Day 35: Szomathely to Moravče – 90k

2,912km down: 3,313km to go.

There were only three hills of note today, one was a 12% gradient with a stop sign down the bottom of the start of it, that which I couldn’t get a run up it.

Today started off with nice cool weather, with a threat of rain during the day. Luckily the group I was riding with managed to stay just in the middle of it and avoid getting wet – some of the riders got soaked. We could tell it had been raining as the road was soaked. One of the tour guides comes from Hungary so was able to tell us some of the key sites to look out for.

In Jak there was a beautiful old church built in the 12th century usual style, in that the outside and the inside are all stone.

The church, all made of stone.

There was a 12th century bell tower in Pankasz on a little hill in a village. It had a thatched roof and an old bell.

Bell Tower

Thatched roof of the bell tower

We crossed the boarder into Slovenia just at the end of the ride. We are staying at a huge camp site tonight, and we are tenting again. We could have gotten a room but it would have been 100 euros just for the night so I decided not to. I might have reconsidered this if it had been pouring with rain when I got here, like it was for some of the other riders. I got to the camp site at about 1pm; I then put up my tent, and also put up Walli’s tent, as Walli gets in at least a couple of hours after me. I went to have a shower and when I came out it was pouring with rain.

I was feeling a bit tired, and thought I may be coming down with the cold that is going though the riders but was hopeful that I wasn’t. I decided to have a nap, and slept on and off for the afternoon. When Walli got in it was pouring, so it was lucky I had already put up her tent. While writing this the weather is fine, but it looks like it could rain again.

A topic you don’t usually discuss on blogs is toilets, but given the ones here they deserve a mention. In the past two countries (Hungary and Slovakia) the toilets all have pull cords instead of flushing buttons. There is also no soap, although this has been common to all of the camp sites as well until now. The toilets have been dark and not very clean looking, but the most unusual part is there is no toilet paper in the stalls. It is kept in one central place outside the toilet. It is questionable whether the toilets are ever cleaned as they are full of spiders etc. Also often there are no separate showers so you have to shower in a line. Well today we have separate showers, hot water, toilets with paper, soap, toilet seat covers and music. Plus a board where it noted that it had been cleaned every two hours.

We only have 60k to ride tomorrow, I am highly suspicious that there will be big hills.