Caio Eastern Europe and Hello Austria

The morning of the August 30th, we left Budapest for our last few days in Hungary

The ride outside of the city was lovely, with small communities and lovely river views traveling along windy bike paths and alongside small country roads. We made our way to a city called Estergrom, a VERY cool city. Seeped in old-world appeal with a towering basilica.
We took a stroll though the cobblestone streets and found the city was having a jazz and wine night, with a fairly awful Hungarian band and lovely local flavors around. We left when the band kicked it up a notch and made your ears really bleed (it took us about three songs to realize the singer was actually singing in English) and climbed up to the basilica where we found a lovely path through the wildflowers and caught the end of a magnificent sunset that set the sky above the river on fire.

The next two days took us into Kardomon and Lipot where we took the bike path across the river and rode in Slovakias’ country side. Nothing too worthy of mention, the ride was truly quite boring and the towns not too noteworthy. We did however discover that the water bottle holders on my bike can also fit a bottle of wine (strapped with a bungee cord for safely, of course). We finally made it to Bratislava, the sleepy capitol of Slovakia, where we devoured some fast food and took a nap in a park to avoid the midday heat. We rode out that evening and crossed into Austria.

Immediately, the entire trip changed. Rolling hills and mountains surfaced out of nowhere, and beautiful towns surrounded by small farm fields and vineyards. A beautiful paved bike route formed, and we started to ride with gaping mouths in awe of the splendor. After the arduous riding in Hungary, following highways and through poor rural communities, the rich atmosphere and cool mountain air was refreshing and absolutely delightful. We made our way to a little camping site. The next day we continued down the bike path, dotted with little hotdog stands and beer tents and fields of wildflowers and occasional glimpses of the Danube. If you think I’m making this sound too much like we entered the pearly gates of heaven… I’ve done a good job of describing this country.

Vienna. The city of Mozart, Freud, old Kaisers, chilled white wine, hot dogs and castles. The city, almost entirely destroyed during WW2 has been rebuilt to its former splendor with nothing held back. Huge buildings with ornate sculptures, fountains everywhere you look, modern bike lanes alongside high speed rails and horse drawn carriages. The city is teeming of old world splendor and modern high-class radiance. We both loved it.
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Leaving Eastern Europe was shocking and fascinating. A stark difference can be felt somewhere along the invisible border between the east and the west…. And damn, get out your pocketbook. Prices here soar several times higher than Eastern Europe, and I suppose, you get what you pay for.

Of all the lovely things about Vienna, perhaps the most celebrated moment of all was when we found the dude who fixed our computer.

This guy was a real story in himself:

We found the hole-in-the-wall computer repair shop next to the busy downtown. You were greeted at the door by a thick wave of cheap cigarette smoke and piles and piles of computer parts. There was a crude path visible through the junk that led to a strange chain-smoking, almost toothless, computer nerd. He spoke English with a thick-as-tar accent that bordered on pure vulgarity— the words he didn’t know in English he made up for with the vast amount of American cuss words he was fluent in. He continually referred to our computer as “he” and cursed all computer companies for their quality gouging (among the things he hated, you can include Norton anti-virus, IBM, cheap hard drives, super stores and apparently showering). Yet, he managed to work some computer magic and teased the programs and files off of the old corrupt hard drive and onto a new one. He tossed in an anti-virus protection and taught us how to make a backup start-up disk. The computer case still reeks of ciggy smoke, but hey, we have a laptop again!