Orient Express Day 26 Komarom to Budapest - 100km

From today we are required by law to wear safety vests when riding on the open road so we all donned our new gear courtesy of Tour D'Afrique and set off for Budapest with a nice tail wind behind us for the first 40km or so.

Edna needed coffee along the way and we shared a Hungarian "pastry" which was basically a hardish stalish saltyish donut..

After relatively flat riding for the last 10 days, we had hills today and I took Edna for a little side trip before lunch when I was unsure of the directions and my Garmin was convinced that we should ride through some bush to a dead end. Nothing too drastic as we caught the main group before lunch and headed in with Stirling nursing a wobbly back wheel with two broken spokes. Gergo managed to repair the wheel.

After lunch, we headed off in convoy up a steep climb and arrived on the outskirts of Budapest city. Gergo did not stop smiling the whole way in as he led us through obscure streets and bike paths until we had the Danube in sight with the magnificent Parliament building making a profound first impression of the city.

Budapest presents as a huge metropolis with trams buses and traffic everywhere and historic building after historic building. Towards the end of the convoy we passed the Dohany Synagogue which is enormous and I was pleased to find our hotel at the edge of the Jewish quarter - very convenient for tomorrow's Jewish tour.

Today was Leana's last riding day with us although she is hanging around in Budapest for a couple of days. We celebrated her journey with us with drinks followed by dinner at a restaurant recommended by Gergo as having great goulash. It was quite good but our server was reluctant to change my side from farfel to fries. After some reluctance, he finally capitulated. The goulash was quite good and the fries soaked up the red wine sauce admirably. Stirling kept up appearances in his lederhausen.