In which Sid and Doris visit a neglected museum of urban transport and ride into Budapest
Well, riding into Budapest did feel quite epic even if the day itself was just a nice day on the road. Again, just as well we are not a few days earlier as the river is still up over the football field but not over our track.
Distance today 75 kilometres past the Visegrad castle and the knee of the Danube as it now flows South rather than East. The picture of Visegrad Castle is from below (#betterviewedfrombelow, ha ha). This is our picture, probably others are available from above.
After some serious planning in Esztergom Sid and Doris have Beograd in their sights. Look out Serbia. Istanbul would be the same distance again. It seems a lot.
Our day off was cunningly timed so today’s run into Budapest is on a Saturday and the van and truck traffic is light. Even though the road surface is as found we are less constrained in where we ride. This is a hot country and sometimes the tar is just pushed into great waves by the trucks. Shall I take the crest, or the kerb side. Then we find a new bike path alongside a dual carriageway and we breeze along as happy as Beaves. It also gave us a chance to ponder two unsolved mysteries. 1. What is this tree that is putting fluff all over the countryside achoo. And 2. Why do the Hungarians label some towns in Elvish.
The stop before Budapest is Szentendre, meaning St Andrew. This is utterly turned over to tourist farming. Paprika is an important part of local gastronomy and Miftah Bat wanted this picture.
There are no proper shops in any of the main streets. Somehow we mange not to buy a marzipan animal, biscuit press, or shapely bottle of local fruit ethanol. Having paused to get our bearings Sid prepares to set off, stands up, cleated in and with no momentum topples ingloriously to the floor. He is a moron with a bloody knee.
But there is good in the town. Cheese pie, fresh apricots and then an Urban Transport Museum with exhibits from times when Hungary stretched well into Romania. The station plan for Brasso (or Neustadt). We find a tricycle track tester. And steam engines, rolling stock, trams, pantographs and all the good things. Some restored and some just stored. In fact the town station itself looks like an exhibit. Next time we will go to the Retro Design Centre too.
(No idea why this was in the town transport museum but it is pretty damn’ cute so Doris took a photo. In fact it would certainly have been on the #virtualsouvenir list had it been for sale.)
Doris is always interested in old photographs in museums, and was pleased to find these two. The second is especially fine as you can hear the engineers conferring “Sandor, we need to fit more people into our buses.” “Well, just put another bus on top, how hard can it be? Do I need to think of everything?!”
Getting into Budapest is a little fiddly but there are lots of cyclists out. “Over there, see him, the bloke in blue, that’s our path” says Doris. The final ride in down the river gives the view of the parliament and Chain Bridge. It does feel a bit epic – but also the Hungarians have been busy building cycle paths recently so our guidebook’s warning that you have to “cope with Budapest’s heavy traffic” is reduced to a single taxi on the entire run-in.
This afternoon we found that the town is preparing for a long weekend to celebrate Pentecost. What better than a children’s folk dance festival? Actually we were delighted with their presentation and enthusiasm, not to mention the klezmer band. Groups have come from all over Hungary, oh yes. The last group we watch looks very Turkic.
Tomorrow we will leave Budapest before they all rush about and with the Pentecost holiday we get a quiet day on Monday too. Vorsprung durch Anstrengung.