Biking Along the Danube: 4 Days, 3 Countries, 2 Girls, 1 Storm
A tale of our adventure, and advice if you’re planning on doing the same
“I can’t do this anymore! I’m leaving the bike here!”, my friend shouted, her feet stuck in the mud, the bike tires covered in a brown paste that made each kilometer a suffered accomplishment.
It was the second day of our Budapest to Vienna bike trip and nothing was going according to plan.
But let’s rewind. My friend, Hungarian, lives in Budapest. I lived there for a few years as well and had always been in love with the Danube River. When I learned there was a bike route all along it, the EuroVelo 6, I knew I had an adventure waiting for me.
I imagined green scenery along the water, a flat bike road, and the sunny days of summer in Central Europe.
But reality turned out to be very different.
The days before the trip, we checked the weather forecast: rain. We dismissed it: “It will be just some showers”. But when my flight from Lisbon was diverted to Debrecen, in Eastern Hungary, I knew it was serious. The storm was so intense that they had closed Budapest’s airport.
Eventually, I made it to Budapest but the forecast mentioned two more days of heavy rain. Facing…
