Komarno-Esztergom -Budapest, 24 July

Plan to reach Budapest today, 120 km downstream, with a break in Esztergom for a telephone conference.

5.10 am leaving Komarno, beautiful morning, nice easy flow in the river. Just need to look out for driftwood.

The Danube has looked very different in different parts of the 700 km we have travelled. Around Komarno it is very wide and the downstream current is not as strong as in narrower parts.

Reached Esztergo at 8.30 am, in time for Carl to set up his meeting.

This is the fantastic cathedral with the enormous dome.

Found a place at this little marina with people extremely interested in our trip. Four Germans from München, travelling in a little motorboat (overnighting in hotels) were particularly interested and one of the guys heard that there was to be a mutiny before the Black Sea, he immediately offered to travel with Carl. He left his contact details and asked to be contacted nearer the time for departure.

Carl setting up his office in the marinas restaurant.

So what do I do for 3 hours in Esztergom? Discover the town of course.

And what a pleasure that was. Esztergom is the place where the first king of Hungary was crowned in the 10th century. I thought this might be an important person because I recognised the name Balint so I took a photo and later googled information. Turns out he was a poet with quite a sad story. 

View of Esztergom and Danube from the castle.

the beautiful surroundings around Esztergom.

view of the Danube, on the it's way to Budapest.

The front of the castle. I liked the first word  in the text, "caput".

Untill just after Esztergom the boundary between Slovakia and Hungary runs right in the middle of the river. Thereafter we are in Hungary. Goodbye Slovakia. 

Now we are in Hungary, not much difference yet. But after some distance we came into a very beautiful  fjord like part just before the Donau turns south. 

A castle ruin. Appartently the castle was destroyed by the Turks in 16 th century. some more history we need to update!

We left the main Danube to travel along a narrower arm for the last 30 km before Budapest. this area is a vey popular weekend place for Budapest inhabitants. It is a beautiful area with green hills on either side of the river. This is a beach along the river where people were actually swimming. We did not see so many people swimming in other places.

Arrived in Budapest after only 3 hours, although we thought it would take up to 5 hours. Have replaced to Slovakian guest flag for the Hungarian guest flag.

Asked about washing machine and one of the many helpful men (none of who could speak English or German) indicated towards an unfinished building that we could use his washing machine. We got one load ready and found the washing machine at the bottom floor. A hose pipe was connected and the washing was done. Not more dramatic than so but a lesson of how helpful people really are.