Slovakian Summer

We spent the rest of our Polish currency to load up at the bakery in Krakaw before rolling south out town.  It was some tough navigation without a city map but the locals are so helpful here even with no English.  And even the crazy drivers don't get mad that we're on the road and slowing them down on occasion.  Everyone gets to use the roads, even horse pulled trailers.

Immediately out of the city we were climbing foothills on smaller roads that kept us out of the bad traffic except for one 20k section.  Bandit camped in Poland for the first time 3k from the border of Slovakia.  It seemed like we were in a pickle when we kept hearing a farm tractor close by from different directions and trying to figure out how to hide better but it soon left.

The next day we entered the Titras mtn range for some great weather, scenery, and camping.  HP means KOM in Slovakian but other than that the language barrier here is kinda tough.  Not that we mind cause its been so easy for us so far.  No english on the menus kept us out of the restaraunts, plus bandit camping every night let us cross the country in four days for about $60 each.  Nice.  And the roads here are great.  Very good road surface with less cars and they go slower here.  We did end up on the freeway for 6k but no problem.

And the scenery?...... Excellent.  Twisting climbs and descents thru picturesque wilderness with villages tucked in the tight mountainsides.  Some sections reminded me of nice places in Vermont but the mountains here are tighter.  While descending thru one village a PA system set about the town via megaphones started talking to us (in Slovakian), or so it seemed because there was no one else on the street....bazzar  As we progressed east the mountains deminished in size and the valleys became bigger.  The biggest (of 5 mtn passes I think) was about 10k at 2% then climbed steady for 10k between 6 and 10%.  And the descents have been great, so rewarding after lugging our stuff all the way up.

One day, in the middle of nowhere, we came upon the Shimano and Trek/Gary Fisher headquarters of Slovakia.  I must say that of all the countries we have seen Slovakia has the most racer type looking cyclists out training, except for the city of Klaipeda Lithuania that had all those juniors.

Yesterday we crossed into Austria......on another ferry!  This ferry was no Tallink though, held six cars and traveled maybe 20 meters.  40k later we rolled into Vienna and wow this place is something!  A huge amount of spectacular 19th century arcitecture for us to see today plus some palaces and a cathedral I think.  This might be our last big city until Madrid.