"Where's Your Car?"

Everything was going so well. We started the day riding through rolling hills and prosperous villages, We had lunch at a "fancy" restaurant, then hopped on the bikes, riding onto flat land with large-scale farms.

As we neared the Hungarian border, the rain hit. Not a drizzle; a dump. Wind, lightening, thunder, cold. Bravely, we pushed on to the old border crossing used before the toll expressway was built. The officer kindly told us that that crossing was closed and because we were on bicycles we had to detour 79 km to the crossing in Slovenia.

So, we rode 3 km over to the toll road, went backwards up an off-ramp and headed for Hungary, passing 2 lanes of cars backed up for 2 km as they waited to enter the Schengen Zone. Still storming like crazy.

The last border agent I saw winked, gave me a thumbs up, and said "Trump." These border agents greeted us differently. But, heck, what were they going to do, send us back into Croatia going the wrong direction on the toll road? So, we got into Hungary, headed for the nearest village, and it's really depressing. It' late and pouring, we checked around and found a decent hotel about 3 km away. No haggling tonight.Read more