Thursday & Friday in Bratislava

We have spent a lovely couple of days wandering around Bratislava.

On Thursday we slept till midday but were still quite tired. We had a huge lunch then sat by the Danube for a while, watching tiny shy lizards scamper back and forth when they thought we weren't looking. We then crossed the river via the covered walkway and sat on a bench under some shady trees to let our stomachs get on with some serious digesting (we were rushing so much on Wednesday we didn't have time to eat very well, so I think our stomachs were surprised to get food).

While on the 'other' side of the river, we paid a visit to the shopping centre. After a visit to the juice bar (where I had a custom combo of lemon, apple and ginger that might as well not have had the apple and ginger - very zingy and awakening, it's a good think I like lemons) Dgym showed me the way to the pet shop (he's been to Bratislava before) where we saw fish, bunnies, and most importantly, tiny tortoises feasting on pineapple chunks.

Outside the shopping centre is the ultimate playground - well, there's a normal kiddie playground and then there's an adventure playground with high wires, climbing wall, etc. I think you pay 50Sk to hire the safety equipment - there was a bit too much sunshine for comfort on Thursday but hopefully we will be able to do it on a cooler day.

Bratislava has city-centre wifi. Supposedly all three central squares (Main, Primatial, Frantiskanske) are covered but we could only get on in Frantiskanske - the networks seemed completely firewalled elsewhere. But there are always a few people sitting around with laptops, and it's really nice not to be the only ones!

On Friday I woke up two hours earlier than dgym, fully recovered, although he was still a bit knackered. So we decided on a nice relaxing trek around a museum (always surprisingly hard work). We'd been aiming for the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the History museum. Noting that it was called SNM (Slovak National Museum) we went for the first thing labelled as such, not realising that SNM is a group of museums. So we ended up in the Natural History museum instead, browsing a mammoth exhibition and a rock collection (not as extensive as the rock collection in the Prague museum).

We also had some pancakes on Friday. They tend to be filled with huge quantities of nuts, caramel, cream, fruit, etc. here. I think I'm more of a crepes-au-citron kind of person.

Wednesday: A long day of travelling

Today has been a crazy day of travel. When booking our trip to Bratislava, we discovered that direct flights there only go from Stansted, which is a real pain to get to. Our alternatives were either a 22-hour coach trip from London to Vienna, or flying from Gatwick to Prague and getting a 4-hour coach to Bratislava. We decided to go with the latter.

Flying was real fun. What with the current chaos in the UK, we had to get up at 7am to be at checkin three hours before our midday flight. The queues for security were huge, hardly surprising once you get there and have to remove your shoes, put them separately through the X-Ray scanner, undergo a body search, put your shoes back on and then have all your suspicious-looking items (laptops, baby milk, medicine, etc) scrutinised with various little machines and scanners. Our laptops turned out not to be terrorist equipment, thank goodness, so we were eventually able to board the plane, which took off about half an hour late.

Arriving late, and waiting ages for our bags to come through, resulted in the last bus leaving for Bratislava without us. Our backup option was to get the train.

If a Swiss person told you the Czech railways were a bit rubbish, you might not believe them. However, we are English, we know bad train systems when we see them, and we weren't very impressed with the Czech trains. Somehow the internet managed to lie to me and tell me that we needed to change trains at Pardubice, so we got on the Pardubice train at Prague. Our train sat outside Pardubice for about 20 minutes - we later learned this was most likely down to waiting for our connecting train to clear the platform. When we got into Pardubice, the clock said we'd missed it by 3 minutes but the info board seemed to think it was still hanging around and delayed by 10 minutes.

This station was particularly confusing in that it used two sets of numbers - as well as the platform numbers (1-4) it also had 'side' numbers (1-8) Each platform has two sides, I suppose a side is equivalent to a UK platform. It took us a while to figure that one out, it might have helped if they'd used two different numbering systems. We eventually found what might be our train on platform 4, side 1 - it had the right time and service number - but the lady on the platform told us it's going to Breclaw. In despair, we retreated to the ticket office and found out the time of the next train. We went to the platform and sat and waited. Now, the platforms have one display on each side. They tell you quite early on which platform your train will arrive (I suppose that is good) but once you're on the platform, no information is displayed until about a minute before the train gets in. That includes delays. You have to run back to the concourse for that. Our train was delayed for 20 minutes, we were on the platform so had no idea about this, and as our train's time came and went we got rather worried that it might have been and gone on another platform. Eventually, about 25 minutes after its due time, the info screen popped up to tell us that the train was arriving on this side and it was 20 minutes late. The train turned out to have come from Prague anyway. Never mind, eh?

However, to their credit, they do play charming little xylophone tunes before station announcements.

We reached Bratislava eventually at about 11pm. Not having a clue where in town we were, having no Slovak money, etc. but seeing some central-looking buildings in the distance, we headed for those. We eventually found our cash machine and a taxi and made our way to our dodgy student halls/summer hostel accommodation. Fortunately it was 24 hour check in. While waiting to be checked in, a Slovak girl waved at me and whispered the advice that "It's deessgaaahsting here". Well, we weren't expecting much for 10 quid a night and we've stayed in some pretty gross places. The room turned out to be not too bad. The bathroom and beds were clean, and those are the important bits. The bits inbetween are a bit shabby, just typical student halls stuff, and we try to avoid touching those bits - but it's only the third-skankiest place we've stayed in and at least we're not afraid to use the shower. :)

UK again

We arrived back in the UK about ten days ago, into the port of Harwich. Which, for a town which is supposed to be welcoming Scandinavian and Dutch travellers into the UK, is depressingly grim - it's not a pretty sight as you approach from the North Sea, nor is it any better once you disembark.

We met a German family while queueing for the ferry - loaded with brightly-coloured Ortlieb panniers, they were from Hamburg and used to make regular trips to Norfolk on the Hamburg-Harwich route, unfortunately it's now closed, so now they have to make the trip to Esbjerg first (although they had taken the train for that part).

The first thing we did on arrival in Harwich was to ride into town in search of our first curry in two months - with the help of a passer-by, we were successful and sat down to a light lunch of chicken jalfrezi and vegetable balti.

On the train home (yes, we got the train - there is a slight obstruction in between Harwich and Surrey, and it's called London) we met another cyclist, Ed, a student who was on his way back from a four-week trip from Calais to Amsterdam. He'd been camping with a mate and, as students do, they had been living off a rice-and-tuna based concoction for pretty much every meal. He'd also previously been on a cycling trip to Norway, which he said was fantastic. Norway's on our list of places-to-go, but moreso on our list of places-to-go-when-we're-rich, the tuna-and-rice lifestyle is not for us.

We parted ways at Liverpool Street station, and dgym and I set out upon a hot, noisy, busy and smelly trip across London. A real shock to the system after the deserted lanes of Denmark. We got on our train at Waterloo and were greeted with the typical UK grumpiness we had missed so much when the guard started frowning at dgym's trike and warning us "that area's meant for three bikes, not one, you'd better make sure you fit within the yellow line" (of course two hours later the whole train would be packed out with sweating commuter bodies and that would be just fine...)

We had a fantastic curry for dinner that evening, and since getting back, we've managed to catch up on a few of the things we've been missing...


So, what happens next?

We're off to Bratislava/Vienna in a couple of weeks, no bicycles so it's not strictly a bike hippy trip but no doubt you'll hear about it anyway. Inbetween now and then, we'll be getting the bikes ready for the next big trip, buying a tent that's big enough for dgym (we are currently arguing over the Vaude Taurus Ultralight and the Terra Nova Laserlarge) and maybe taking a short trip to test everything out.

After Bratislava, we will be spending some time in Dorset on family business, and in late September sailing off to Spain for our autumn/winter trip.

Denmark

hel

On Sunday we left Poland, a little earlier than planned as we'd got a bit tired of the mozzy swatting (a few still managed to get in despite our ingenius contraption) and the heat - although this did mean leaving behind mountains of cheap enormous juicy cherries, and piles of moist delicious cake. Our ferry left at 10pm from Swinoujscie, so we decided to leave our room in the morning and cycle into Germany for one last Eiscafe experience.

This one contained chocolate and vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce, topped with two truffles:




This is Eis und Heiss - vanilla ice cream separated from a layer of warm sour cherries by an insulating biscuit layer:



The ferry cabin was cheap, not particularly comfortable but we got a reasonable night's sleep until we were brutally woken at 7am by the announcement that we'd be arriving in an hour and a half, and breakfast was available in the cafe. All excited to wake up in a new place, I jumped out of bed and headed for the decks - on the left you could see the coast of Denmark, with a line of wind turbines queuing up to greet us, and on the right hand side was the huge Oresund bridge from Copenhagen to Malmo, with Sweden in the distance. We're not planning on visiting Sweden in the near future (too expensive), but it was nice to wave at it all the same.

Copenhagen seemed like a pleasant city, lots of nice watery bits and the busiest part seemed to be the cycle lanes. We only really stopped to get money, a map and some pastries but it's probably worth a longer visit at some point when we can afford Danish prices. The pastries were lovely - as well as the familiar fruity-centered wonders you get in England, there are also pastries featuring sesame seeds, poppy seeds and honey. And Danish money is awesome - when you have coins with holes in, that seems like a good enough reason not to adopt the Euro.

Our first day cycling in Denmark wasn't so good, we ended up on a cycle path along a noisy main road from Copenhagen to Roskilde. We weren't in the best of spirits by the time we reached Roskilde, so decided to stop for the night, use the tent for its intended purpose, and head for the town campsite. The campsite was very pretty, on the shores of Roskilde Fjord, you could see the town across the water. It was quite a cramped night as dgym is a bit too long for the tent, but it was lovely to wake up and look out over the water. We also got online that evening and booked our ferry home for two days later - Denmark is about as expensive as England so we can't really afford to stay for long.

On our second day we took the train from Roskilde, taking us away from the island of Sjaelland, across the island of Fyn, and to Kolding, in the east of the Jutland mainland. Getting on the train was a bit of an ordeal - we were warned beforehand that we'd have to disassemble dgym's trike so we spent 45 minutes doing this on the platform before the train arrived, during which we managed to use most of the useful bits and pieces we had with us (cable ties, duct tape, string, luggage straps). We arrived in Kolding about 4pm and spent most of the evening getting to Vejen, by means of lots of pretty little lanes winding through farmland - it was a really lovely afternoon's cycling. We arrived at the campsite in Vejen very hot and grubby and were immediately directed to a restaurant which was about to close but would feed us if we hurried. So we showed up at the restaurant hot and grubby and smelly, freshened up and then had a lovely meal. We got back to the campsite just in time to put up our tent before darkness fell.

On the Wednesday we woke at about 6:30am, eventually decided we weren't going back to sleep, got up, packed and left about 8:30 loaded with fresh water and peanut cookies from the campsite shop, with the aim of getting to Esbjerg for our 7pm ferry. We did pretty well, reached Esbjerg about 1pm and found a Spar and a shady spot, just as the midday heat was threatening to roast us alive, our water levels were very low and we were in need of some lunch (we went a very long way without seeing a shop or pub). We lurked in shady spots all afternoon before boarding the ferry.

We've had a lovely couple of days cycling in Denmark - we've seen hills and flats, fields of wheat, woodland, heathland, cows, horses and lots of butterflies. In many ways it's similar to the Netherlands - a good and well-used cycle network, friendly people who speak incredibly good English, quite expensive, lots of farmland - however, Denmark is hillier and the landscape is more varied, making for more interesting cycling.



dgym

Ordering the ferry tickets back to the UK was done via the internet using my phone - not a very cheap thing to do at all, which explains my panicked state at the time. This is how we ended up with tickets for the Wednesday 19:00 sailing from Esbjerg - which was only four days cycling away. It isn't possible to cycle from one port to the other anyway, you have to get the train over one of the bridges as they didn't bother with a cycle path along the motorway, we just got on the train a little earlier than we had to, and didn't get off quite as soon as we could have. The bridge is 20km across and we were on the train for 200km, but at least we were in a good position to get to our ferry on time.

There was a small problem with taking my trike on the train, the lady at the ticket desk actually came out to look at it and I explained which bits I could take apart and the final decision was that if I disassembled most of it it would probably be ok but it was up to the conductor in the end. So we went to the platform and I spent half an hour taking the front wheels and the seat off and making the trike shorter as well. When the train arrived there wasn't even a hint of a problem from the conductor, and there was plenty of room for the trike in its road going state, but never mind.

By the time the train had arrived in Kolding and I had put everything back together again it was gone four o'clock and we set out for Vejen which was another 20km away. This turned out to be one of the best bits of cycling that I can remember. The sky was perfectly blue but the sun wasn't unbearable and the terrain was varied with some challenging enough hills. The countryside was really beautiful and there were plenty of horses, sheep and cows to see along the way. In a way it was a bit of a shame as it was very similar to England, and it reminded me of how good England would be for cycling if it didn't have such a car problem.

We arrived in Vejen quite late, but one nice thing about camping is that this isn't a problem - there was still plenty of room. One problem in Vejen is that it has 5 pizza/kebab shops and no restaurants, even a friendly local didn't know where a restaurant was, and was quite sure there wern't any left. Luckily the lady at the camping ground knew of one and kindly phoned to check that they were open, which they were but only for the next 20 minutes. So it was a mad dash for food that turned out to be thouroughly worth it - I almost wept when I discovered that the vegetables were lightly curried - followed by another mad dash to get back to the campsite and put up the tent before the sun went down. We made it with about 5 minutes to spare.

Souvenirs

Dear readers,

Those of you who know us personally will be pleased to learn we have been souvenir shopping, and bought a number of these:



Unfortunately, they ran out so you won't all get one. Fortunately, they had plenty of these left:



so everybody should be happy one way or another. You can always swap.

Lots of love,
Hel & Dgym
xxx