I put together an eleven countries fast forward video of cycling across Europe on my cycling the world journey.

I started in my home town Flensburg, Germany and pedaled all the way across eastern Europe to Istanbul, Turkey. It was about 4,000 kilometers and took me a bit more than two months.
I cycled across Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey.

Don't forget to turn up the volume and get ready to dance before start the video. It contains some catchy music.

Have fun!

If you enjoy watching this video then please support my fundraising campaign to equip school class rooms in Darfur, Sudan. Thank you!
 
And if you enjoy watching it a lot, then I'd appreciate if you'd support me with a virtual cup of coffee on Ko-fi. Cheers! :)

Click here if you want to take a look at my equipment.

Location: Pecs
Km on the clock: 2,136

My stay in Budapest went by really fast. Although I was pretty tired and exhausted from my 135 kilometers ride alongside the Danube from Slovakia into Hungary, I managed to join a free walking tour. I learned a few fun things about Hungary on this 1.5 hours tour.

1. There's a Michael Jackson Memorial in Budapest. You should think it's a life-sized statue, but not. It's just a random tree plastered with lots of pictures of him. He stayed at the Kempinski Hotel when came to play a concert in Budapest in the early 1990's. Since then many Hungarians are huge fans. So they wanted the government to build a memorial for him. However, the Hungarian law doesn't allow to build memorials for people that are alive. Thus the people helped themselves and simply put pictures on this tree which is just across the street of the hotel.
2. The first McDonalds's in Hungary was opened in Budapest in 1988. The people didn't know what kind of food place McDonald's is. The only thing they knew was that there'll be a new western restaurant. Their expectation was that it'll be a nice and fancy restaurant because that was their image of the western world. So they dressed up nicely for the grand opening, like they would go to the opera. Well, I'm not sure if their expectations were met that day. Just paint your own picture of how they must have felt when they got served soggy burgers and oily fries. :D
3. The translation of the Hungarian word and national dish goulash is cowboy.

I had the pleasure to meet with Marie from Neue Zeitung - Ungarisches Wochenblatt for an interview the next day. We talked about my first weeks experiences of my cycling the world journey and the reasons of why I'm actually doing it. Here's the link to the full interview (German only). Again, thank you Marie for the opportunity to meet with you and thank you Neue Zeitung for publishing my story and thus supporting my fundraising campaign.

Pecs is located in the southwest of the country near the border to Croatia. The closer I got to Pecs the steeper some road sections got. At some point the road had an incline of 12 percent and before I entered Pecs there was one last longerish uphill section. A few days earlier someone said to me: "The whole country is flat". Well, I'm sure this person has never been in this area before. :D However, bombing downhill into the city was fun.

Just outside of Pecs I found the first note of German culture in this area. It wasn't anything significant. The word "Deutsch" was written in big letters above a window on the facade of a house. Left and right of the window were paintings of huge beer mugs. I guess that's proof enough for German culture in Hungary. :D

I couldn't find anything else significant "German" in Pecs itself. I asked at my hostel and some locals if they knew anything about the German minority and if there are places that I could visit to learn something about it. But they couldn't help me either. It rather seemed that they didn't even have a clue what I was talking about. I'm sure there are places to visit but since I stayed there for only two days I used the time to explore the city.

Pecs is Hungary's fifth largest city and is the home of the country's oldest university - founded in 1367. The old town is a beautiful, calm, non-touristy place. There are many little museums for literally anything - arts, mining, agriculture, etc. Most significant is definitely the Mosque of Pasha Quasim at the old town's main square. Even there were barely any tourists. It kind of felt like I was the only tourist in town.

My original plan was to go to Serbia after cycling through Hungary. But since I didn't plan to visit the southwestern part of Hungary, I decided to take the "shortcut" via Croatia. So I left Pecs after two days and pedaled in direction Republika Hrvatska.

If you enjoy reading this blog then please support my fundraising campaign to equip school classrooms in Darfur, Sudan. Thank you!

And if you enjoy reading it a lot, then I'd appreciate if you'd support me with a virtual cup of coffee on Ko-fi. Cheers! :)

Click here if you want to take a look at my equipment.

Location: Budapest
Km on the clock: 1,840

The sun was just about to set when I entered the old town of Bratislava via the "UFO bridge". The sun slowly set behind Bratislava Castle and the evening sky was colored in purple. It created a peaceful and welcoming atmosphere which made me excited to explore this city.

I ended up in a club that night. I don't remember its name but I had to enter it through a cafe, walk downstairs and the corridors reminded me to a dungeon. The club was quite small and the DJ had the most bizarre music playlist. It started off with electronic music from the 90's such as Hyper Hyper from the German band Scooter and later German anti-fascist music. Whatever kind of music the DJ played, the audience went bonkers. :D

I came back to the hostel late that night. I actually wanted to leave Bratislava the next day but I decided to stay for another night since I was too tired from my night out. Thus I cycled well rested in direction Hungary the following day.

I simply followed the Danube and the EuroVelo 6 on the Slovakian side. In the beginning the cycling path was tarred and it was lots of fun pedaling on top of the embankment - the river to my right and open fields and forestes to my left. At times I reached speeds of 30 km/h. However, the further I went the worse the cycling path got. At some point it turned into a gravel path and later into a sandy path. At this point it was rather a hiking path. Cycling it was quite challenging and I wondered if it was the same on the other side of the river!? I don't know. But what I do know is that covering a designated cycling path with sand isn't a good idea. :D

Just a few minutes after I entered Hungary it started to pour. Fantastic! Now it's not only hot, it's even raining and it's still 50 kilometers until Budapest. I tried to hide from the rain under a roof outside of a supermarket and hoped it would stop soon. Time passed but it didn't stop to rain. I put on my rain clothes and simply cycled through the rain to Budapest. Although I didn't get wet from the rain, I was covered in my own sweat due to the high temperatures and humidity.

The rain finally stopped a few kilometers outside of Budapest. It was already dark when I entered the city and I simply followed the road signs to the city center. As I cycled through the city I got a good feeling about this place. I was excited to be here and to explore the city the next days. I was also very surprised about the good bicycle lane infrastructure. It was fun riding through Budapest at night. As soon as I discovered the lightened up Hungarian Parliament Building on the other side of the Danube, I knew that I'd stay here for a few days. It really had a wow-effect on me.

If you enjoy reading this blog then please support my fundraising campaign to equip school classrooms in Darfur, Sudan. Thank you!

And if you enjoy reading it a lot, then I'd appreciate if you'd support me with a virtual cup of coffee on Ko-fi. Cheers! :)

Click here if you want to take a look at my equipment.