a huge relief after yesterday’s unexpectedly hellish ride (3 wicked hills, including the last 3 or 4kms into Stiavnica). Smooth roads, high clouds that kept the day cool, villages that defined “cute” and “quaint”, and those hilltop vistas I described above. Even better? We had no idea that today was going to be such a great day. We picked a combination of white-colored roads on our map (those are the smallest paved roads with the least traffic) and discovered paradise.*

Why don’t we have any pictures of such an epic ride? Three reasons. One: Pictures would not do it justice. Two: It’s a pain in the butt to stop and take out the camera when you’re riding, especially when you have a long way to go. Three: The double-A batteries here suck. Either they don’t work at all, or they last about an hour.

So, we’re in Estergom, Hungary, resting our bodies for another 60-70kms tomorrow. That will bring us into Budapest on exactly the right day. Our friends Genny and Annette are flying into Budapest tomorrow, and we have an apartment reserved for the next week.

Just so that I don’t leave the impression that biking with many, many pounds of sh*t (how well-disguised is that curse word?) in a basically mountainous country is all fun and games, following is the poem that Monica composed with about 20kms to go through southern Slovakia to the Danube. As we went south, the villages became poorer, the landscape became much less scenic, and our snacks disappeared. In the end, we derived our energy from potato chips and chocolate-filled croissants.

Riding through Slovakia, I’m in a famished mood.

The villages are cute and all, but don’t have any food.

I really want a burger with a side of tater tots.

Or a chicken-fried schnitzel, wrapped in bacon, lots and lots.

There’s one little shop that might have food. It’s hard to tell.

But the doors are shut and locked. On a Tuesday? What the hell?

There’s a place across the street with tables and some chairs.

I ask if they have food, but all I get are mean stares.

I rummage through my bag again to see if food is there,

But all I find are breadcrumbs and some dirty underwear.

When we cross the Danube, I’m going to find some meat.

Because only one thing’s certain: southern Slovaks do not eat!

* In case anyone’s wondering how we navigated our riding on this trip, it was pretty easy. We bought a road map of the entire country and we did our best to stay on the white-colored roads. Sometimes, we were forced to ride on the yellow or even the orange roads (as marked on our map), but those were usually short segments, and drivers gave us lots of room.

** Check out the last couple of posts. Pictures and hyperlinks should be updated. Pictures from this post will be up as soon as I get some good batteries.