Heading back towards the UK has left us with mixed emotions. During our time on the Continent we have seen so much and ticked off several boxes on our bucket list however as we have been riding for five weeks we are a little tired.

We have a week to ride back to Felixstowe to drop off the bike before the next part of our holiday. As we have travelled through this part of Europe on several occassions we have tried to include some places that we haven't been to before as well as a revisit a couple of places that we haven't been to for a very long time.

After leaving Budapest we headed towards Keszthely, a town on the edge of Lake Balaton. According to my friend (google) this freshwater lake in western Hungary has 197km of shoreline and is the largest lake in Central Europe. We noticed most of the towns along the shore have names that include Balaton - such as Balatonfured where we stopped for lunch.

Unfortunately today was not the best viewing day for lake scenery as it rained continuously since leaving Budapest. We did get glimpses of the lake through trees but there were almost no photo opportunities - sorry. We did take a couple of wet, not so happy snaps of Keszthely when we wandered through the puddles to get some dinner!

We woke on Wednesday morning to the tragic news that a tourist boat had capsized on the Danube in Budapest last night after being hit by a larger boat. Seven South Korean tourists were dead, 21 missing and only seven survivors. Having been on a similar boat only a two days earlier, we thanked our lucky stars that it was not us. R.I.P to those who lost their lives.

Our next day was much drier thankfully, as we headed back into Austria to Graz. We had no real reason to visit this city - one of those stays on the way to somewhere else! We did manage a delicious Chinese meal for dinner, found a Louis Motorcycle Accessory shop to wander about and buy some chain lube and also used the local car wash to get the grime of the wet rides off the bike - it will surely go faster now without the dirt!

Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic was next. We first visited this beautiful 13th Century town in 2007 on our first motorcycle tour of Europe. At that time we had no idea that vehicles were not allowed into the Old Town so we just rode in. We quickly realised our error and before we were asked to leave by the police, we rode out of town - seeing nothing! Better educated this time we booked in to a pension about 500m from the old town so we could actually see the sites.

Cesky Krumlov is bisected by the Vltava River - the same river that runs through Prague. The town is promoted as one of the most picturesque towns in Europe - who are we to argue with the experts! The State Castle is the main tourist attraction and is a mixture of architectural styles. It has a huge garden and 17th century theatre. Tourists can wander through the castle precinct and the views from the Stone Bridge are beautiful.

The river was busy with kayakers and small boats moving quickly down the river with the tide. After wandering through the small streets and having a look at St Vitus Cathedral we settled in for dinner by the river. Many bridges cross the river and every street has its own museum or gallery.

Happy with our visit we wandered back to our pension to plan the next few days on our return to Blighty.

*Blog of the Day 7