A rainy start out of Komarom but being a Sunday the roads were fairly quiet. The Hungarian route is the main Danube route through to Esztergom but its not for the faint hearted as you are cycling on busy roads with no speed limits at times. There are a few sections on paths by the main road and there was a newly built short section which we nearly missed as all the signeage wasnt up yet. We saw on a nearby map that they were going to take the route off the road at Dunaalmas through the forest so we peddled off to investigate. Fortunately we met a local walking out of the woods with long welly boots all covered in mud, so he gave the thumbs up to hubbys bike but not to mine. Before you even got into the woods you had to cross a fast flowing sulphur spring, the local encouraged us to drink from it but we declined, cowards.

Remnants of industry lined the roads out of Komarom, the old aluminium smelter still has the stone fresco from communist days encouraging workers to work harder. We managed a coffee stop in Sutto, the pub only had men in it enjoying a Sunday drink, not coffee I hasten to add but they were all quite interested in us. Lunch we had a slight diversion into a very nice thatched restaurant in Tat, after all it was Mothers Day in Oz I had to have a nice lunch even if I couldn’t fly my daughters and spouses over to join us. Stopped for coffee and cake later, conditories here are as good as Austria at a quarter of the price.

Took a little while to find the bed and breakfast in Esztergom as the picture on booking.com was of the town so I was looking for an orange building not grey. Still it is a nice pension and very close to the famous Basilica and castle . The first King of Hungary lived here at the castle and the cathedral is the largest in central Europe.Such an amazing sight ,just couldnt believe the size of it. Hubby chilled whilst I went up the 420 steps to the top of the dome, hardly any visitors going up but such an incredible panorama .Slovakia across the Danube were still celebrating Victory Day and the singing and music was carried across the Danube, beautiful.I finished the day using the wellness centre at the pension; the jacuzzi , steam room and sauna . I met a Hungarian family in the jacuzzi, enjoying Esztergom their daughter was home from studying in Scotland so they were holidaying together, Hungarians here had their bathers on, phew.

Spot me on the steps of the Basilica!