We were in Slovakia visiting my in-laws, and my wife was running errands, so I decided to go for a ride.  The condition of my in-laws’ bikes was abysmal.  In one case the front brake was attached by a single strand of cable, so I decided to borrow a bike from a hotel in the neighboring village.  As it turns out those bikes weren’t so great either.  The tires were underinflated so I asked the gal behind the counter for a pump. After she slapped me, I explained I needed an air pump for the tires.  She couldn’t find one so the tires were going to remain flat.  And I guess a BJ was out of the question too.  I accepted my fate and set out on my ride.  

My goal was to head to Schlosshof, a palace built in the early 17th century across the border in Austria.  To get there I had to make my way to the Chuck Norris Bridge which crosses the Morava River to Austria.  When the bridge was built, the government ran a survey to see what they should name it.  Chuck Norris Bridge was the winner, like the proto Boaty McBoatface.  Alas, authoritarianism dies hard, so the government overruled the will of the people stating, “You cannot cross Chuck Norris”.  They named it the Bridge of Freedom instead.  So much for Our Democracy.

I crossed Chuck Norris and lived to tell about it.

To get to the bridge I needed to find a way across the freeway.  Google Maps showed two overpasses I could use.  I was pretty familiar with one, but there could be a lot of traffic and Slovak drivers aren’t really bike-friendly, so I chose the second which was basically an old farm road.  After a couple wrong turns I found the right road to take.  Some of these fields had belonged to my wife’s family before Communism.  They sort of have been returned, but she owns shares in the company that manages the fields rather than a specific plot of land.  It seems that the management sucks out all the profits leaving us about 10 euros a year in dividends.

Once across the freeway I skirted a massive VW plant.  If you own a VW, there’s a good chance at least part of it was made here.  Past the factory was the Morava River.  In communist times this area was off limits to most people as it was on the border with Austria.  It would have been a natural escape route because the river is not very wide.  My wife said she used to play down there as a kid, as the soldiers didn’t worry about kids trying to escape, but no such luck for adults unless they had a special permit.  As an extra layer of security, the border guards were rotated frequently to keep them from establishing a friendly relationship with anyone who might want to escape.

I found the bridge and crossed into Austria.  After about a mile on a gravel path I was at the garden gates of Schlosshof, but unfortunately it was closed.  Well crap, what am I going to do now?  It was still early, so I decided to ride over to Hainburg, a town on the Danube where Jaime Jr was born many years before.  He was such a large baby the hospital staff named him Der Burgermeister, but he’s probably been forced out of his position by now due to term limits.  

Der Schlosshof war leider geschlossen.

I didn’t know the exact road to take to get to Hainburg, but I could see the castle in the distance.  The castle got the works by the Ottomans in the 17th century but the ruins are still visible for miles around.  I know the bridge across the Danube to get to the town is kind of over that way, and it has a tower that sticks up above the trees, so I’ll find it eventually.  After several wrong turns through fields and small villages, I finally found the bridge and made my way across the river.  

Donaubrucke

A little way upstream from the bridge are the ruins of the old Roman border city of Carnuntum, home to Marcus Aurelius when he was stoically fighting the Marcomanni.  It’s worth a visit if you are in the area.  However, I was starving.  I had planned to eat at Schlosshof so I didn’t bring much food with me.  I decided to head downriver into town on the Danube Cycle Path.  The path starts in Germany and goes all the way to the Black Sea.  I’ve ridden bits of it here and there, most notably through the Wachau in Austria.  The Wachau is well worth a visit in the Fall when the leaves in the vineyards are changing color and you can always find a harvest festival like the one the Griswolds went to in European Vacation.  

My search for food along the path was futile.  There was a number of restaurants, but they all looked too classy for a sweaty cyclist.  All I wanted was a wurst and a beer, and I didn’t need a white tablecloth and a waiter in a tie.  I headed out of Hainburg, still hungry and now getting a little thirsty.  Before long I was crossing back over into Slovakia.  No wait at the border these days, but it could take hours to get across in the 90s, even though Communism had fallen.  Before our son was born my wife suffered through the wait at the border to get to her job in Vienna to earn western wages and pay eastern rent so she could support me in the manner in which I’m accustomed.  She’s a good hardworking woman of solid peasant stock.  I guess I’ll keep her.

Hainburg

Just across the border is a string of bunkers which are now open to the public.  They were built in the 1930s as a defense against Austria and then Germany after the Anschluss, but they were never used as Slovakia sided with Germany in WW2.  They didn’t have a whole lot of options.  Austria had already been absorbed into Germany.  The Czech lands had been given away in Munich.  They could have tried to align themselves with the USSR, but given their shared border with Ukraine which at the time was somewhat further east, they probably knew all too well that that wasn’t a good option.  Could they have remained neutral like Switzerland?  Maybe, but Hungary, who ruled Slovakia for centuries until the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was already aligned with Germany and would have liked to have Slovakia back.  Slovakia probably needed to pick a side for protection.  Their alliance with Germany is a controversial subject in Slovakia, and the Soviets liked to hold it over their heads, but really I don’t know what else they could have done.  They were in a bad neighborhood.

Bunker

Anyway, I was still starving, so I bypassed the bunkers like the Germans bypassed the Maginot Line.  Crossing over the Danube, I decided to head back upriver to a bike friendly restaurant I had seen by the Chuck Norris Bridge.  Along the way I passed through Devin, home of Devin Castle, which dates back at least to the 9th century, and most recently known as a filming location for the Tia Carrerra classic Kull the Conqueror, a solid 24% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Carrerra liked to smoke cigars when she was filming in Bratislava, and you always knew she was in the area by the smell of cigar smoke.

Mmm, Tia. I’ll be in my bunker.

Finally I made it to the restaurant for beer and klobasa.  Fed and buzzed I headed back to return the bike passing by the neighborhood known as Beverly Hills, as it was one of the first neighborhoods that the newly wealthy started moving to in the late 90s.  Beyond Beverly Hills I took Pilgrim Road back to the village where I rented the bike.  The village is a pilgrimage spot as there was an alleged sighting of the Virgin Mary centuries ago.  Now there is an annual festival where rich Gypsies show off their gold, poor Gypsies try to take your wallet by illegal means, vendors try to take your wallet by legal means, and everyone drinks a lot.

End of the road

Bike returned, I walked back to the in-laws for more drinking, because that’s what you do.  The short jaunt across the border turned out to be a 75 km ramble when all was said and done.  It was like a Slovak triathlon: a little hiking, a little biking, and a little swimming in beer.  There’s lots more to explore by bike the next time I visit, but I’ll probably try a little more planning.