Go East

May - November 2020
A 175-day adventure by Herbert & Meike
  • 167footprints
  • 9countries
  • 175days
  • 931photos
  • 0videos
  • 10.6kkilometers
  • 2.3kkilometers
  • Day 28

    Traditional folklore evening

    June 26, 2020 in Czech Republic ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    The start of the day wasn't too good. It rained half of the night, so we didn't sleep to well. At 7:15am it stopped raining and we had a 1 hour window to get ready, pack up our stuff and have breakfast (standing). Then the rain started again. We decided to have a coffee to wait it out and left when it stopped again at 9.
    The first part of our ride was difficult as well, all headwinds and lots of puddles on the bike trails and roads. At some stage, we followed a smaller path. But the mud stuck to the tires, so they wouldn't roll anymore. We had to clean it up as much as possible and push the bikes to the next road.
    Luckily, things got better afterwards. The wind turned more to Southern direction which even pushed us a little. The bike path then led along a canal and was paved, so no more mud and only a few puddles now. We saw lots of people relaxing on houseboats on the canal. The region and scenery reminded us of the Netherlands.
    At about 5pm, we arrived in Zlin, our destination for the night. We still had some time before our warmshowers host expected us, so tried some icecream. The Czechs love icecream, you see small shops all around.
    When we arrived at Ondrej's, he gave us a warm welcome. At night, he was going to play a concert with his traditional Moravian folklore band and invited us to come and watch. We cooked up some pasta and then headed to the bar. The concert was really cool. The music was different, but we enjoyed it. They played mainly happy songs and the other people in the bar danced and sang along.
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  • Day 29

    Entering the Tatra Mountains

    June 27, 2020 in Czech Republic ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    For today, we had planned a shorter trip. This gave us some time to have breakfast with Ondrej and share some bike touring experiences as well as information about our cultures. In general, we missed these conversations in the Czech Republic due to a language barrier. Our Czech is basically non-existent, so when people addressed in a friendly away (probably) asking about our trip, we had to admit we don't understand anything. Unfortunately, they usually didn't speak English or German either.
    Anyways, we hit the road after breakfast and started straight away with some climbing. The Eastern part of the Czech Republic is quite hilly and reminded us of the Bavarian lower Alps. The mountains are part of the Tatra region which belong to the Carpatian Mountains.
    The second part of the route followed a river. It was steady, but really easy climbing, so we arrived at our campsite before 3pm already. This gave us some time to do laundry, relax and have a last beer.
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  • Day 30

    Next country - Slovakia

    June 28, 2020 in Slovakia ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Our route started with a pretty steep climb: 450m of elevation gain within the first 10km. However, it was a remote forest road, the locals had drawn beer signs on the road for motivation and the view on top made up for the effort! We were in a little ski resort with cute wooden apartment houses and hotels.
    This was also the point where we crossed to Slovakia - our first time in this country! After the climb, we were treated with a super nice 23km downhill ride on a paved forest road along a little stream. It ended at a canal which we followed until we reached Zilina. Here we stopped for lunch in the historical old town.
    From Zilina, it wasn't too far to our campsite anymore. 10km along the canal again with tailwinds and another 10km on a busy road into a smaller valley. We went quite fast, as the Slovakian drivers are as crazy as the Czech drivers, so it wasn't too much fun.
    When we reached the campground, we went for a bath in the cold river to relax our tired muscles.
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  • Day 31

    Thunderstorm hopping

    June 29, 2020 in Slovakia ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    The weather forecast showed some rain and thunderstorms for today, so we got up early to start our ride. We climbed our first hill right at the beginning, went down again on the other side - and had to look for shelter for the first time. It rained heavily, but only for about 15 minutes, so we could continue.
    It was dry for the next 3 hours, so we climbed up the next pass. The bike path was really nice: no cars, green, quiet, so we really enjoyed this part of today's route.
    Then we saw the next thunderstorm chasing us from behind. We cycled as fast as possible on a busy road around a lake and found shelter again when the storm was very close. We could see the rain only a couple of hundred meters away, but it didn't hit us.
    However, we knew we only had about 45min until the next bigger storm, so we had to speed up. We were lucky again! We just reached our guesthouse before it started to rain for the rest of the evening. Glad we decided to exchange our tent with a dry bed tonight 😉
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  • Day 32

    The Poland detour

    June 30, 2020 in Poland ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    When we got up this morning, the clouds had gone away and it was perfect cycling weather. We were going to pass the Tatra mountains on the North side via Poland and enter Slovakia again in the afternoon.
    But sometimes, traveling doesn't work like this. When we saw the mountains, we immediately fell in love with this place. We just loved the nature and the wooden houses of Zakopane architecture style. Plus, when we had climbed our first hill, we were welcomed by something like a fair with little stalls, rides, horses etc. We were in the middle of a ski resort on a ridge overlooking Zakopane. Most of the hotels and restaurants had an amazing view of the Tatra range, so we stopped for a coffee, extended the stop with a Radler and decided to look for accommodation nearby.
    We found a nice guesthouse in the direction of the Slovakian border. This gave us time to explore Zakopane: We went to the main shopping and aprés ski road to watch people and try some local street food. We also went to the famous ski jump area and the entrance of the Tatra National Park.
    Afterwards, we cycled to our guesthouse, a real lucky find. It was clean, the owners were super nice, we could see the mountains while chilling in the backyard and we received a delicious traditional meal. We later learned that the owners are famous chefs in town, so couldn't have chosen any better accommodation for the night!
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  • Day 33

    Finishing the high Tatra half circle

    July 1, 2020 in Slovakia ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    The morning started with an enormous breakfast, sun and nice views of the Tatra mountains. What else could you wish for as a cyclist?
    We left our guesthouse and started into a great day of cycling. The first little path was a bit adventurous and we had to push the bikes through some muddy bits. Then we followed the main road along the mountain range and Tatra National Park. We were happy we were here on a weekday. I can imagine it's very busy with tourists on weekends.
    The road led back into Slovakia, went around the Tatra on the East side and then turned West along the South side of the Tatra. We had to climb a lot, but with a steady elevation gain and spectacular nature it felt really easy. Plus, we also had some nice downhills.
    As we had some time left in the afternoon, we decided to do a little detour to Lake Strbske Pleso which was the highest point of our Europe trip so far. From here, we only had to roll downhill to Svit where we were welcomed by Tom and Luba, our warmshowers hosts. They also had to cut their Panamericana trip short because of Covid, so we had lots to talk about.
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  • Day 34

    Crossing the lower Tatra

    July 2, 2020 in Slovakia ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    It rained when we woke up, so we didn't hurry to get on the bikes. Instead, we had a long breakfast with Tom and Luba and waited for the weather to clear up. We left around 10:30am and were lucky all day: no rain :)
    However, the trails were wet and muddy, so some sections turned out to be a bit of an adventure. Overall, we had a beautiful ride again. We cycled South towards Central Slovakia, mainly through some valleys, and climbed up the lower Tatra range. The downhill to the next valley was epic although we had to watch out for gravel and wet pavement in the turns. Before we reached our campground for the night, we had another steep climb over the next mountain range followed by an adventurous downhill on a grass trail. Exhausted but happy we enjoyed our beer after another great day of riding and exploring. Our German neighbours, Steven and Zivile, later invited us over and we spend a long night exchanging travel stories.
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  • Day 35

    More mud adventures

    July 3, 2020 in Slovakia ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    Our ride started with a rolling climb on a small paved bike path. At the top, we were looking forward to a fast downhill, but were surprised by a changed surface: Lots of mud and grass and rocks and very steep. Probably fun on a proper MTB, but difficult with our pannier setup and no suspensions at all. However, it's an adventure and we are not in a hurry! Sometimes it's quite interesting and always a surprise, what route komoot has chosen for us 😉
    Once down in the valley, we had to climb again. 500m of elevation gain on a normal road and we got to the top of the pass. This time, the downhill was easier and really long, around 35km. The first part was a road in a pretty bad condition, so we had to navigate around heaps of potholes. We had to stop in some village to wait out the rain, but timed it perfectly with our lunchbreak. Then the road got smoother and we rolled easily along a small river.
    One last climb, some more descending on remote roads through a poorer region of Slovakia and we arrived at a campground at a lake. Not really our type of campground, but at least they have hot showers.
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  • Day 36

    First impressions of Hungary

    July 4, 2020 in Hungary ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    It rained during the night, but stopped again in the morning, so we were lucky. We left the campground and headed in a Northeastern direction. Instead of going straight to Hungary, we wanted to stay in Slovakia a little bit longer.
    Soon, we went on one of these trails again... Difficult to see in the grass and very muddy due to all the rain. It was great fun riding as we had to use some technical skills especially for river and puddle crossings. But at the same time it was very strenuous because we also had to push through some mud sections. It took us quite a while to clean up the bikes and shoes afterwards to be able to continue the ride.
    The South of Slovakia appears to be considerably poorer than the North. Also, there's more people with darker skin colour and town names are written in 2 languages, Slowak and Hungarian. You can also see some German on advertisements.
    At some point, we reached a Slovakian village where we had our lunch stop at a supermarket. Here, we decided to cut our day shorter than originally planned. We found cheap accommodation on the Hungarian side, so decided to cross straight away. We almost missed the border sign which was hidden behind a tree.
    At our guesthouse, we received a Hungarian welcome. During the check-in, we had to drink a beer and a Palinka that the owner offered us. Next, some other guests invited us to their bbq where we had to drink more Palinka. Then, some friends of the owner as well as another cyclist group arrived. We had really fun night with everyone even ending up in a local pub to play some fussball. I guess it's gonna be fun with the Hungarians 😉
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  • Day 37

    Hungarian single trails

    July 5, 2020 in Hungary ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    We were a bit tired from last night, but didn't have time to think about it. After a short downhill from the guesthouse and a little detour to a nearby lake, komoot sent us into the forest again. And this time, I think it mistook our means of transport. The trail was more a hiking trail but everything else, so we had to push our bikes a lot. At some section, we even had to push one bike with the two of us. We were covered in sweat and flies and insects trying to fly into our eyes and ears weren't helping either. It was exhausting, but a good adventure.
    Next, we went to a beautiful lake, Agós, the hotel owner from last night, had recommended. As it was lunchtime and we were hungry, we had some food there as well.
    Afterwards, we could get some distance covered. We passed very remote villages and were surprised by the poor standards of some of the houses. The nature though was nice with hills and forest. We also passed a field full of storks before starting a final climb of 500m elevation gain along a canyon road to our campground.
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