We arrived by train in Pecs, Hungary, without much of a map of southern Hungary. Well, we had a photo of a map, saved on my camera. So between the small city of Pecs, and the next small city of Mohacs, we saw a lot of bad roads, dirt roads, and grass tracks. The evening we emerged from the train, the light was soft. We set out to avoid the nasty main road, and asked a handful of people for directions. We were surprised that the older generation spoke German, fluently. This helped, because Hungarian is really foreign. Really foreign. We cycled by huge fields of sunflowers and wheat. We cycled up a hill - lots of small hills- and into a hilltop weekend village. I can't even describe my delight: a tiny dirt road lead us past little houses, with neatly tended front gardens. There were cherries on the trees, apricots, apples. A teenage boy rode by on a horse, a woman with a red headscarf watched us from her porch. The sun was setting and the air was cool. If this isn't summer perfection, I don't know what is.
The next day we took some wrong turns, and we even cycled once through a field of straw being harvested, to be turned back by a laughing farmer with little teeth. [No road this way he seemed to be saying. You crazy idiots|.
We met up with the Danube in Mohacs, were we took a ferry. No bridge to the other side. Heading towards the Serbian border, we saw another cross country biker. In one week, he's the only cyclist we have seen on the Danube trail. Hmm. Is it because the temperature is 37 degrees celsius? Could be.
Both Michal and I agreed we could do a whole different cycle trip, just within Hungary.
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