Honeymoon Around the World

To make the long weekend useful we grabbed our existing equipment and decided to go for a short tour. Shame on us but neither of us have cycled around the Lake Balaton before so we thought we won’t miss this chance. The long weekend allowed us to taste a bit of the Bakony so our route was the following:

After we mounted our bikes with the brand new Ortlieb bags and the GPS with the USB charger we departed from Siófok on Saturday around noon.

Day 1. Siófok – Várvölgy, 99km – every beginning is difficult

The planned distance for the first day was 92km, we did 99 instead. Our first major pit-stop was at the sphere lookout in Balatonboglár on the South coast. We struggled with the short but steep uphill. On the top it was really pleasant to lie in the grass and bake in the sun. The lookout was under renovation but despite the fence only those didn’t go up the top who didn’t want to so we walked up to see the sights. By the time we reached the southwestern corner of the Balaton it turned into night time. I should have realized that it was too much for the day to go an extra 15kms to Várvölgy with gaining a fair amount of elevation from Keszthely, but at that point I haven’t thought about it. When we arrived to Keszthely around 7PM it was pitch black. After the town we stopped at a petrol station for a breather before we climbed the neverending hill. Neither of us cycled during Winter so it was a tiny bit much this time… We arrived to the accommodation around 21:30, mentally and physically totally exhausted. Read more…