Nearing the end of our trip, we had a wonderful stay in Visegrad, a small town in pest country of Hungary. It offered one of the best views of the Danube bend and needless to say we spent the following morning hiking up to the castle to take the view in.

Nature seem to dominate most of the places. The house that we stayed in was a perfect quaint attic and around us were overgrown gardens with little streams. Cycling through these roads were often a great opportunity to see the way the locals live.

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Day 7: Visegrad - Budapest (49km)

The cycling journey was nearing a bitter-sweet end. On our last day, from Visegrad to Budapest, my friend suffered a flat. An impending doom that we dreaded all along the trip, only to face it towards the end of our journey. We haphazardly tried to patch the back tyre for the third time but failed after several start-stop attempts. We almost broke the plastic lever, and with a missing allon key and limited tubes, our chances of trying to reach Budapest looked abysmal. We resigned agreeing there wasn’t much that we could do, and we focused on trying to follow this drill of riding 3 minutes, pump and ride again until we reached a bus-stop where she could get a ride to Budapest

We got her on the bus and with limited time on our side, the two of us sped our way up till Budapest just in time for dinner and a shower in the very busy capital of Hungary. We rolled through wooded parks perched with churches and castles. There were a lot of cyclists ambling along with their tight lycra clad shorts. Some would ride at cracking pace, first on their ride out and then again later. I was heavily loaded with enough clothes to last me through the cycling in the Himalayan winter after this and that slowed me down.

As we arrived, Budapest’s stunning Parliament building and pretty bridges greeted us and it was time to navigate the labyrinth of bicycle lanes, big highways and walking path.

Suddenly, we lost the familiar Hungarian old towns as we left the river and join evening commuters and locals walking their dogs after a day in the office. I enjoyed the sight of reaching Budapest, truly mesmerized by the city’s energy. The world seemed poised to go somewhere and I now had some decisions to make - to make the most out of my night in Budapest or sleep-in. It was exciting but the heat had seeped all energy out of me.

Feeling parched taught us the gratitude of running water and fluids in general. So we lived a little and our plans rapidly snowballed. We visited Sir Lancelot, a medieval themed restaurant where suits of armour greeted us at the door. The next few days in Budapest afforded a lot of time to walk around, and observe people who bought portable fans to keep themselves cool in the merciless heat. Getting a fan is probably a wise idea and one of the best Europe travel tips that you can pay attention to when visiting in summer.

We enjoyed the next few days in Budapest and cheered with the calls to be alive and to treasure life. We bidded adieu and shared some of our memories over a drink, laughed and took a bite of langos, giving an appreciative “mmm!” as we chewed, and pondered if we would ever come back to cycling in Europe in summer ever again. “Probably not!”

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