Lisa Stokes

Mont-Tremblant – Day 1-3 – And Cornwall

Cindy and I are heading out to complete the P’Tit Train du Nord, which is the 232 km, one way section, of the Route Vert 2 in Quebec. On the way, we will be stopping at my cousins’ in Cornwall, and on the way back, we will be stopping in Ottawa.

Last fall on the way to the P’Tit Train du Nord we stopped at my cousins’. I hadn’t seen my cousin for quite a few years, but she has been following this blog and enjoying bike tourism vicariously. Laurie used to bike quite a bit, but health issues have kept her off the bike on recent years. When we were visiting last year, Laurie told us that she had tried to find a pedal assist e-bike, but been unable to, due to pandemic shortages.

A couple months ago I messaged to see if it would be all right if we visited again on our way to Quebec. I also asked if she had had any luck sourcing a bike. She replied that it has been a very busy winter and she had not, plus she was about to have knee replacement surgery.

A few hours later Laurie messaged to tell me she had sourced a bike in Ottawa, and would be going on Monday to pick it up! Monday she sent me this picture. I told her that I loved that her latest mobility device matched her cane.

We left Brampton at 8:30 and were in Cornwall by 1:30.

We had a coffee with Laurie while she ate her lunch, and then headed out with her for her inaugural ride. Laurie is just seven weeks post knee replacement. She did a short ride down her street, and then came back for some fitting adjustments, and then we went off for 3 km neighbourhood ride that went so well that we loaded the bikes onto the cars and headed down to one of Laurie’s favourite places on the Waterfront Trail at Ingleside for a 10 km ride.

With her bike set to the touring mode which is the second of four power levels, she made us work to keep up with her. Laurie also kindly allowed us to try the E-bike when we returned to the cars. It has four modes – eco, touring, sport, and turbo. Turbo was super fun.

We all realized that this bike will be a game changer for Laurie.

We spent the evening visiting on the deck and had a delicious meal prepared by Bruce.

On Saturday, Bruce and Laurie headed to Ottawa to take their granddaughter out for her birthday and Cindy and I headed out for a ride.

I used to do all the route planning for our trips from scratch, but I’ve recently become aware that a number of organizations are creating routes for tourists to follow. When an organization becomes an Ambassador on Ride with GPS, and shares routes, it allows tourists who navigate the route from the Ambassador’s page, to receive voice navigation with a free Ride with GPS account, something that normally is only available with a paid account that costs $70 a year or more. We decided to do a 62 km route by Cycle Cornwall & SDG Counties called “Cheese and Crankers”.

The first third of the route was on the Waterfront Trail on a paved shoulder of County Road 2 near Lake Ontario.

As we rode past this church, Cindy called out, “Oh look, we can vote here”, and pulled in. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but followed.

Cindy explained that the Ontario Health Coalition was holding aprovince-wide community referendum to “Stop the Ford Government’s Privatization of Our Public Hospitals”. She has a sign on her lawn. We went in and both voted. Apparently there are a thousand stations set up across the province this weekend. I hope it makes a difference.

We ate lunch at Subway in Lancaster and shortly thereafter reached our turnaround point at the Glengarry Fine Cheese store. Fortunately, Cindy had room in her trunk bag for a couple pieces of their award winning Gouda.

Stormont, Dundas, and Glengary Counties use the tagline “Where Ontario Began”. They were formally established in 1850, 17 years before Confederation. This single lane bridge leads to Loyalist Road, named for the United Empire Loyalists, “generally those who had been settled in the thirteen colonies at the outbreak of the American Revolution, who remained loyal to and took up the Royal Standard, and who settled in what is now Canada at the end of the war.”

There were several farms along this road that had this plaque commemorating the fact that the farm has been “owned and operated continuously by the same family for over 200 years”.

It was a nice ride with quiet roads and pastoral scenes.

We took Bruce and Laurie out to dinner at their favourite restaurant, Esca. It was a delicious meal. We finished the evening on their lovely deck.

We began day three, also on their lovely deck, with coffee and breakfast, before getting ready for a local ride with the four of us. Laurie couldn’t wait to get out again after her successful ride on Friday afternoon.

We rode our bikes down to the Saunders Hydro Dam Visitor Centre. This dam is the second most powerful in the province after the Adam Beck dam in Niagara Falls. We saw an interesting film made 60 years ago when the dam opened.

We continued along a multiuse path between the St. Lawrence Seaway and the old canal.

Then we rode into downtown Cornwall for lunch at Carrots ‘n Dates.

By the time we returned to the house, Laurie had gone even further than she did two days earlier. We were all very impressed.

Cindy and I packed up and headed for Mont-Tremblant. We crossed the Ottawa River at Hawkesbury to Grenville, Quebec. Even if we hadn’t seen the Bienvenu à Quebec sign, we would’ve known we were in Quebec from the traffic lights.

Despite the fact that we had not told Google to avoid highways, it took us the back way, and we were on washboard gravel roads for more than 20 km. The bikes were very dusty when we arrived.

Near our destination we spotted this old covered wooden bridge in Prud’homme, but unfortunately, it’s been allowed to deteriorate, and is closed even for walking and cycling. The sun was also situated in such a way that I couldn’t really get a good picture of it.

We had to check in at a different resort than we are staying at, but arrived after the office staff had gone home. Fortunately, our key cards were left in a box, and we were able to check in the next morning.

Unfortunately, there was no one to tell that we would prefer a ground floor room, and we had been assigned one on the third floor. There is no elevator. Many trips later we had all of our stuff carried up three flights of stairs, including our bikes.

We do have a very nice apartment with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room, and balcony. It feels like a very luxurious amount of space for two.

Fortunately we had groceries that we had brought from home and were able to pull together a quick dinner. We ate, unpacked, relaxed for a short while, planned tomorrow’s activities, and hit the sack.

Bratislava – Day 19 – Travel Home

I arose at 545am so I could pack my last few things and leave the room with my suitcase, to be in the dining room for breakfast at 6:30 with Michael.

The dining room was quiet and empty, and I ate quickly, and was outside, in front of the hotel, a few minutes before seven, to find the limo driver already waiting.

The drive took about 45 minutes and cost €55 – it was definitely worth it given that I was able to sleep later, and not have to walk to the bus station, then take two buses to Vienna airport. It was also interesting because I saw some of the places that I biked through on the way home from Vienna a few days ago.

There was only one person in front of me at the Air Canada check-in counter, which was already open. The lineup for security snaked back-and-forth several times, but moved quickly.

One needs to have their passport stamped on the way out of the EU as well as on the way in.

I was feeling pretty tired and decided to sit in a massage chairs comfortable place to sit, but not put any money in. They have them set up so that if you sit in them without paying, after 30 seconds they begin beeping. I moved on.

They still allow smoking in the Vienna in Airport, but you must stand in this glass room that’s ventilated to the outside. I so rarely encounter smoke at home that even in situations like this, I find a smoke that leaks out when the door is opened that it is bothersome.

By the time I arrived at the gate, the plane was already in from Toronto.

I had over an hour to wait until boarding and was feeling quite tired so I found an empty corner of the terminal and used my inflatable pillow to lie down cradling my backpack. I set an alarm on my Fitbit and on my phone. I didn’t fall asleep deeply, but felt somewhat refreshed when the alarms went off. I did wonder before I decided to try to have a little nap if it would be possible for me to not awake, and miss the boarding call, but I deemed it pretty much impossible given how lightly I tend to sleep.

This plane, an Airbus 330, had a nicer configuration than the one on the way over with just two seats on the sides rather than three. I had a window seat, but only had to ask one person to move when I needed to get up.

As we ascended I could see the fuel storage facility that I rode my bike through when I was riding back from Vienna.

The meal was absolutely dire. Fortunately, I had a couple, hard-boiled eggs and yogurt drinks, and pistachios to keep me going.

The snack was also dire.

While we were flying, I removed my European SIM card and put my Canadian one back in my phone. As soon as we landed, I filled out ArriveCan, and when I got to the immigration machines, they already had a record of all of my answers from the app, and I simply had to confirm that they were correct. All the people complaining about the app during Covid were idiots. There were empty machines waiting when I got there.

The luggage hall was almost empty when I arrived, and the luggage had not yet started coming off.

After about 10 minutes, it started. The last time I recall paying attention to the baggage carousel, the bags would fall whether there was another bag there or not, and things could jam up, but this one sensed whether or not there was a space before it would let the bag fall.

Cindy pulled up a few minutes after I got outside. I think I might’ve momentarily fallen asleep, or at least I was certainly zoning out because she was out of the car asking me if I wanted a ride before I realized she had pulled up.

She drove us back to her place and offered me tea, but I was too tired and just wanted to get home. I got into my van, which had been very low on fuel when she drove us to the airport 2 1/2 weeks ago causing her to have to put gas in for me. Cindy is such a thoughtful friend.

When I got home the boys and I spent the afternoon and evening catching up, and I made it to 1030, almost 23 hours after I had awoke, before I fell asleep.

It was such an amazing trip. I saw so many interesting and beautiful things. I still have so much to process about the trip because it was such a whirlwind. I look forward to doing so, and figuring out what I missed, and for the opportunity of seeing it on one of Michael’s future business trips to Bratislava.

Bratislava – Day 18

It was another rainy day today from start to finish. I had tentatively planned to do a 20 km bike ride around a part of the city I had yet to explore, while Michael had his Slovak language class with his tutor, but the roads were very wet with pooling water , and the rain moderately heavy, so I decided to stay in to pack and put Milan’‘s bike back to the way it was. Once Michael returned, I put the bike back into the luggage storage room and we took a tram to the town hall to visit the city museum.

When I first got here, I asked Michael about the umbrella street, something I had seen in his photos from previous trips, but when we went there, they hadn’t been set up.

Today, as we were walking to the museum, I saw that they had been set up, so, of course, I had to take a picture in the rain with my umbrella.

The city museum is in the Old Town Hall, which is a complex of buildings constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries. It is the oldest museum in Bratislava founded it in 1868. It offers an outdoor 360° lookout from the top of the tower.

Several of the exhibits were of a religious nature. This is the front and back of the top of a crosier, or bishop’s staff.

Some of the rooms in the tower had circular and oval windows.

The Old Town Square was as empty of tourists as we had seen in the two weeks we have been here.

There was an interesting display of the history of man’s taming of the Danube. The first image was what it looked like in 1712 and the second in 1929.

This is a view of the Old Square through the stained glass in the courtroom.

This is the ceiling of the court room.

There was a small chapel next to the court room.

There was a display of a couple bikes: a boneshaker, and a Pennyfarthing.

After finishing up the museum, and having lunch, we decided to have gelato at Michael’s favourite shop, but most of the gelato shops were closed, including his favorite, I guess due to the rain, but we did find this fancy new one open, and indulged.

The rain made for some lovely reflections with interesting distortion due to the cobblestones versus smooth pavement. This is the National Theatre at one end of Hviezdoslav Square.

Hviezdoslav Square was one of my favourite places in Bratislava. He was an author.

On one side of the Square in front of older buildings were glass boxes to house restaurants. They were quite delightful and made for interesting scenes.

This is another one of Bratislava’s statues. This one is Hans Christian Andersen.

A Jewish synagogue at this site was destroyed by the communists in 1969 to build a bridge across the Danube, a very controversial decision, and this sculpture, baskets of stones, and information boards tell the history.

This is St. Martin’s Cathedral, Bratislava‘s largest church.

This building was Bratislava‘s first department store and housed Tesco. It now has a food court and other small stores.

The building in the background is the now defunct hotel Kyjev. I have been puzzling over the design and wondering what the building looks like from the inside for the two weeks I’ve been here. It was only in researching for writing the blog that I discovered that this is actually a giant pice of street art.

We returned to the room for rest, then picked up dinner at Billa, a grocery store in the mall attached to the hotel, and then I finished packing.

Bratislava – Day 17

After breakfast together at the hotel, we decided to walk to the old town for hot chocolate. On the way we looked in the “new market” near the hotel. It was built in 1983 when the city needed a market space, because the old market had been re-purposed as studios for Slovak television. It is not a building that appeals to me on the inside or the outside. However, The Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic has declared the building a national cultural monument. It has become quite rundown due to a lack of maintenance over the years, but there is a movement to renovate and clean it, partially funded by the sale of designer T-shirts. We had a quick look around inside, and then continued our walk.

There are allium plants in bloom all over the city this weekend.

We spotted another one Bratislava’s statues today – Baron von Munchausen sitting on a cannonball. He is a fictional German nobleman.

The old market was reopened as a market in 2015. It is much more appealing inside and out than the new market.

Each spring this art gallery puts up umbrellas covering the street outside the gallery. This year the pattern is based on the work of surrealist artist Ladislav Guderna who was born in Slovakia in 1921 but emigrated Canada in 1968.

It’s a rainy morning, but the temperature wasn’t unpleasant. Here we are having our hot chocolate in the Old Town Square. The rain kept away some of the crowds.

This is the Canadian embassy.

Ludevít Štúr was a Slovak revolutionary politician, and writer. He was a leader of the Slovak national revival in the 19th century, and the author of the Slovak language standard.

Bratislava recently built a tomb of the unknown soldier. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a tribute to all fallen soldiers without a name because they could not be identified.

Václav Havel was the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of Czech Republic. He is also known for his plays, essays, memoirs. Inscribed on the edge of the table is: “Truth and love must prevail over lies and deceit. Václav Havel’s Place.”

This is called: Memorial of the Bulgarian Partisans which pays tribute to Bulgarian citizens, who lost their lives in the liberation of Slovakia in World War II.

We followed the pathway along the Danube to Eurovea where we bought some groceries at Billa, an Austrian supermarket chain. We ate on the old bridge which has seating areas. This was the view we had. There were many river boats tied up along the waterfront today.

I still have the bike I have borrowed from Milan, and a one month bike share pass, so we went for a ride together this afternoon. The bike share bikes are known as Slovnaft bikes. Slovnaft is an oil company.

I’m still feeling quite tired, so we came back to the room for a rest, and then went out to another Billa in the shopping centre next to the hotel to get some additional groceries for dinner in the room.

You don’t need to stop to throw out your garbage here as the can is thoughtfully mounted and angled.

Bratislava – Day 16

Today was a rest day. I’ve only biked half the distance to date this year compared to last year so the almost 150km of the last two days (18% of the total) took a toll on top of being on the go now for two weeks. It’s been a wonderful experience, and there’s still much to see and do, but the fact that it rained all day today, the first rainy day we’ve had, makes it easy to take a break.

I lingered over breakfast indoors due to the rain. When I got back to the room, I planned a 20 km ride for the afternoon when it was forecast to clear up, but at noon the view from my window, and at the end of the hallway, still looked like this.

So instead, I went for a walk on all four levels of the mall attached to the hotel. It’s accessible from inside from the second floor of the hotel.

This is the view from one end of the mall 90° counterclockwise from the view of our hotel window.

I got a takeout latte and a piece of cake. No one spoke English, so I had to look up the phrase for takeout – so sebou.

When the rain had still not stopped by mid afternoon, I took my iPad to the lobby to finish yesterday’s blog, and asked reception to send housekeeping.

This evening a couple Michael works with, who have become friends, took us to dinner near the Kamzik TV Tower. It was about a five minute walk from the parking lot to the restaurant which allowed me to acquire my 100th European Statshunter tile.

It was a pleasant evening with good food and good company.

I have two days left which we will use to do some sightseeing together. Sunday evening I’ll pack. Michael has ordered a limo to the airport for me at 7am Monday.

Bratislava – Day 15 – And Vienna

I got up at 6:30 today so I could get the train to Vienna at 8:37. The train runs hourly, and you buy a ticket to Vienna which you can use at any time. It cost €18, one way, including transporting a bike. It’s going to be another beautiful day with the temperature ranging from 13° to 20° with a mix of sun and clouds.

I was advised by locals to take the train to Vienna, and ride back, rather than the other way around, which I had initially planned, due to the fact that it will be downhill, and I would be more likely to get a tail wind. Unfortunately, the wind is from the southeast today, like yesterday, so I will have a headwind. The ride as I planned it is 72 km.

It was a 2.5 km ride to the station. When I arrived there, the departure was listed, but not the platform. I didn’t have to wait long for the platform to show up. I had to take an elevator and walk through a tunnel to get to the right platform. There were two other cyclists, headed to the elevator when I was, and I thought, I can just follow them, but they continued on when I got to the elevator for platform three. Fortunately, I was paying attention to the platform numbers listed at each elevator up to the platforms.

A few minutes later, the train pulled in with a bike car, with about a third of the car, devoted to bikes with seats that fold down, and the rest of the car with regular sets of four seats like you see on the GO train. You hang your bike and can sit with it, but I chose to sit in more comfortable seats, but in view of the bike. It took 70 minutes.

I was madly trying to research Vienna last night – I haven’t had time up till now – but it was overwhelming and I decided to just take it as it comes. There was far too much to see in the three hours I had there before I started riding back to Bratislava.

I have a tourist guide of Vienna from the Brampton Library, so I looked up the top 10 things to see in Central Vienna and chose to create a route in Google maps, while I was on the train, that went from the station, to the museum district, to the Hofburg palace, to Hundertwasserhaus, where I plan to have lunch in the café, and then onto the Donaukanalradweg, the Danube canal cycle path. I cycled 10 km in Vienna, and when I saw things of interest, pulled over or deviated from the Google maps route.

The station was massive, but easily navigated.

The scale of the city was also my massive, and felt like Prague on steroids. They were complete streets everywhere, with space for pedestrians, cyclists, trams, cars, and parking.

This is the first time I have seen a free water fountain and water bottle filling station since I’ve been in Europe.

Here are a few of the sites that I saw.

This was a massive complex of restaurants and food shops.

This is the museum district.

This massive street separated the museum district from the Hofburg palace.

As I was crossing the street, I noticed bicycle police had cyclists pulled over. As I passed them, I got a finger wagging at the fact that I had my phone in my hand, but I wasn’t stopped. In Ontario it isn’t illegal to ride while holding your phone, only when driving a motor vehicle.

This is the Hofburg palace. I sat on one of the benches, and had a hard boiled egg and a yoghurt drink, which I brought from the breakfast buffet.

This might be the fanciest grocery store location that I have ever seen.

There was a massive pedestrian district around St. Stephan’s Cathedral with public bathrooms and access to the U-Bahn – Untergrundbahn, their subway system which has five-lines with a length of 83.1 kilometers and 109 stations.

There are paths along both sides of the Danube through the city, with frequent stair and ramp access. In addition to the pedestrian and cycling infrastructure at street level.

There were an astounding number of bikes, parked everywhere, as well as cyclists on the move.

Even standing at this spot, it was hard for me to comprehend the scale of what I was looking at until a train crossed.

I thought this was a fascinating building. Outside of it was this sculpture of a sleeping woman. After my long ride yesterday and a few early mornings, I felt in need of a nap before I even set off on my 72 km return journey.

I saw this sentiment in a few places, but this was the most picturesque.

I think this is a university library.

The Hundertwasserhaus is an apartment house, completed in 1985, based on the ideas and concepts of Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. It is one of Vienna’s most visited buildings and includes a small café open to the public. The building belongs to the city of Vienna, who rent out the apartments as with any other public housing. I had a latte, and ham and Emmental cheese sandwich on the terrace. I was still hungry when I finished, but given my experience along the Danube Cyclepath yesterday, expected to have places to stop for more food along my ride back to Bratislava.

It was easy to find the cycle path from my lunch spot despite the fact that I had planned my route back from the train station.

Oops. I’m supposed to be up on that bridge. This was one of the few places where I didn’t see a ramp so I carried the bike up.

After only a few minutes of riding, it felt like I was in the suburbs of Vienna, then I was travelling through a large park.

I crossed the Danube on this bridge, which had spiral ramps up to it on both sides at both ends, with the cycle path beneath the motor vehicle deck, as I experienced on bridges in Bratislava.

Here I am looking back at Vienna. This was my last view of the Danube for quite a while. The path turned away and went through this fuel storage facility.

Then I was on the cycle path for about 40 km with nothing to see but trees and occasional double track dirt paths leading off to villages. The path was elevated about 5 m in the air making the wind even worse. The only amenities were an occasional picnic table, and the direct headwind at 24 to 36 km an hour never ceased. The path was a constant 1 to 2% downhill, but the wind was strong enough, that if I didn’t pedal, I would come to a stop. I missed my drop bars, and often rode with my forearms on the flat bars to lower my wind resistance.

It was one of those rides that I am grateful to have completed, but I must admit to not enjoying the actual experience. If I was doing it again, I would spend more time in Vienna and take the train in both directions or, do it on a day with a tail wind as well as the downhill grade.

On my first day here I commented on globes that I saw in trees, and a friend replied that it is mistletoe. It is a parasite. There was a lot of it in the trees along the path. the scale here is not conveyed in the image. These trees are probably at least 15m tall.

At one point a wild boar ran across my path. As I spotted him heading toward me I was quite concerned. He was massive. But he took no interest in me and disappeared into the woods on my left shortly after he appeared, and I wasn’t even able to get my phone off the bars to get a picture.

At another point I saw two deer run across the path, which were much less concerning than the boar.

These were the only other animals I saw. There were very few other people on these 40 km of path.

I found the ride, utterly exhausting, and at this point ate the last of the food I had brought with me, and was nearly out of water, but was 20 km from Hainburg where Jon had recommended stopping for food. I wasn’t in any danger, just very tired.

This was the first sign I saw for Bratislava.

Whenever the double track roads led off to villages, they were sign posted.

It was interesting to cross a dry channel with a warning high water sign.

This was the first time I had to go uphill about 40 km into the ride, and it was just to get up to the bridge to cross the Danube . You can see from the wind sock that the wind was strong.

After crossing the Danube, but still in Austria, the sights became more interesting.

I was utterly exhausted and thinking about getting the train the rest of the way back when I found the café Jon recommended. The rest and the food perked me up a bit.

Another train station and a train taunted me as I slogged on. This was the only non-bridge access ascent the whole day.

As you can see, the land was very flat, but wide-open and the wind continued to be unrelenting.

I was very pleased to recognize the Austrian Slovakian border and knew the rest of the route from my trip to Austria last week.

I was too tired to go out for dinner, so I had a long, hot shower while Michael got for us to eat in the room.

Tomorrow is forecast to be rainy, which is fortunate because I need a rest day.

Bratislava – Day 13

It was a cool and sunny this morning so I sat indoors at the hotel restaurant. At one point I was the only one there. I feel as though I’ve hardly stopped to catch my breath since I’ve gotten here, and since I had technical difficulties with the blog yesterday, and ended up a day behind, and I was waiting for Michael’s friend Milan to drop off his bike, I stayed in until early afternoon.

I brought the bike up to the room after he dropped it off, and mounted an extra water bottle cage that I brought with me, and will leave on the bike when I’m done, my phone caddy, my bar bag, and my seat. It took me about half an hour.

Michael forgot his European power plug this morning so once I ready to go I headed to his office. The borrowed bike was a pleasure to ride compared to the bike share. It’s a flat bar cross bike with lockable suspension. I really enjoyed riding it and might have to add one like it to my collection. The answer to the question, “How many bikes do you need?” is n+1 when you are passionate about cycling.

Ive never seen food delivery people using scooters before, but it’s quite common here.

This is me loving the feel of having a lighter bike, again.

I arrived at the office while Michael was still in a meeting so did a loop around a large park in the area. The Au Park shopping mall has been built adjacent to the park.

I recently learned about the concept of the “third place”. It refers to social surroundings that are separate from the two usual social environments of home, the first place, and the workplace, the second place. Cafés, public libraries, gyms, bookstores that encourage you to linger, and parks are all examples of third places. Bratislava, Prague, and New York City are full of third places. Brampton is lacking in them. Toronto is somewhere in between. Montreal is better than Toronto, but not as good as here.

Two of the shopping malls I’ve seen here include playgrounds for children and outdoor cafés that encourage you to linger. They also have strong connections to cycling and walking infrastructure.

These images show a very inviting third place right between the park and the indoor shopping mall.

As I looped around the park, I saw the UFO bridge and rode on the terrific bike lane beneath it. Yesterday, when looking at Atlas Obscura, I saw that there was another UFO in Bratislava. After dropping off Michael’s plug I used Google Maps for directions. Unfortunately, there are no bicycle directions here, so I used driving directions, but excluded highways and tolls roads. It gave me an 8 km route.

As I descended from the Old Bridge, I saw a rainbow coloured apartment building in the distance, so I diverted off my route to find it. I found a colourful mid rise neighbourhood with parks and public art, with restaurants, services and retail on the main floor.

While following the driving directions I suddenly realized that I had gotten myself into a potentially unsafe spot. I was surrounded by ramps and fast moving cars. I hadn’t seen a no bikes permitted sign, but when I looked on the map I could see that I was about to cross the Harbour Bridge on the motor vehicle level. I could lift my bike over a barrier between lanes and back track a few hundred meters, or continue about a kilometre to the other side. Not knowing whether or not it was legal for me to ride there I decided to backtrack.

That led me to discover this large sundial which was displaying the local time without the daylight savings time shift. On the underside was a climbing wall.

I found my way to the active transportation, level of the Harbour Bridge and crossed on the west side this time for different views than when I travelled across it last week.

I encountered terrific bike infrastructure after coming down off the bridge. The path in the first picture I had been on before, but not the second.

One thing I’ve noticed here is land uses aren’t as strictly separated as they are at home. I was riding through a residential neighbourhood and came to a T-intersection, and there was an inviting ice cream and coffee shop. I stopped, and indulged.

I joined the path along the Little Danube at a different points from last week, and shortly I was at the Medzijarky UFO.

The area was built in the mid 70s and is comprised of three tight circles of low rise towers from the Soviet era. In the middle of the centre circle is a park with a UFO by local artist Juraj Hovorka, who lived in one of the towers. He is the same artist who designed the Linden Tree monument to Alexander Dubček at the Hrad which we saw on Day 4.

As I was thinking about my return route to the hotel, I realized that I could use the OpenMaps layer in Ride with GPS in the app on my phone, and have it navigate me back using local cycling knowledge, which I did, and it worked well. I’ll stay away from Google Maps for the rest of this trip.

On my way back I saw a lot more cyclists on this bike path than last week. It was later in the afternoon, so I guess people were coming home from work.

I saw another building that made me think of UFOs. My third for the day.

I stopped to take a picture of this appealing park on the way home, and when we spoke about it at dinner with Milan, Michael’s friend, who loaned me his bike, he told me he, and Michael, worked in the building on the left when they worked for IBM.

I’m calling this picture “Wrong way down a one-way street” because I spotted it, and had to go and have a look at the art, despite the fact that it was the wrong way. It was a short residential street, and very low risk doing so.

From there I turned onto this street which had a nice centre median, and a desire line down the centre of the shady trees.

I am storing the bike in the luggage room at the hotel.

We had dinner at Komin, again, and this time the patio was open.

Bratislava – Day 14 – And Hungary

I arose early today, and it was too cool to eat breakfast outside, and because I was in the dining room earlier than usual I found it very busy.

I was out of the hotel by 8:45 AM. The goal today was to ride from Slovakia to Hungary, visit the Danubiana Art museum, and ride across the Floodplain Bridge, Bratislava‘s newest, and longest bridge.

This short bi-directional cycling path is one of the best on a city street in the core of Bratislava. It has a lot of work to do to separate cycling within the built-up areas of the city, but, the infrastructure that I experienced today outside of the built-up areas was awe inspiring.

I found the detour signs to get me over the Apollo bridge today without riding on the road for the first hundred meters. I’m not sure how I overlooked them last week. I noticed a little weather station on it today.

Much of the day today I rode on EuroVelo Route 6. It runs from the Atlantic coast of France to the Black Sea. The website is an amazing resource which I want to explore more when I get home.

My turn-around point is Rajka, Hungary. My route is a rough figure 8. This was my first spotting of Rajka on a wayfinding sign.

I’ve been noticing these posts in various places, close to the river, and wondering what they are. It occurred to me as I rode past this one today that it is a flood gauge. Later in the day, I saw this submerged one which confirmed my speculation. I also saw ones on an incline with which I am familiar from the Ottawa River flood gauges.

EuroVelo Route 6 is a wide, smooth path, far from roads, and with bright, beautiful views, excellent wayfinding, and excellent connections. It runs down both sides of the Danube or its tributaries, with frequent bridges to cross from one side to another.

I encountered this bike counter that indicated 211 cyclists had already gone past this point at 9:20 this morning, and over 97,000 so far this year.

This was an underpass to get under the highway to go to a small village.

In many places, the path was not only in both sides of the river, but twinned, even on the one side with cyclists on the right and pedestrians on the left.

There were frequently places adjacent to the path where one could stop for meals or coffee. There were no public bathrooms, but typically when one pays for a meal one can use the bathroom here, but in public bathrooms, one needs to pay about $1.25.

At major intersections between the paths, these mirrors were mounted to prevent collisions.

This is under the Floodplain Bridge. On my way south I went under it. On my way back I crossed it.

Here you can see a crossing of the river to the path on the other side.

I read about Rusovce Mansion on Atlas Obscura so recognized it when by chance it was in my route. It was “constructed between 1840 and 1906. Part of the foundation of the building dates back to the 16th-century. Several royal families once called the mansion home prior to World War II. During the conflict, the mansion was used by Nazi SS officers.”

I planned this route before we came on the trip, but redid it last night using the OpenStreetMaps cycling layer. I wanted to do a loop to Rajka so planned to leave the Danube Cyclepath, and travel along the road, and then return on the path. When I got to the road, and saw the traffic and speed limit of 80, and lack of shoulders, I decided it wasn’t a good idea. I was able to look at the heat map, which shows where cyclists ride, and it looked like they do not ride on this section of road. So I turned back and went on the Cyclepath for another kilometre and then branched off into the small town of Rusovce where I rejoined the road.

The speed limit was lower through the town, and the traffic lighter. As I got to the south end of town, I saw this amazing piece of infrastructure and rode over to it only to have it end 100 m later, and put me back on the busy road.

However, from this point, there were two lanes going south, and all of the cars changed lanes to pass me. It took me almost 2 hours to get to the “no more Bratislava” sign and only a couple minutes more to get to the border.

20 minutes later, I reached my turnaround point. I had a significant headwind going south of 24-36kph that turned into a lovely, 26 to 39kph tailwind on my return. The whole route was essentially flat other than the climbs up over the bridges.

Unknown to me, the place I had chosen to turn around was a bar, but did have an espresso machine. No one there spoke English. All the other customers were men in their 60s and 70s and there were lots of bikes.

I was very happy to take advantage of the facilities as I was feeling rather like the woman in the picture.

Rajka has a population of less than 3000, but has a phenomenal amount of cycling infrastructure for s place with very few cars, and no busy roads, and most of the people I observed were walking or riding. I only encountered a handful of cars. It was a very quiet place.

They had a pleasant little town square.

The cycling infrastructure ended at the edge of the village, but I didn’t encounter any cars on the road I continued along.

Shortly I came to a sign, indicating the way back to EuroVelo Route 6, and another cycling route called SacraVelo. It is a bike pilgrimage of 648 km in length and offers 209 sacred sites.

Back on the pathway, it wasn’t long before I came to the large dam across the Danube, where the Danubiana Art Museum is located. I hadn’t planned to go in, but had expected to be able to access the grounds to sit and have my lunch, but because it is on a pier of land jutting off the damn, and many of the exhibits are outdoors, you have to pay to go into the museum to see the outdoor exhibits. I decided to leave it for a less beautiful day on a possible future trip.

A surf and kayak school have been set up with artificial rapids part way across the dam. There are two different courses. It looks fabulous. And once you get to the bottom, you can paddle around to the left to take out and carry your boat up to the top and come down again. There are stands for viewing. There was a sign advertising European youth championships this summer. There is a hotel and campground, restaurant, outdoor dining, pool, and playground. I would have loved to have tried this back when I was kayaking regularly.

I left the dam and continued north.

I sat on this little crossing for my lunch of soft boiled eggs and banana smuggled out of the dining room this morning.

This was one of the regular crossings. This is a tributary of the Danube at this point with paths on both sides.

When I got back to the Floodplain Bridge, I crossed the bridge over the tributary and wound my way up onto the bridge. This bridge opened in September 2021. It consists of multiple bridges, connecting multiple arms of the Danube river and carries motorway traffic. It is 2.9 km long and 35 m wide. There are cycling paths on both sides. Unlike some of the other bridges it doesn’t have stairs as well as ramps.

The views were incredible.

And the bridge itself was a mind-boggling at 2.9 km long with these emergency exit doors every few hundred meters.

These paths run parallel to the ones that I was on prior to climbing the bridge.

The scale of this active transportation bridge was phenomenal. Look at how small the cyclist is compared to the bridge.

A switchback ramp, rather than a spiral, led down off the bridge.

This beautiful new path separated bi-directional cycling and pedestrians with a tactile strip, and ran back under the bridge.

Then I turned north again, and rode this path most of the way back into the built up area of Bratislava.

In this area, they have an elevated pipeline running behind these homes, and over the road. The municipal bus system runs almost to the Hungarian border. There’s a bus stop here on the left.

I passed this vehicle twice before, and wanted to take a picture with my bike, but I was wearing shorts on those days, and the grass was knee length. Today I had long cycling tights on and socks, and someone had cut the grass. Serendipity.

This is a tree lined cycling path near the hotel, relatively short, I think, but I haven’t explored it yet. I plan to do so on Friday. Note the garbage can angled so that cyclist can throw something out without even stopping.

My ride was 62 km today. I stowed the bike in the luggage room again and headed up for a quick shower and then out for coffee.

There’s an adorable coffee shop in the elevated park which we can see from our hotel room window. Today was the perfect day to try out. I ordered latte and cheesecake and sat on the roof on a beanbag chair.

We met a colleague and friend of Michael’s for dinner at Cierny Pes. We had to duck slightly to go into the door and down a few steps to this basement bar.

Jon has also done quite a bit of cycling in the area and recommended a town in Austria that I will be passing through tomorrow on my way back from Vienna.

I left early to let them talk shop and came back on the tram to write my blog and get an earlier night. I’ll be taking the train to Vienna in the morning and riding back.

Bratislava – Day 12 – And Prague

I got up earlier today so we could maximize the amount of sightseeing we could do before getting the train scheduled for 330pm. We have barely scratched the surface of what there is to do here.

We packed everything, and checked out by 745am, then walked to the tram stop. It is Liberation Day today, a statutory holiday, and the tram seem to be running on a less frequent schedule, which meant we had to wait about 10 minutes. We transferred from the tram onto the metro. We wanted to experience it while we are here. Prague has three metro lines each of which cross the river. The system is almost as large as Toronto’s, in terms of the number of stations and total length, but has 2.4 times the annual ridership of Toronto’s. And this is in addition to the extensive streetcar network. Prague has a population 1.2 million people.

The ride down the escalator was almost dizzying, and was steep, and long.

The first few stops weren’t very busy, but then we had to transfer onto another line and, the platform and cars were very full.

There is a Metro stop in the main railway station. We found the luggage storage area to leave the suitcase, as we didn’t want to haul it around with us. It’s very difficult, pulling a wheelie suitcase on the cobbled surfaces in this city.

There was a sign to measure what size locker you need. Then you enter your personal information on the screen, including a phone number, and are texted a code. Once you put the code in you are given a locker number, and it opens five seconds later. You stow your luggage, and close the door. When Michael retrieved it at the end of the day, he had to enter the six digit code he was texted at the beginning of the day, and the locker opened.

We decided to walk to the Žižkov TV Tower, about a 25 minute walk from the station up another hill, because, of course, TV towers are put on the top of the hill for better coverage. On the way, we saw this street art celebrating the Prague spring which was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in Czechoslovakia, which ended with the Soviet Union, invading the country to suppress the reforms.

Žižkov is a communist era tower, which was once considered one of the ugliest buildings in the world. Its weirdness is what attracted me. Here is our first sighting of the tower.

After observing all of the activity and cafés around the Petřín tower yesterday we expected to be able to find breakfast here, but the café wasn’t open yet. We found a lovely restaurant about 100 m away, though. They had a mug almost as big as my head, but unfortunately, weren’t selling lattes in this size.

On the observation deck, they had a display of towers from around the world, and how this tower compares.

The views from the tower were lovely, and we were fortunate to observe seven planes flying in formation, emitting the colours of the Czech republic in smoke for Liberation Day, while we were on the observation deck. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture very good images with my iPhone, but if you look closely in this image, you can see the planes and smoke.

They had a fun area with hanging chairs and models of the tower. I have a picture of myself in this exact chair in the lobby of The Laundry Rooms, a boutique hotel in Hamilton.

In 2000, the Czech sculptor David Černý, whose work we saw yesterday, and the day before, and who had a reputation of protesting late Soviet communism in Czechoslovakia, attached giant crawling babies,with barcodes for faces, to the side of the tower. Unfortunately, you couldn’t see the babies from the observation deck, and from ground level, you couldn’t make out the details.

In Atlas Obscura, I discovered that the original babies had been removed due to structural concerns, and replicas had been re-mounted. The are also replicas in Kampa Park, on the other side of the river near the Charles bridge. We decided it was worth a 25 minute walk to see them up close.

Near the tower we saw this interesting, modern church.

This is a very typical Intersection with stunning buildings on all four corners.

On our way we passed the New Town Hall, and I realized that this was the location of The First Defenestration. I reenacted the result.

The crowds around the Charles bridge were phenomenal.

Here we are with the barcode babies. They are quite disturbing.

At the same location there was a line of bright yellow penguins. They are made from recycled plastic, and are meant to warn that man is damaging the planet, and the survival of the penguin is dependent on us addressing the climate emergency.

We then retraced our steps past the astronomical clock, and through a number of arcades and courtyards to the railway station.

We bought lunch at Billa, a grocery store with a location in the station, and sat outside to eat it.

We entered the station to check the schedule board and it appeared that our train would be departing on time.

They had an amazing Lego display of the station that contained 2705 kg of bricks numbering over 340,000.

About 15 minutes before our scheduled department departure the platform came up on the board. We made our way to the platform, but there was no indication of which side our train would come in on. Just as the scheduled time arrived a message came up on the board confirming that we were in the correct place, but that the departure would be delayed 15 minutes. Here we are smiling because the train has arrived and we are about to board.

The train ended up being about 30 minutes late into Bratislava.

The bus from the train station back to the hotel was one of the most crowded I’ve ever been on. Fortunately it hard four double wide doors for boarding.

Returning to the hotel room and not having to check back in and unpack all our belongings again made for a relaxing return.

Bratislava- Day 11 – And Prague

The day dawned cooler than yesterday, and was clouded over. We only had two things on the agenda today – to ride the funicular near our hotel and visit Prague Castle. Otherwise we were going to just take things as they came.

We had breakfast at the same restaurant as yesterday but sat indoors.

We didn’t know anything about the funicular so we asked Google maps to direct us to the nearest station. We were a bit surprised to find our self walking up a steep hill.

After a 10 minute walk, we emerged at Petřín Park. There is an observation Tower here that looks like a mini Eiffel tower and a hall of mirrors that looks like a castle that we’re both built in 1891 for the Prague Jubilee exhibition. There was also a church, formal gardens, observatory, cafes, and the funicular.

We came across this statue called The Kiss by Josef Mařatka, in one of the gardens, sculpted in 1921. He was inspired by his teacher Auguste Rodin, who also had a famous sculpture of the same name. There are quite a few amorous statues around the city including a few in the garden courtyard of our hotel.

We had expected to ride up, but found ourselves at the top station. Our 72 hour transit passes gave us access so down we went. The funicular has three stations and a single track other than around the middle station where the cars can pass each other.

When we got to the bottom, there was a massive lineup of people waiting to go up, so our mistake turned out to be good fortune, because had we gone to the bottom station we wouldn’t have waited in such a line.

We had already experienced great views from Petřín Hill in several places so we didn’t go up the Petřín tower.

The blossoming trees in the park at the bottom of the hill had only recently dropped their petals.

We wandered randomly taking turns as we saw things that were of interest. We came to a small opening in a wall and looked through and discovered the formal gardens of Wallenstein Palace, now home to the senate of the Czech Republic.

There was also an attraction here that I learned of in Atlas Obscura called the Dripstone wall. It was constructed between 1623 and 1630. Grotesque faces of people and animals seem to peer out from the dripping rocks. It also covers the walls of an aviary.

After that, we walked under the Charles Bridge to find a staircase to a restaurant, so narrow that pedestrian traffic lights have been installed.

We decided to stay on the west side of the river to avoid the marathon that was being run in Prague today. In the mid-afternoon we encountered the finish line on the west side of one of the many bridges and a lone runner approaching it.

We could also see some excellent cycling infrastructure, but it didn’t look like it went very far. I had no desire to ride here.

Next we came across a small park called Park Holubička. There was a statue of a girl, holding a pigeon that was enhanced by a pigeon, standing on the sculpted one when we were there.

There is also a “sculptural micro-city created by the artist Krištof Kintera and the collective of collaborators who set the architectural sculptures there – seven Prague architectural projects dating from the second half of the last century”. The artist is concerned about the lack of preservation of buildings built during the communist era, even those of significant architectural interest.

Next to the garden, were stairs leading up to the castle.

It is the third largest castle in the world. It was incredible and seem to go on forever and the pictures don’t do it justice.

The stained glass in the cathedral was incredibly beautiful.

One of the things that Michael wanted to see was the Prague defenestration window. There were three defenestrations in Prague, which occurred in 1419, 1483, and 1618. The one in 1618 happened at the Castle, but we couldn’t find the window.

These buildings are just outside of the castle.

We walked down the stairs lined with cafés to find a café that served Trdlos, chimney cakes, dipped in chocolate, and filled with fruit, ice cream, etc.

This is how they are made.

Our next stop, was at a sculpture by the artist, David Černý, who created the Franz Kafka‘s kinetic head, which we saw yesterday. “Quo Vadis depicts the iconic East German Trabant walking on four human legs. It is a tribute to the many East Germans who travelled to the West German embassy in Prague to seek asylum in 1989. Those to whom it was granted had to leave their Trabbys behind as they fled to the west.” It is in the garden of Prague’s German Embassy.