Our original plan was to ride out somewhere about halfway to Esztergom today, but we decided with John’s knee the better thing would be to build up, so picked Bratislava for our destination. First we biked to the nearby mall and found John a knee brace, then crossed over the Danube, where the trail follows the old railway bed to Pressburg/Poszony/Bratislava. We stopped and talked with a group of 6 of bikers from Vienna who were going to Bratislava for the weekend, and let them use our tools to fix the seat post on one of their bikes. We stopped for lunch at a little place just off the trail that caters to bikers: Waldviertel and aseidler of Schwecat…and I still am not liking beer. We crossed another huge bridge across the Danube, then had an ice cream break in Hainburg, just past the fabulous, massive old gate.
Metternch said that Asia begins at the Landstraße; but crossing the former Iron Curtain was very different. For almost 50 years it was very difficult to do so; when I came through in 2001 I just had to show my passport; now, it is no different then crossing a state line. Which is how it was 100 years ago.
We passed some remnants of the Cold War era, including a huge bunker complex, and went into Bratislava proper. Cobblestone streets and some steep hills got in our way, but we finally made it to the hotel, where we rewarded ourselves with a visit to the hotel masseuse before dinner. The restaurant was massive, almost like a theme park coming in, specializing in typical Slovakian fare: ind of like Beerahll meets Bennigans. On our way back to the hotel we walked past a night club queue, which was odd for being populated entirely by females. Despite the obvious need of dance partners, we continued to our hotel to crash.