August 2017 — 🚴🏼♂️ Central Eastern Europe
Florie and I are hobby cyclists, but in the summer of 2017 we stepped things up a notch and decided to embark on our first bike tour. She wanted to visit the Julian Alps in Slovenia, so we loosely planned a route in that general area. The trip would be spread over 3 weeks in August and September.
The plan was to start in Vienna where flights from Canada were cheapest and somehow make our way to the Slovenian village of Dovje, home to the infamous Vršič Pass. Originally we wanted bike up the coast of Croatia, but Florie developed bronchitis right before the trip so we replaced some saddle time with more sightseeing. We ended up travelling to Bratislava, Budapest, Zagreb, Rijeka, Ljubljana, and Dovje before looping back to Vienna again.
We wanted to have the option of staying longer in one place if we really enjoyed it or taking a train if we didn’t feel like riding that day. The flights were the only fixed part of our itinerary — we booked our accommodation a day or two in advance and everything else on the spot. Although this was technically an ‘unassisted’ tour, we would still be staying in Airbnbs (no camping) and making liberal use of trains and buses to help us get around. Our goal was to have a pretty laid-back combination of biking and sightseeing, since we weren’t sure how we would hold up after long back-to-back days in the saddle.
Of course, given our luck, we arrived at the same time as heat wave Lucifer, which meant that we saw afternoon temperatures of 32–35C for most of our trip. In all we spent just half of the 20-day trip on our bikes, covering a total distance of 443km. Despite all this, we still had an awesome time and came back eager to plan our next tour (which we did in Taiwan last October — writeup coming soon!).
Here’s how our trip unfolded (rides shown in red):
Days 1 & 2 — Vienna
Distance: 19km, climbing: 132m
We arrived in Vienna at 13:00, having left Toronto 16:30 the previous afternoon. Since we brought our own bikes with us, we decided to assemble them in the airport and leave the travel cases at VIE’s luggage storage facility (cost per day: €8).
It took us almost two hours to put the bikes together and load up our panniers, a process that was not helped by our lack of sleep. Our Airbnb in the centre of Vienna was a 19km ride away from the airport via a mix of gravel trails, quiet residential roads, and well-marked bike paths (there’s a dedicated path that goes all the way to the terminal!). Riding with panniers felt like the cycling equivalent of driving a minivan at first, but we got used to it pretty quickly.
We were supposed to ride straight to Bratislava the next day, but we slept in (thanks jetlag) so ended up staying an extra day in Vienna. We spent that extra day napping in a park, stocking up on granola bars (I introduced Florie to the wonders of Corny) and apple juice in preparation for the ride, and getting dinner at a surprisingly decent Vietnamese restaurant.
Day 3 — Vienna to Bratislava
Distance: 72km, climbing: 401m
With our jetlag mostly taken care of, we were ready to tackle the first leg of our trip—a 72km journey on the EV6 route to Bratislava along the Danube river.
We started a little later than expected (3 hours late, actually) and began weaving our way out of the city towards the gravel paths that follow the river. This first section of the route gave us plenty to look at as we were led alongside a strip of secluded nudist beaches, through a row of shiny natural gas storage tanks, and into a dense forest.
Just past the 27km mark, the EV6 makes a brief detour out of the forest to the village of Schönau an der Donau. There we found a snack bar, Hermis Radlertreff, catering specifically to cyclists with its own beer garden and bratwurst stand. It was the perfect place to grab some lunch and hide from the searing noon heat.
We re-joined the EV6 an hour later and continued our way east. The trail was flat and perfectly straight. stretching into the horizon flanked by a seemingly endless row of trees. The lack of any visual reference became disorientating, and Florie kept asking how far we had left to go every few minutes. It felt like we were in a dessert. With the sun now at its peak and a temperature of 32C, we found ourselves constantly stopping for water and juice. At this point, we weren’t having fun and really just wanted the day to be over.
An eternity later (it was actually only 22km), we finally reached a bridge and crossed the Danube towards the village of Hainburg an der Donau. This area was a welcome change in landscape to the hellish forest we spent the previous hour and a half crossing. We slogged on for another 45 minutes before crossing the Slovakian border. Those of you outside of the EU might be used to waiting in line at a border control when crossing to other countries. The crossing into Slovakia consisted of a single, unceremonious sign and some faded markings on the road. And just like that, we were in another country.
Just past the border lies Pečniansky les (Pecnian forest), an ecologically sensitive protected area dotted with dedicated bike lanes and old WW2-era bunkers. It was now nearing golden hour, and we passed lots of families and joggers taking advantage of the beautiful light and slightly more bearable temperature. This was easily the highlight of my day, though Florie’s bronchitis wasn’t helping at this point so she doesn’t have such fond memories. It felt like we were flying through this last stretch of the ride (in reality we averaged 16.7km/h), but with the centre of Bratislava less than 10 minutes away we were excited to be almost done.
We crossed Most SNP (the “bridge of the Slovak national uprising”) and found ourselves in the heart of Staré Město (Old Town), the historic centre of Bratislava. We decided to walk the rest of the way to our Airbnb, as we weren’t too confident that our sketchy rented panniers would hold up well on the cobbled streets.
The entire journey took us just over 6 hours door-to-door — much longer than we expected. We spent some time figuring out how to load our bikes into the tiny Soviet-era elevator in the building before having a quick shower and heading out to one of the nearby restaurants for dinner.
The overpriced Slovak goulash I ordered certainly did not live up to the hype. We were both pretty happy to be eating anything after a long day in the saddle, though, so with our stomachs full we explored Old Town for a while before retreating to our beds for the night.
Day 4 — Bratislava to Budapest
Distance: 79km (to Györ) + 5km, climbing: 214m + 58m
The second leg of our journey had us continue along the EV6 to the Hungarian city of Györ, where we cheated by taking a train the rest of the way to Budapest. We had a similarly late start to the day before, following a hearty breakfast of waffles and bananas.
We left the city and crossed the Danube once more (on a different bridge this time) to join the now-familiar EV6. The first 20km of the route was on dedicated bike paths through parks and forests, so we were able to focus on the serene landscape and just enjoy the ride. We crossed the Hungarian border without even noticing and were led by our GPS through the town of Rajka to join main road 150. A narrow gravel bike track separated us from the fast-moving traffic on one side and the train tracks on the other for the 15km stretch to Mosonmagyaróvár (what a name!). Although we felt safe, the scenery here wasn’t quite as engaging as it had been earlier that morning.
We stopped for lunch in Mosonmagyaróvár, which turned out to be a charming town. It was 13:00 on a Sunday, though, so the streets were deserted and it took us some time to find an open restaurant that accepted credit cards (the banks were also closed). We eventually found one and locked up our bikes nearby, happy to escape the sun.
A full two hours went by before we were back on our bikes, and we were still just shy of the halfway mark. Our average speed had gone up significantly from the unimpressive 16km/h of the day before, so we weren’t too worried about making up some time in the afternoon. The bike paths leaving Mosonmagyaróvár were paved and well-marked, and seemed quite popular with the locals travelling between neighbouring towns.
The afternoon segment consisted mainly of fields and small scattered villages, dotted with regular breaks for water and granola bars. The picturesque scenery reminded me of one of my favourite parts of cycling: getting a glimpse of places that you would never normally think to explore. When else would I find myself in this innocuous part of the Hungarian countryside if not on a bike tour?
By 17:45 we had reached the center of Györ and were coasting through its busy pedestrian-only streets, stopping only briefly to snap a few photos before heading straight for the train station. Drained from the heat and eager to get to Budapest, Florie rushed to the ticket counter while I carried our bikes upstairs to the platform. There are express trains between the two cities leaving every 30 minutes or so, but only the hourly local trains allow bikes on board (cost per person: 2,520Ft. or roughly €7.60).
We could have continued to ride along the EV6 all the way to Budapest — a further 160km or 2 days by bike — but we wanted at least a couple of days to explore the city. The local train covers the same distance in 1:45h and the express one in just 1:06h.
We found ourselves an empty spot near the doors and watched as the sun faded alongside our hopes of arriving in Budapest before dark. We tried to get a bit of rest, but the train was pretty busy and we spent most of the time moving our bikes to let people in and out. As the doors opened at the final stop in Kelenföld station, I watched Florie take a step backwards and trip on the gap between the car and the platform, her bike and panniers crashing down on top of her. The man standing next to her roared a loud “oppa!”, yet didn’t offer her any help. Good thing only her ego was bruised, and we moved off to the side to find the directions to our Airbnb.
Amidst all this, we hadn’t noticed that it was absolutely pouring outside. Given the cloudless skies we’d seen throughout our trip so far, it hadn’t really occurred to us to check the weather forecast. The apartment we were staying in was just 5km away though, so we decided that our best option was to just ride there anyway.
This 20-minute ride actually turned out to be one of the more memorable moments of our trip. The city was beautifully lit at night, accentuated further by the reflections from the dark puddles scattered across the roads. We crossed the Danube yet again on the famous Szabadsag hid (Liberty Bridge) and cruised the final 400m to our Airbnb near Kálvin Square, now soaked from head to toe and ready for a warm shower.
Days 5 & 6— Budapest
Distance: 0km, climbing: 0m
We spent two full days in Budapest, which turned out to be our favourite and most surprising city of the trip. We arrived knowing little about the city or its beauty and left wanting to come back to explore it further. Because this story is cycling-focused, I’ll just let the photos speak for themselves here:
Day 7 — Budapest to Zagreb
Distance: 4km, climbing: 40m
The two days quickly passed and we decided it was time to start moving again, this time to the Croatian capital of Zagreb. Riding there would have taken the better part of 4 days and there were no direct train connections at the time, so a bus was our only option.
We grabbed some breakfast on day 7 at Butter Brothers (their croissants are top-notch) before the short 4km stint to Népliget autóbusz-pályaudvar (Népliget Bus Station) on the east side of the city. We opted for a FlixBus (cost per person: approx. €20) for the 5-hour journey. It was our first time using FlixBus and overall the service was great — clean, on time, and there was free Wi-Fi on board.
We arrived at the bus terminal in Zagreb just as it was getting dark. The directions to our Airbnb were exceptionally cryptic, so we decided to just walk to the address instead of riding there. The micro-apartment we stayed at was in an old Soviet building — a very fitting vibe for the city— and since there wasn’t enough room for our bikes indoors, we were told to just leave them outside on the roof instead.
We sadly didn’t get to see much of Zagreb because we arrived pretty late and it took us some time to find the building. We weren’t staying in the centre of the city, so there wasn’t a whole lot to see either. Most of the restaurants were closing as we arrived, but we did eventually find a bar to serve us pizza and a couple of drinks.
Day 8 — Zagreb to Dovje
Distance: 25km + 2km, climbing: 332m + 13m
The next morning we biked the 2km to Zagreb Glavni kolodvor (Zagreb Main Station) and waited to board the train for the 3-hour journey to Lesce in Slovenia (cost per person: approx. €15). I noticed that one of my shitty panniers somehow ripped and dumped my clothes all over the platform.
The train journey felt much quicker than it was, probably because there were some postcard-worthy views to be found at every glance out of the window. The landscape reminded me of Switzerland.
After arriving at Lesce-Bled station, we started the 25km uphill ride to Dovje, a tiny village just a few kilometres from the Austrian border. There were no bike lanes here and the main access road to the village is a busy regional highway. Overall the ride was pretty uncomfortable as we encountered some very aggressive drivers along the way.
Dovje is a pretty rural village, so when we first arrived we weren’t sure if there would be any food nearby. It turns out that the town of just 609 people was well-resourced, with a small supermarket in the neighbouring town of Mojstrana and two local restaurants to choose from: a pizzeria and a bar. We tried the pizzeria on our first night and ended up liking the pizza so much that we went back 3 nights in a row.
This was the only time we stayed at an actual bed and breakfast: Apartments Triglav. The couple that owned it were lovely and told us a bit about the area (turns out that Dovje is one of the sunniest villages in Slovenia). We had our own private apartment complete with kitchen (which we used about twice) and balcony.
Days 9 & 10— Dovje
Distance: 0km, elevation: 0m
It was cold and rainy on days 9 and 10, so we only briefly left the comfort of our apartment to walk to the neighbouring town of Mojstrana for some fresh valley air and snacks from the supermarket. We were pretty happy to get a couple of days of rest in such a beautiful location.
Day 11 — Vršič Pass
Distance: 52km, climbing: 1,152m
The real reason we were staying in the seemingly random town of Dovje was because we wanted to ride to the top of the Vršič Pass, a mountain pass in the Julian Alps popular with cyclists. Vršič actually means “little peak” in Slovenian, but this turned out to be highly misleading. The pass tops out at 1,611m over 10km, with an average gradient of 7.7%.
The first 17km from Dovje to the village of Kranjska Gora was a good warm-up for what was to come next. We stopped at Lake Jasna — which lies just at the base of Vršič Pass — for some photos and a quick snack. The view was gorgeous and is definitely not something to be missed.
We pressed on towards Vršič and soon felt the grade starting to kick in. There were 24 hairpins that were nicely marked every few hundred metres. The first 8 or so didn’t seem too bad (Florie: “what was all the fuss about?”), but our opinions quickly changed after we passed the halfway point.
There was a view at every turn so we constantly stopped for photos. Florie was less than impressed at this, but I had to seize the moment because we were definitely not going to stop on our way down.
We finally made it to the top of Vršič almost 2 hours after reaching Lake Jasna, though we didn’t stay for long because it was particularly cold and windy. We had a quick snack, took some photos, and got straight back on our bikes before our legs cooled down.
The ride back down to Dovje was some of the most fun I’ve ever had on two wheels. I wish I had some GoPro footage of the ride back, because it was easily one of the most memorable parts of the trip.
Day 12 — Dovje to Ljubljana
Distance: 34km (to Lesce-Bled), climbing: 534m
The next day we left Dovje and took a mountain road (thanks to the advice of our hosts) back to Lesce, where a train would take us to the capital city of Llubljana. The road involved a pretty steep initial climb, but the rest of the way to Bled was all downhill through lush forests and fields.
We couldn’t go to Lesce and not stop by Lake Bled (Slovenia’s most popular landmark) on the way, so we decided to take a detour and ride around its perimeter before heading to the station. We had really lucked out with the weather, which was much milder now and more suited to cycling than it had been at the start of the trip.
Lake Bled was every bit as beautiful as we anticipated. Its entire perimeter is easily bikeable and makes for an excellent afternoon ride. One of my few regrets of the trip is that we didn’t get to spend a night near the lake or visit the infamous Bled Castle that overlooks it, which is a mistake we won’t be making again. We also had to cut out the nearby Lake Bohinj, because we ran out of extra days to bike there.
The train from Lesce-Bled to Ljubljana was pretty uneventful, though we did somehow manage to get an entire compartment to ourselves (probably because we smelled so bad). Ljubljana is quite small, so we found our Airbnb quickly this time. I don’t actually remember much from that night— all I know is that I slept like a baby.
Day 13 — Ljubljana
Distance: 0km, elevation: 0m
We spent a day visiting Ljubljana, which much like Budapest was one of our favourite cities of the trip. There was an abundance of good food and things to do (check out Tivoli Park!), which I’ll let the photos illustrate once again:
Day 14 — Ljubljana to Vienna
Distance: 1km + 3km, elevation: 15m + 40m
The time had come for our journey back to Vienna, where we would be spending the last few days of our trip. We stocked up on snacks and grabbed a burger at Pop’s Place before embarking on our shortest ride ever — 950m from the restaurant to the train station (yes, I did record it as a separate activity on Strava).
The train journey took 6 hours overall, the first few hours of which were along slow, twisty tracks through the mountains. This ended up being one of the less comfortable legs of the trip and we both felt pretty sick for the first couple of hours. We eventually made it to Vienna at 22:00 and rode the final 3km to our Airbnb (now our third in the city).
I guess the third time really was the charm, because the apartment we stayed in was in a brand new building overlooking a small, quiet park in a central part of the city. We had plenty of space to lay out our things, which was just as well because we really needed to clean and reorganise our panniers. By this point we were also pretty tired, so after leaving a giant mess of clothes and bike tools on the floor we decided to deal with it later and called it a night.
Day 15 — Vienna
Distance: 0km, elevation: 0m
We spent the next morning cleaning up our mess from the night before, before hopping on a tram to do some more sightseeing. This consisted mainly of visiting the tourist hotspots of Stephansdom and Alterchenfeld, then stopping about five separate times for apple pie and ice cream. Thankfully the skies were overcast for once, which made the weather ideal for walking around in the afternoon.
As we made our way back to the apartment, we began reflecting on our experiences from the past couple of weeks. Although we had visited some truly amazing places, we both felt pretty underwhelmed at how little time we had spent actually biking. It seemed like all the effort to bring our bikes across the Atlantic and squeeze our belongings into two pairs of small panniers had been in vain. But rather than wallow in regret, we did some research that evening and hatched a plan…
Day 16 — Melk
Distance: 2km + 125km, elevation: 33m + 666m
The plan: Get on a train to Melk — popular tourist destination and home to the impressive Stift Melk (Melk Abbey) — and ride all the way back to Vienna. At 115km (or so we thought), this would be our first bike century and by far the longest ride to date.
And that’s the reason why we found ourselves scurrying across the city to Wien Westbahnhof (Vienna West station) the next morning to catch the 08:20 train to Melk. The journey took exactly 60 minutes thanks to renowned Austrian punctuality, dropping us off right in the middle of the small town. After a breakfast of apple strudel at one of the local cafes, we set off along the EV6 back to Vienna.
We made slow but steady progress in the first hour, enjoying the same peaceful scenery along the Danube river that we had experienced two weeks before on our ride from Vienna to Bratislava. The Danube section of the EV6 is the most popular cycle touring route in Europe, and farmers in some of the small villages we passed had set up little unmanned fruit stands to cater to the constant flux of riders. I thought this was a really thoughtful touch, and it gave us a good excuse to stop and replenish our energy (with more apples) after the first 20km. There was even wine set out!
The EV6 briefly detoured away from the banks of the Danube as we continued past the town of Rührsdorf, heading inland through some dense, lush vineyards. This was one of the highlights of the day and a welcome change of scenery from the ever-familiar river. Different vineyards had their various fruit and wine offerings on display with a tin to pay what you could.
The EV6 veered back towards the river and we pressed on to Mautern an der Donau, where we stopped for another snack and some apple juice (yes, this ride was fuelled almost entirely by apples). We were feeling pretty good at this point, if slightly anxious at the thought that we were still less than halfway to Vienna and it was already past noon.
We were now nearing the 80km mark and decided it would be a good time to stop for a late lunch before the final push to Vienna. The nearby city of Tulln would give us the widest variety of food options, so we made a brief detour to the Hauptplatz (main square) and found one of the few remaining restaurants that had room for us.
With our stomachs full and our spirits somewhat replenished, we left Tulln with the knowledge that Vienna was now just 30km away (or so we thought). This was now already the longest single ride either of us had done, and I caught myself glancing more and more frequently at my phone as the total distance slowly inched towards the 100km mark.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off of my phone as we crossed a bridge to the other side of the river. I watched the distance tick towards to 99.8…99.9…and then finally 100.0km. If you’d asked me before our trip whether I would ever ride 100km in a day, I would have called you crazy. I had never really been interested in endurance sports, nor had I trained for them. We both just enjoy discovering cool places on our bikes, and this was just where it had taken us.
I stopped quite abruptly and Florie asked what was wrong. I showed her my phone and after a quick celebratory drink (yeah, more apple juice) we snapped this selfie:
With our asses now very tender, we were both keen to get back to Vienna as soon as possible. Florie kept asking how much farther we had left to go. Based on the map and the distance we had ridden so far, I estimated we had another 10km or so to go (Strava doesn’t have a scale on their phone maps!).
Florie grew skeptical 10km later when hadn’t yet even reached the city and the sun was now setting. At this point I realised something had gone wrong — the entire route was supposed to be 115km long, but it looked like we had much more than 5km left to go. I apologised and told her it looked like we were maybe in for another 10km.
Florie asked the same question again a few kilometers later, and after looking at my map again it seemed there was still no way that we would be home in 5km. I said we maybe had another 10km to go…and she burst into tears on the side of the road.
We were both exhausted, and my constant estimation of “10km left” made it seem like we weren’t making any progress at all. We took a few minutes to calm down and check the map. I’m pretty sure I could have said we had 30km left to go at this point and Florie would have just ignored me.
Vienna appeared in the distance just as the sun was disappearing behind the hills, and we briefly forgot about the ordeal that the last couple of hours had been as we crossed the Steinitzteg bike-only bridge into the city. This was definitely the highlight of the day, and although we didn’t stop for photos it made for a beautiful scene.
It was Friday evening, and the nightlife was just beginning to come alive as we biked through Vienna’s neighbourhoods . There was us: sweaty, hungry, and exhausted amidst couples all dressed up for their night out.
We finally made it back to our Airbnb at 19:30. The total distance came in at 124km, about 14km more than Strava had initially estimated. We had our last few Corny granola bars for dinner and went to sleep. Aside from the breakdown near the end, it was a beautiful day through vineyards and nice paved bike lanes.
Days 17–20 — Vienna
Distance: 22km, climbing: 151m
The next couple of days were spent recovering from our long ride and going out to visit more of Vienna. We went to the Schmetterlingshaus (Butterfly house) — definitely worth a visit — spent some time at some of the summer night markets, and packed up our things into those tiny panniers for the ride back to the airport.
The ride back to the airport followed the same route as it has on our first day, and the novelty of biking to an airport and getting on a flight still hadn’t worn off on me. We placed (read: shoved) our bikes and clothes into our bike bags, checked them in, and flew our way back to Canada.
