Thursday, May 11th. After just a few km on the Iron Curtain Trail, we entered Austria. We were there only for one hour (10 miles) and we crossed to Slovakia. We rode on the old main road that runs next to the highway, meaning we get all the potholes. Right when we entered Bratislava, Ondrej, a local cyclist approached us and offered to take us all the way to the center. He told us about his tours and guided us downhill, all the way to the Danube. The next day we visited the old town, castle and the river with the great company of my local friends.

On Saturday morning we went back on the road. My friend Maria joined us all the way to Mosonmagyaróvár in Hungary and went back home after lunch. That day we rode to Pápa, in which it was our longest day of the tour: 122km. The next day we continued towards Balaton and we stopped a few km before, at a Warmshower member’s house were we stay for two nights. We met there with Álvaro, el Biciclown, a touring legend. He has been on the road for 14 years, riding almost 200.000km. I worked with him on his website since 2016 and finally we met in person in Hungary. There was another tourer there too; Thomas, a German guy who’s starting his world tour. Friderika, our wonderful host made a pie that day which we enjoyed while we celebrated Dave’s birthday. After one day brake, we went back on the road with Thomas, who was going in our direction. That night we stopped at Nagykanizsa and the next day we entered Croatia.