Top Travel Leads

A site not to miss along the Danube Bend is the Visegrad Castle. Meaning “High Fortress,” Visegrad Castle is an imposing ruin best seen from the opposite bank, the left bank of the Danube, the side of the river the bicycle path follows on its way from Vac to Estergom.

Visegrad offers the finest panorama of the Danube Bend as it snakes through the Börzsöny and Visegrad hills. Its beginnings date back to the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries. The original structure was destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century thereafter which it was reconstructed by the subsequent kings of Hungary, coming to prominence under the reign of King Mathias.

While Visegrad can be visited as part of your day cycling Vac to Estergom, it may be you’ll end up wasting some time on account of needing to wait for the ferry and will then have to hurry to get to Estergom before it gets dark. Although the ferry boats should run every hour they often wait until there are enough cars and trucks to ferry over to make the crossing worth their time and you may end up wasting more time than you wanted to.

On account of the possible delays with the ferry and to have ample time to enjoy the area, a trip to Visegrad is best done as a day trip from Vac. Nice trial of some 25 km follows the river with Danube on your left. The bike path leads through some dense vegetation at times, occasionally passing by nice villas near the waterfront. There are nice views of surrounding hills all the way until the castle comes up above the right bank. The ferry crossing is at Nagymaros.

Once on the other side of the river, you’ll first cycle through the peaceful Visegrad village with a number of cozy restaurants and cafes, then begin a steep winding climb toward the castle. It takes about 20 to 30 minutes to ascend to the castle where you can dismount, enter the citadel and walk around the ramparts of the stronghold. The hills around the castle offer some nice cycling and more fine views of Visegrad and the Danube Bend.

Eventually you can cycle back downhill, stop for a snack at a cafe before taking a ferry the other side and follow the bike path to Vac for overnight.

Cycling the Amber trail from Budapest to Krakow, a rewarding route that leads through Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, does not necessarily require you start cycling from Budapest. While Budapest is indeed a worthwhile city to explore, which could also be done on a bicycle, it makes sense to consider establishing your base on the outskirts of Budapest and perhaps visit the center of Budapest on day trips.

There are two possible towns, both very low key, very scenic being located right on the Danube river, that make for a very pleasant base from which to explore the surrounding countryside and sites along the Danube. These two small towns are Vac and Szentendre. Vac is on the left bank and Szentendre on the right bank of the Danube, and both are essentially the gateways to the so called Danube Bend, where the river winds between hills towards Ezstergom, your exit point from Hungary on the way to Slovakia.

Vac was founded in the 11th century, when the town became an episcopate, a period from which date some of its earliest churches, namely the Vac cathedral, though most of its Romanesque architectural features were destroyed during the Mongol conquest. The surrounding general vicinity around Vac has been settled for centuries before that on account of good natural conditions, abundant forests, fertile soil along the mighty river and its usefulness as a navigable trade route.

Vac has a fascinating history. Sacked by the Mongols in 1241, Vac began to prosper again in late Gothic and during Renaissance periods. But then Turks invaded Hungary and for over a century until 1686 Vac had suffered neglect and destruction. Vac reemerged by the second half of the 18th century and some of its finest architecture dates from the late Baroque period and the Neo-Classical era that followed.

During the 19th century period of industrialization, the building of the original railway line in Hungary in 1846 between Vac and Budapest provided significantly to Vac development. Unfortunately as a result of the turmoil by World War I, Word War II and subsequent annexation of Hungary into the Soviet block, Vac had to endure major setbacks and suffering. Since the fall of communism and return of Hungary to democracy in 1989 Vac has came forth as one of the region’s most desirable locations where to live and its return to newly found prosperity shows in its refurbished monuments and pleasant ambiance of street life.

Southern Bohemia offers scores of wonderful cycling trips. Cesky Krumlov, one of highlights on the Vienna to Prague Greenway route, is also a great spots where to base yourself and spend a few days riding in different directions. In order to include short rides into northern Austria it’s however best to make your base further south from Cesky Krumlov. Ideal and very scenic base is Rozmberk nad Vltavou (Rozmberk above Vlatava River). Rozmberk is located on the Salzburg to Prague Greenway route.

A fine day ride of about 100 kilometers (about 70 miles) leads through sleepy small village of Horni Dvoriste to yet sleepier village of Cesky Herslak where a footpath-wide border crossing marked by an insignificant sign leads into an Austrian border village of Deutch Horschlag.

From Deutch Horschlag continue in direction of Kerschbaum, large village right on E55, major highway connecting Linz with Ceske Budejovice and Prague. While one can ride a shoulder of the E55 highway, there are far too many 18-wheelers zipping by making the journey very unpleasant if not downright dangerous.

It is best to stay west of the major highway and find smaller unpaved roads, some old field and forest roads, that once connected the local villages. Most of these roads are without traffic and nowadays hardly used and easy to get lost on as many once lead through dense forests where some seem to these days vanish. If at all possible try to keep E55 at least in sight while navigating north taking any road or path you can find. Seeing a local here to ask directions is a slim chance.

After about 10 km riding amidst fields and pastures you will pass a few houses of a small hamlet of Edlbruck. You could take a small road to the highway here but best avoid having to paddle on E55. Continue north couple kilometers more then turn east to head back to the main road. If necessary you may have to walk the bike along some fields, even a patch of a forest, but it should not be more than two kilometers and you will start hearing the traffic on E55.

Once you locate the turn off for Leopoldschlag you do don’t have to worry about traffic any more. The two lane road leading to Leopoldschlag is in perfect condition, scenic and devoid of cars. The ride will take you first through Leopoldschlag Dorf and a kilometer later into Leopoldschlag, a large village with immaculately kept village park with a late baroque water fountain and a church, all houses seemingly freshly whitewashed, blooming flowers in the windows, a sheer joy to ride through, feeling as if riding in a fairytale.

Past Leopoldschlag the road follows River Malse, which constitutes the border with Czech Republic. Some 8 km later there is a small bridge, pedestrians and bicycles only, leading back into Czech Republic. The border crossing once again is unmanned.

Immediately beyond the frontier one enters a former small village of Cetviny. Cetviny apparently was noted in historical annals as far back as 13th century but the only thing that remains of it today is a gothic church of Birth of the Virgin Mary. While in the middle ages the village thrived on border trade, after communists took power in 1948 they depopulated the area, constructed “Iron Curtain”, the legendary barbed wire zone, and either destroyed or converted all local village houses into border guard barracks and storage facilities.

Novohradske mountains of Southern Bohemia, as this border region is known, are very pleasant to cycle through. The handful of small hamlets that you’ll pass do not exude the same upkeep perfection as the villages on the Austrian side – in fact quite the contrary, the local residents are still struggling to rejuvenate life in this area after forty years of being left to rot, destroyed and off-limits under the communists.

A great place to stop for refreshment on your way back to Rozmberk nad Vltavou is a hilltop hamlet of Svaty Kamen, meaning Holly Stone, dominated by the pilgrimage Church of Our Lady of the Snows, a 17th-century baroque church built over a large stone (actually two giant boulders), the site of the revelation of the Virgin Mary dating to 16th century when pilgrim first started to arrive visiting a small chapel that was initially built over the Holy Stone. Significantly destroyed by communist border guards during era of post-WWII communist Czechoslovakia and only reconstructed after 1989, Svaty Kamen has an idyllic setting with soothing views of pristine countryside of pastures and forests 360-degrees around.

Traveling the back roads of Czech Republic along the Austria border an art connoisseur will enjoy coming across a profusion of small roadside shrines and memorials devoted to Jesus and other saints, built as expression of thanks for being blessed, protected, healed, endowed, in memory of someone’s death, or simply as a gesture of good will. In Czech Republic these shrines are commonly referred to as „Bozi Muka, in literal translation meaning “God’s suffering. “ They were being constructed as early as in the 14th century, however, their golden period of construction begins with the baroque period, from 1600 to 1750, though they proliferated right up to the very end of the 19th century and as late as the period of the Czech “first republic,“ namely in the 1920s. The chapels and monuments were typically constructed along small country roads, forest trails, at crossroads and often under large and dominant ancient trees. Often a time these monuments were also being constructed by the wealthy as gifts to a village or to mark a site, and as their counterparts in Buddhist lands, where mani walls and stupas too were being built to gain merit on the judgment day. Some of the best opportunities for seeing these shrines can be had on the bicycle tours along the Czech Greenways Vienna to Prague and Salzburg to Prague.