We said our final farewell to Eva and her husband, ate our breakfast on their porch and then headed out of Oriszentpeter yet again. After the hill out of town, it was pretty smooth sailing for quite a few kms through farm fields and forest.
After riding for a while without much of a break, John was getting hungry, so we detoured into Kormend and happened upon a Konditerei (quickly becoming our favorite German word - cake shop) where we enjoyed 3 pieces of delicious bakery and a cappacino. From there we continued north taking many small breaks but not really an official lunch break. We stopped in Jak and looked at a large church with some beautiful stonework on the doorway.
We could see the much higher hills of Austria on our left and John kept singing the "Sound of Music". We found ourselves confused as we followed the bike route to Narda at one point and were suddenly facing those big hills of Austria. We knew that going in that direction couldn't be correct. We used our map to ask a Hungarian gentleman on a bike and he pointed us to the right. We started down that road which soon became very narrow and eventually became a gravel path through a small gorge. Needless to say, at this point we weren't sure where were. We stopped for a snack and could hear the hum of insects filling the air. After about 2 kms we came to a paved road, took another right and we on our way to Narda.
The heat and sun were taking their toll on us at this point. We stopped at a bar in Narda to buy some potato chips. The joint was hoppin' for a Monday afternoon. We spoke with one character in German as well as we could and would have liked to stay for a beer and more merriment, but a beer would have put an end to our riding for the day, so we pressed on.
We were really doggin' by the time we arrived in Bozsk, the town with the first camping opportunity of the day according to our map. We probably would have spent the night there if we would have seen a sign for a campground, but we didn't and we didn't have the energy to look on. We both felt that we could make the 13 kms to Koszeg for the next campground. So after a snack and some cold water from the town well pump (we've finally caught on that just about every town has a blue pump with nice, cold water somewhere - you just have to spot it) we climbed the hill out of town and had to stop at the top because Marie had a flat rear tire. John fixed it quickly in the heat and found a thumbtack stuck in it. Bad timing since we were both tired and wanted to get the last 13 kms done with.
Shortly afterwards we stopped at a site with some Roman ruins. It was a section of the aqueduct they built in 41 A.D. It was interesting to read about the engineering it took for this project. There were some hills in this last stretch that seemed to revive both of us a bit. The flat stretches seem to tread heavily on us.
As we got into Koszeg we searched for the campground sign but didn't see one. We asked a man on the street in German and he said there wasn't one in town. We asked about the visitor info center and he directed us to the city center. It was now 4:45 and we figured it was already closed, but it was our only thought at the time. As we were riding through the town square John spotted a bike shop and said we should ask them if they knew about camping. The sales guy didn't but he asked the guy in the back, he came out with a bike and gave us an escort to the campground which was only about .5 kms from the bike shop. What service!
The campground was behind a penzio, which is sort of like a hotel. They have many different room rental types here such as zimmers, penzios and apartments. We don't really know the difference yet, but I'm sure that by the end of the trip we will have experienced them all.
We set up and showered. At one of the previous campgrounds we saw that they had a clothes spinner. We figured this would be perfect for us since we usually wear our riding clothes into the shower, soap them up, rinse and wring them and then hang them from the bikes to dry if the sun is still out. There was a wringer here and it worked great. The clothes were dry in no time. We could cook here in their small kitchen, so our plan was to walk back into town and get some chicken to add to our noodles. Well, unless you are at a fairly large supermarket, salami is really your only meat choice. The store closest to the campground was fairly small, so we would again enjoy Hungary's official meat for dinner.
After dinner we walked back into town to have a look at this classic European town. There was a large square with a very tall church on one end. All of the buildings were attached to each other and the little, narrow lanes were textbook Europe.
Kms 95.85
Time 5:23:00
Avg 17.2
Odometer 585
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