19th July is here.
I just saw some springing deer!
There is nothing to fear, I said,
But they had already upped and fled.

Seen under a big road bridge just east of Bratislava. Then it continued to rain. FOR THREE DAYS IT RAINED. This dampened my spirits somewhat, but fortunately not for too long. Here is the road I was supposed to take. I know! Silly Eurovélo 6. Giving me inches deep puddles in sand to slush about in. Pffh.

This, succinctly yet comprehensively, is how it made me feel:

But then a stroke of luck hit, and I found my pa to be just round the corner! Ha ha. 

No seriously though it was fairly serious because I was seriously getting pretty down, and had to eat a lot of chocolate and pizza and drink a lot of beer in order to maintain sufficient morale juice to ride with.

So after the cycle trail turned sour, and having been told that the route to Budapest was in fact x kilometres long whereas I had believed and hoped that it was y kilometres long, I chose to take a shortcut through the sort of Hungarian moors. This was actually a fantastic decision and although being fairly stupid I was very glad to have done it this way.

An Italian/Hungarian chef told me in German that the hills (but let's call them mountains for effect) were passable on bike, yes it's possible, but my golly boy your legs are gonna kill. Words to that effect. So I did it and IT FELT GOOD. I went zooming down the other side, then up some more, and yada yada yada, just went I couldn't go any further I turned around and saw THIS

which, no, isn't done justice by the photo. But it really was special, I leaked a tear and gazed thereupon. Look at Elbe, all strong and proud and cute.

As the sky was dimming I pitched my tent in a bit that was kind of public but was right next to someone's field, and as I was writing in my journal thing that evening a tractor pulled up and stopped RIGHT NEXT TO MY TENT. Needless to say, I did a little bit of poo and held my breath ever so tight. Then Mr or Ms Tractor left and all was calm.

Then I got into Budapest!

which made me smile. And gave me an appetite - it made me peckish. I wanted to eat.

I'm sorry these statues are just too emotive and gloriously/grotesquely expressive to leave alone. This horse os clearly being massively traumatised and people are just sitting like ducks. It's like a microcosm for ACTUAL LIFE.

This one is striking an awesome pose.

This bloke (supposedly an angel) holds more darkness than the dark lord himself.

This yellow-bellied chap can't tell up from down, but I like his style. Snake not happy though. Not cool to treat animals bad, not even if you're a god.

There is invariably a serene woman in there somewhere, striking a balance with so many ravenous male statues. And I'm done with comments on each of these now but picture = 1000 words --> you get the pictures.

So Budapest's city park is like an amalgam of all of London's park's best bits, and then has some more groovy stuff. All those statues and that big arch are at the south entrance to the park. It's a big plaza thing with mega buildings either side and a dude on a bmx.

Then there are whopping tonkers inside the park too. Big museums, a real nice lake with funny lookin pedal boats, free Wi-Fi (weird), lovely buskers, generally lots of sights. There were people preparing for an outdoor concert that evening when I was there. It was HERE:

And THEN, there was also a micro occupation thing going on, in protest against plans to build more museums - which would involve chopping lots of trees down. So there was this One Love house set up to gain support for the movement. Big love to One Love.

This is just a self-indulgence. 

And this is Lake Balaton! Or the Hungarian Sea. Which is where I am now! In a town called Balatonszemes. But before we think about that too much I have to mention Anna, queen of couchsurfing, who saved me in Budapest. She responded to my last minute Buda request from Pest and welcomed me into her home, cooked a beeg meeal and generally treated me good. Thank you Anna!  

So here I am by Lake Balaton, which is humongous and quite pretty. There are lots of bathers and more holiday homes than you could shake a stick at. Really really, like 80-100km of them - it is ridiculous.

All for now!
Bru