To Gyula, Hungary
A large portion of today’s ride was on bike paths alongside Hungarian Route 44. Since we rode a bit over 120 km today, this photo was taken about three quarters of the way through my ride. By this time, the temperatures were in the mid 90s, but I was doing reasonably well dealing with the heat. Besides constantly hydrating, I was regularly soaking my sun sleeves, jersey, and sun leggings with water to provide cooling. As the water evaporates, it chills the water remaining behind and cools my limbs and torso. After a soaking, I could usually get a good 20 minutes of significant heat relief.
Our days start by bringing our bag down to the luggage van then getting breakfast. Today, the bag time was 6:30am. This is a picture of a portion of the breakfast spread our hotel provided for us this morning. Given the calories we are burning, all of us tend to eat large breakfasts. The temptation is to eat and eat and eat. But as I commented this morning, at some point, food becomes luggage.
By 7:30, I was on my bike and cycling towards Gyula. The primary reason for the 6:30 bag and breakfast time is to allow us to get out before the intense heat. Today, it was only marginally successful since it was already 80 F when I departed.
One set of memories I will take with me from my time in Hungary is of the occasional terrible bike paths that we were legally required to cycle on.
To be fair, there were also wonderful bike paths that were a delight to ride.
We rode through several towns today which had churches on our route. So this church photo and the next 3 I dedicate to Kate’s Aunt Phyllis who has emailed me about how much she has enjoyed all of my church photos.
After taking this church photo, I soaked my arm sleeves in the water which felt great when I put them back on.
Most of the time, I felt about as dry and parched as this field looks.
I arrived in Gyula around 12:45. While check-in time was set for 2pm, my room was ready. After a delightfully cool shower, and chatting with Kate, I decided I would explore the surrounding area. I think I lasted less than 5 minutes in the 96 degree heat before heading back to my hotel room for a short rest, some initial work on this blog post, and a call with my daughter Kayla.