With a successful visa mission under my belt, I headed out of Vienna on the same road I came in on. With vague ideas of riding in a general easterly direction, ended up crossing the border into Hungary and came to rest in a small town called Györ. Before leaving Austria's capital, I'd noted with some surprise that I wasn't dead on my feet, or hanging by a thread from dog-tiredness as I should have been. Strangely a second-wind seemed to appear from somewhere. But of course it didn't last, and upon arrival at my destination for the night, didn't have enough oomph left to hunt out a cheapo' place to stay. This was borne out because I booked myself into virtually the first place I encountered. Looking back €45 was an enormous amount to spend on little old me, and had a twinge of guilt as the basic need was for somewhere just to lay down my weary head. But found some justification because I'd foregone a stoppover during the visa run, as well as wanting to reward myself for all that effort.
Even though the name of the hotel put me in mind of a lower-bowel replacement operation, The Klostram was a really nice place with heaps of character. Being shown to my chambers, discovered that the room was gorgeous, with a spotless bathroom and a huge walk-in shower. What heaven! No sooner did the bell-person leave me alone, stepped out of my kit and into the wet area in one motion. Turning the nozzle full-on. let gallons of cool-water run over my travel exhausted body and melted with the absolute sensuous feeling of getting clean again. Walking out of the bath-room after barely bothering to dry myself, threw the towel onto the nearest bed and lay back for a moment to reflect. I was tired (of course), and hungry (of course), but was refreshed and had the prospect of filling my immediate bodily needs in short order. The sun was shining and it looked a genuinely pretty resort town. I was
This is a shot of my room ...
And the corridor leading to it. Very decadant ... It just needed a stormy night and Vlad the impaler to appear.
Now for any of you who've ever done any long-distance travelling. Whether by bus, train or whatever, the usual routine's to get clean, grab a beer and then some tucker at the end of a days journey. The same procedure seems to be universal for most blokes, and certainly seems to be standard behaviour amongst the bike travelling fraternity. So from that, as there's nothing too exciting about any of what followed, won't bore you with what I ate and drank any further. Just rest assured, that I had a darned good feed and slept pretty well. I do always feel though, that staying in nice hotels on yer Jack-Jones is a bit of a waste. Before heading for the reception to check out next morning, surveyed my enormous room, with too much space and too many beds for my needs. Feeling a twinge of regret for people not with me, picked up my bags and left ...
But the day called and the road was waiting. It took little more than 10 minutes to get all my kit packed, fire up the Dakar and head out towards whereever it was that I was going. South and East I reckoned. A quick squizz at the map of Europe showed me that Budapest was kind of on my route. And in times past, had a hankering to visit this well known city. But a short time back in the saddle, told me the nights madness to get from France to Austria, had left me more of a fatigue deficit than I originally thought. I felt a need for yet more rest, and big cities often demanded heaps of what I was running short of ... energy. I had to go somewhere to recouperate for a day or two.
Again, don't feel it would be quite right to write reams about my next stoppover. Pecs was my next port of refuge ... another small Hungarian town. 'Ang on a minute, something's wrong! Oh ah, yeah, I know ... It's the word Pecs. It needs ... something. An accent, that's it! Let's try a .. Pécs. Yeah that looks much better. So I came to rest in this rather neat little place, that I knew nothing about. No travel guides to point me where, but had the luck to find one of the best hostels I've stayed in for ages. It was a bit of a haul to get up the stairs with my kit, but the bike was moved into the safety of the enclosed courtyard of the building, so there was no need to worry about it out on the streets. I can't actually remember the hostel's name. But I do tremember the guy that run it, who spoke rather excellent English, made a tasty fried egg for brekkie and went by the handle of Miklo'. He put me in mind of Shaggy from Scooby Doo, but ran a tight-ship. I'd say this hostel's gonna get a good rep' on the travellers website's, with this guy at the helm.
And once more will take a fast-track with this write-up, as it's not a really very exciting travel story. But I will say this before I close on this section. If any of you fancy going somewhere just a little bit different, that's not too exotic, not going to break the bank, and doesn't take too long to get there (by plane, that is). Then you'd do far worse than take a mini-tour of this rather pleasant country. The Hungarians themselves seem to be really nice people, they have some delightful little towns and it's a step off the normal beaten track of Western European countries, like France, Spain or Italy. So hey, hot-foot it to the travel agent, book a flight and maybe your first hotel only. Check out car-hire and if not too expensive, would do you a treat for getting about. A couple of days in Budapest, a nice little circuit to take in Györ and Pécs, and I reckon you'll be quite happy about it all. They seem pretty keen on motorbikes in that neck o' the Euro'-woods too, as just about everyone seemed to wave out a greeting. The roads are variable, but the one's I went on had plenty of interesting bendy bits, that were a good antidote for the hours of autoroute/autobahn riding a few days before. After three days in Hungary I left with a warm feel for the country. Maybe one day I'd go back ...
Garfields new riding position ... ready for the open road.
