11 September Hainburg – Bratislava - Lipot

Super wind NNW and I did easily 85 km. The previous fights with the Eastern winds finally pay off. The weather has changed though. In the night long and heavy showers, but by 9 a.m. it is dry and at 11 the sun breaks through the clouds. But it stays around 20 degrees.

I bike towards Bratislava and on my left I see a typical high-rise suburb of a former central European city. The colors from orange to yellow, pink and light blue and high-rise apartment buildings. ‘Plattenbau’ from former Russian design and make. I remember my work in Kiev, where we retrofitted three of these buildings 15 years ago.

Then I pass the formerly hermetically closed borders between East and West. The oh so typical brown windows in the grim looking buildings, where you had to wait for hours sometimes a day, if you wanted to pass. Now these are the standing skeletons of the past.

I pass through Bratislava and continue in the direction of Gyor (Hungary). At the Slovak – Hungarian border I reach Rajka. It has only taken me 2 hours. 

The European union Interreg Cross border program between the two Republics has connected the cycle paths since one and half year. The design is a bit overdone if you consider the amount of traffic. Less than a car per minute passes.

The villages on the Hungarian side become friendlier. The gardens are better kept and everything is just a little more ordered. Of course I’d like to know why, but the people can’t tell me.

No Couch surfing reactions from Gyor, so at 4 p.m. I decide, I am going to check into this pension. They have WIFI and the room is nice.

Some villages suffer from eager politicians, trying to launch their village onto the European stage. I see two new laid out neighborhoods. Everything, including the street lighting is there. But will the houses come? If they do, they tend to be American style, big one story and with a grass yard.

I find a good pension in the nice looking village of Lipot. Wifi, dinner everything is there. In the evening sun I do the first maintenance on my bike. I oil the chain and brackets, pedals and lock. My Koga keeps up very well. Tomorrow I’ll see what I will do. Just to Gyor or maybe all the way to Visegrad. The weather and wind will decide for me.