SIUNGARY 2008

BIG trip - Daniel Gobert - day 6

day 1 - day 2 - day 3 - day 4 - day 5 - day 6 - day 7 - day 8

Monday the 18th of august 2008

Hungarian Geography and history

The next day in the morning ,I go out immediately dressed in my pyjama to look at the car : it is there. Afraid for nothing ! Everything is ok ! Breakfast quickly eaten, I take the car and ride to the south during 20 kilometers to meet the hungarian history, mythic place of the region with road-signs everywhere : Pannonhalma,short but legendar hungarian BIG, the first one for me in this country, my 22nd country with BIGs climbed by my legs. I think "good score !".

A castle over all the surrounding area (photo from G.Györgyi)

I park the car on the foot , just in front of a supermarket in a small village, and next to a pub. The place is touristic but no trafic. The pub is in the crossroad where the climb begins and is called Pannonhalma, everything here is called Pannonhalma. I leave the crossroad with a gentle 7% slope and the climb becomes slowly harder before a car-park on the left and a door over the road which leads to the last straight line, cobbled with more than 10%. 148m on the foot, 185m after 500m, 220m after one kilometer (that means precisely 7,2% for the kilometer) and 256m on the top read on the GPS Garmin with 12% to finish. A little less than one kilometer and a half climbing. I try to come in the castle but some policement say "no". I make the tour with the bike. I see back the castle another side which seems steeper and badly cobbled : the hungarian Koppenberg. But I have a motorway to reach and a meeting at 1PM with the hungarian members and my hungarian host. I just stay five minutes looking at the castle to fix it in my brain.

Wityhout bike or in company, I would have visited this castle. Pity ! The challenge B.I.G deletes sometimes this cultural interest. I'll ask to the hungarian guys the historic details : it will be the balance.

I leave then the suburbs of Györ to the east, direction Budapest following the guideway given by my host Gabór Kreicsi, in the goal to reach Pilisvörösvar, west of the capital city, but on the foot of the southern side of the Dobogo-Kö, the Big of Budapest. I drive without problems on the motorway, and after on the national roads and finally narrow roads that are swinging through small villages. Sometimes, recall of all eastern traditions, just like I saw it a few years before near Prague, with the shape suddenly appearing of young women with very short dresses aside the road and for whom it's surely the lonely way to earn enough money to have a normal life. Those eastern countries, in a full change for the moment, I've always had some kind of attraction to them, almost since the wall of Berlin falled. Those countries have fantastic people, changing their way of life continuously, changing their mentality to have another quality of life. Their speed to grow and to have an evolution astonishes me really because there is a lot of work in the back to move a political rigid way through different generations and against different habits. One can move from one century to another in one village. I've notally seen a tyrolian village with splendid flowers in front of the houses and just after a very poor village got out from the end of the world. Bizarre and full of questions !

I arruive soon in the meeting place (churches'place) and I only see there a local car, rapidly moved and an austrian car. NO sign of bike anywhere. Our hungaruian guys must eat : it's midday. I park the car in the shadow of the place and I sit down on a bank in the citypark, looking at the calm walkers who pass there by. Around 1PM, I go back to the place and see a uy wearing abike off his car. It's the austrian car and the guy is Ferenc Suplicz, austrian member of the B.I.G; born in HUngary, living in Saalfelden (I passed there yesterday, remember !). His family is in holiday in the south of Hungary and He comes in the north to spend the first two days with us. Where are the hungarians ? I call Gabór Kreicsi to know where he is ! "I'm in the place", he says ! "Me too!" I say. Well, well, well, the place is all around the church and we were Ferenc and I on one side, the two Gabór (Kreicsi and Vincze) on the other side just hidden by the church itself since a quarter. Funny ! We laugh about the circumstances and we get the first pictures.

Near the yellow wall of the church , I'm between Gabór Vincze in blue jersey and Ferenc Suplicz in red jersey.

Gabór Kreicsi is a thin tall man, Gabór Vincze is stronger in appearance. They are both, like Ferenc , calmful and so kind. Gabor K. tells me that he have never seen Gabór Vincze ugly, whatever the circumstances met. And Gabór K. will spend all his time during those three days to make the life easier for me, and the other ones will always ask if everything is ok for me. Thanks so much to all of you !After two days of loneliness, I just needed it. We'll speak, in english with my host, in german with Ferenc, in "hand-language" and "small german" with Gabór V. , but a 15% slope is our universal language.

Wa re four to attack the Dobogo-Kö."The southern side", Gabór explains, " goes through two "nyereg", word meaning "pass" in hungarian language. The hungarians of the challenge B.I.G just subscribed, too, in the "club des cent cols" and establish their first list of hungarian passes. I'm happy to reach two hungarian passes : I'll add them in y personal list, just like the day after (2 more too). The first pass is reached after a short 15% wall where Gabci (I think it's the forename of GK) and me are in front, the two other ones back, biking on MTB, of good quality, but louder than our road-bikes. After the pass, we reach the national road coming from the west and Csobánka, and we go up on a good asphalted road with 7-10% sections, seeing the TV tower on the top frequently in the curves. The hungarian hills are not deeply concentrated. They are dispatched and seem alone. it's not a deep massive, just a long massive of lonely hills.

Dobogo-Kö is a regular climb, comfortable to be climbed. It's the winter resort of people in Budapest. It's also the local BIG for Gabór Györgyi,who will join us the last day because today and tomorrow, he's working. The Dobogo-Kö is a beautiful ascent ending on a long ca-park with touristical attractions. Don't hesitate to ride on a small path on the left, during 50 meters until the TV tower. There a road-sign gives the altitude with very precise data (cm), 5 meters higher than the highest point in my far Belgium, and Gabci scotch the BIG stickers on the road-sign.

To scotch a BIG sticker, Gabor Kreicsi The hungarian BIGer with a cent cols jersey, takes some risks.

But above all , don't miss on your back the magnificent scenery on Budapest and the northern side of the city near the slovakian border, with hills and the curves of the Danube river (Donau). A bank offers us the place for a photo of the group, Gabór having opened his delay digital material giving him the time to run to be inside the photo with us !

Delayer ok, we are 4 inside the photo : G.reicsi, D.Gobert, F.Suplicz, G.Vincze.

A second hungarian BIG is in the pocket , inside a group very pleasant. I'm quiet and happy.

Gabci explains me going down the terrible management of the day. He has driven his wife in his parents-in-law's house for giving her the ability to take their car to go to work. He went with GV in the meeting. We must meet there his wife and her sister and go back to salgótarján. I put Gabór Vincze's MTB inside my car with mine. Not easy, but ok ! I must now follow the Gabór's car, just back to him and scotched to him. Inside the BUdapes city. Rolling, funny or dangerous ? Incredible adventure during one hour, with some crazy drivers.

Installation

Just like in Far-west. Gabor tells me that hungarian drivers don't follow the rules and the laaws. Circus, rodeo, fish-twisters, red lights overpased, everything is good there. I try to have a look to this splendid city, with the two sides of the river, Buda and Pest, but I'm so busy with my driving. Scotched to the car just before !

We finally arrive at the parents-in-law's house. Those persons are so kind, very attentive to me. We go back to Salgótarjan where are located the main part of the hungarian BIGers : Gabór Kreicsi, Gabór Vincze, Gyorgy Domonkos and István Ispán, all subscribed in the same cycling club with blue jerseys. It's a big city, 10 kilometers long, near the slovakian border. In a slopy street (oh oh !), the house of Gabór's parents welcomes me. A personal place for my car,thath tomorrow, will not move, Gabci says. The mother speaks in english, the father in german. The mother is a perfect kitchen-woman with a sensible and deep kindness. The father is the leader of a great enterprise, where Gabór's brother works too, and is very sympathic. What a wonderful family !

Gabór shows me my bedroom : large, very large, a private bedroom with a suitable bathroom for two nights. What to ask more ? I'm in an hungarian castle, welcomed like a prince ! The lunch is ready, just the time to share our habits for eating, our cultural, sporting and professional ways of life between our countries. Gabór goes to meet his wife after the lunch and I can occupy my rooms. IN two days, 'll be back in Belgium but from now to this moment, still 5 BIGs, with the top of Hungary and my first slovakian BIGs. Let's sleep, tomorrow is waiting for me !