We had an amazing journey across the whole of Slovakia today. The roads were perfect motorbike roads with sweeping bends and long straights. Our route took us over mountains and through pine forests and small rural communities. As we travelled Colin said that journeys such as this one should be bottled to remember. I said that perhaps a helmet cam would be good to record these experiences but Colin felt that it was the whole sensory experience that he wanted to keep, the smell of the forests, aromas from road side restaurants, the wind and the feel of the road surface was what was making the whole experience.
The difference between riding along rather than driving along is immensely different, when riding you are totally in the landscape and part of it, to the extent that the smell of cut grass alerts you to the fact that there is a grass cutter or tractor trimming hedges or edges long before you come across it.
We have encountered some wildlife today; two deer in the middle of the road as we rode through one forest and a calf sauntering across the road in front of us at one point!
We stopped for lunch after crossing over the border into Hungary, Colin enjoyed a ceaser salad curtesy of Tesco!
Last night whilst talking with Nina, she couldn't understand why we were spending so little time in each country we tried to explain that we enjoyed the touring aspect and wanted to continue to do these tours whilst we still could but also by visiting the many different countries that we have already done and have still to do on this trip we are discovering places that we want to go back to and spend longer; Slovakia is most definitely a country that we will re visit and spend time exploring more fully it is truly stunning. If you imagine the mountain regions of Switzerland/Austria/ France but at a fraction of the cost then that is Slovakia.
Well our journey continued to be interesting taking us once more along country roads past acres of arable land much of which has already been harvested and some ploughed. I think Hungary must provide the highest percentage of sunflower seeds as many of the acres we past were filled with dwarf sunflowers!
We stopped at one point to question our direction and then found ourselves travelling along side the Danube and having to take a ferry across to the town of Visegrad-not what my google maps had said!
The view of the castle from the other side of the river was quite amazing. We had 40 minutes to wait for the ferry so it seemed rude not to sit in the riverside bar and have a beer