Yet another smaller adventure topic

[alvaro84]

The next mountains were the High Tatras themselves. The peaks are all crammed in a small area and the mountains have a very distinct, steep edge. Approaching them, as they pierced the clouds, felt similar to seeing a really, really big monster in a dream. I mean, they felt high. They even dwarfed the Necrogiant in Painkiller.

The road 538 needed hairpin bends to get up to the line of mountain villages at 800-1300m, then the road 537 runs through them all, with cute, mild bends. The villages' names are poems in themselves, like Tatranské Zruby, Vysoké Tatry Dolny' / Stary' / Horny' Smokovec or Vysoké Tatry Tatranská Lomnica. It was a game to guess whether we were inside one of them. The signs marking their beginning were spartan, when you saw "some (long and incomprehensible) black Slovak text on plain white background", you had better slow down, that had may been a village you just had entered.

After setting up the tent we went on a stroll back to the village. The campsite was outside, a few kilometers south from the main street, and a bit more from the cable car station. A very nice trail connected it to the village:











We tried some local food too, cabbage soup, Pyrogs with Bryndza (Slovak sheep milk cheese), steamed dumplings and Zlaty Bazant beer.



(Steamed dumpling, one of the foods I think to have the funniest names - in Hungarian, at least: it sounds like it was made of steam )

On the way back we ran into a HUGE deer in the darkness, inside the village.

Needless to say, I took a lot of pictures of the mountains, the Lomnicky Stít (and the Slavkovsky Stít, I guess), in the evening, in the morning, wide angle, normal, and close-ups (up to 300mm, great tool for scenery )






















After setting up the tent we went on a stroll back to the village. The campsite was outside, a few kilometers south from the main street, and a bit more from the cable car station. A very nice trail connected it to the village:











We tried some local food too, cabbage soup, Pyrogs with Bryndza (Slovak sheep milk cheese), steamed dumplings and Zlaty Bazant beer.



(Steamed dumpling, one of the foods I think to have the funniest names - in Hungarian, at least: it sounds like it was made of steam )

On the way back we ran into a HUGE deer in the darkness, inside the village.

First day was 376km/233.6mi according to google maps. The bikes will never agree, even with each other, so let it rest

[alvaro84]

Second day



Our plan was to ride around the High Tatras (there is no road that would cross the central, steep and rocky area). Teresa's low fuel light had been on since the top of the Low Tatras (it came on at 387km/240.5mi), so I was a bit (not too much) worried not knowing the exact distance to overcome, but I trusted my calculations. Zakopane was quite close, after all.

So we got round the mountains from the South and East, now I know where we should have stopped (yes, it's still a huge problem for me to reconciliate riding and photography ), and reached the Polish border.



For some reason cars were queuing there, thankfully not in our direction... and when the queue ended we found a parking spot next to the serpentine road (practically a gazebo). It was full, of course; good that the bikes are so small.



Zakopane, our 'target' was awful. It might be a nice place, but it was crowded, teeming with tourists, showing the face of a busy city (while it's not a big town, really). Here we finally found a fuel station and filled up the bikes - it turned out that Teresa still had a lot of fuel to go (and Ciliegia had even more, not having 80km of commute and city trips back in Hungary).

The main sight in Zakopane and the neighbouring tourist villages was the local architecture, the tricksy houses that sometimes consisted of many floors and full roof. I don't know how they're insulated, but I'm quite sure they need it, winters can be cold up there. Even the parking attendant's booth was built in this style.







We stayed in Poland till Chocholów, took a little detour to a side street to eat a bit (we got food in a store where we were totally amused by the Polish texts - it's even more entertaining than Slovak village names ) and get our first sheep. It has the name 'Zakopane' embroidered on its side. The second we bought on the Slovak side, it has the name 'Vysoké Tatry'. They are our Shanghai and Hourai, in a sense (Touhou hint here, please ignore ).



Next place I found really beautiful was the West road of the High Tatras. It has the number 584 if anyone would like to find it. It leads among fields and less steep hills, then goes up to ~1100m/3600ft again, and is just as twisty as any such road there. Of course I missed the parking place on the top, so here are a few pics from 'down':





And on the way back to the campsite:





Tanks finished this day were:
Ciliegia: 424.7km (263.9mi), 11.91l (3.146 gal): 2.8l/100km (83.875 US MPG)
Teresa: 509.1km (316.34mi), 14.04l (3.709 gal): 2.76l/100km (85.29 US MPG)



Third day

The way home, almost the same route as forst day. We took a few more pics (many of the above were really shot this day). Road 537 on the South side of the mountains:





And the most mountains I could cover with a single shot, before the blue haze covered them:



The weather was hot when we left the mountains, especially when we arrived to Hungary in the afternoon. We haven't fueled the bikes again until the station closest to home.

The finishing tanks were:

Ciliegia: 521.2km (323.86mi), 13.78l (3.64 gal): 2.64l/100km (88.97 US MPG) (shiNIN's personal record so far)
Teresa: 517.2km (321.37mi), 13.45l (3.553 gal): 2.6l/100km (90.45 US MPG) (my personal record with these tires )

[msirach]

Another great photo tour! I would really like to take one of your trips.

[Right Lane Cruiser]

Wow. Thank you so much for posting these!!

[EdwinTheMagnificent]

That's beautiful , Alvaro. Reminds me very much of Northern Illinois.

[Die2self]

wow, I love the land, it is just great. Nice and green with hills, mountains, pastor land and forests. Must be great to go riding in that beauty.

I usually check in on this site at work so I don't get to see the photos but I had to check these out at home. I'm glad I did and glad that you shared these with us.

[alvaro84]

Today we took a pretty short trip nearby. To the 'other' 'mountain range' (quotes again because even its highest peak is <500m/1600ft) so close I could see it from my window if we had the attic now

We ran from the noise of the building works, and our first stop was a little offroad near Csákberény. It's a nice place, though the grass on the hills is dry now, like the weather during the last month. These hills are the feet of Vértes, with some rocks:



And the compulsory bike picture, I liked the setting (shiNIN and her bike are also - barely - visible)



The next stop was the bauxite mining museum at Gánt. Strip-mining as well as shafts were used to exploit the ore, and I found the Martian scenery of the mining pit far more interesting than the museum itself.











At the entrance:



And finally a tiny artificial waterfall from the town of Mór:



The whole trip wasn't much more than 100km | 60mi so we didn't have to fuel up the bikes - so no numbers yet.

[xcel]

Hi Alvaro84:

Just so many fantastic shots and oh how do I wish I was along for any of your adventures. Makes mine feel like a walk in the desert by comparison to your walk in a beautiful park thanks to the excellent photographs.

What kind of camera are you using to capture all of these images anyway?

Wayne

[alvaro84]

Ha-ha, the mine itself actually looked like a desert - except for the poplars and pine trees growing out of the bauxite field here and there

The camera is my good (well, it has developed a few quirks during the years) old Canon EOS 20D, the lens this time was a 28mm prime, nothing else. I forgot to bring anything else with me, but it did just fine It's a frequently recommended practice to go with one prime, and try to see through that eye anyway. It's pretty much a normal lens on an APS-C camera, it's like 45mm on full frame. And it's good in poor lighting thanks to its f/1.8 'speed' (not that we lacked light yesterday )

Other times I use an old (non-IS) 18-55 kit lens which I dislike (but can't afford a better normal zoom now), and a 100/2.8 macro and a 300/4 L IS too, which are really good. I know, I could buy the best normal zoom out of that stove pipe, but I don't feel like parting with it...

I mostly shoot RAW, so the colors are Lightroom products. But, as shiNIN pointed out last evening, these colors are different and definitely bleaker than they really were. I may have to work a bit more on the pictures. I'm quite disappointed because I'll have to do the spot removal again, last sensor cleaning proved absolutely unsuccessful and I've shot a lot of pictures with a narrow aperture setting (up to f/14) yesterday - there was plenty of light and I generally wanted large depth of field.

Edit: and I did so. Now they're in a bit better shape, erm, color. The dunes had to be more reddish (I mean less orange) too.

[alvaro84]

OK, we had a Hyosung meet at Bogács, Hungary last weekend. Normally it's not too adventurous, but we carefully planned routes (actually two, slightly different routes through different hills/mountains, call them as you like) to mostly avoid national roads and especially avoid Budapest and its bypass expressway. One way became ~313 and 318km, according to google maps. Had fuel ups on the way back, Teresa's FE was 2.72l/100km | 86.39mpgUS, Ciliegia's tank is uncertain, the station in the Mátra showed a suspiciously high amount of fuel. She simply can't drink 10 percent more than Teresa, when rode by shiNIN on the same route, in the same pace.

So we naturally went through Slovakia, with stopping to eat funny Slovakian stuff, and many twisty and/or bad quality roads through the mountain ranges Pilis, Cserhát, Mátra.

Karancs (the highest peak of Cserhát), what we saw in the 48-hour run, in a big hurry, now took pictures of it:





View down from the side of Mátra (the highest mountain range of Hungary):







The peaks of Börzsöny (in Hungary), as seen from Slovakia:



And the river Danube at Esztergom:



Here we were sitting almost under the bridge that leads to Slovakia.

On Saturday we went to another meet too (in the nearby town of Mezőkövesd), with a procession of tractors and veteran vehicles, and an exhibition of... well, contraptions.































Used equipment: only one lens, my 28/1.8 USM.

Other program, recommended to anyone visiting Bogács or Mezőkövesd: great bathes built on hot springs. It was niiiice Saturday afternoon to soak a bit in the warm water...

Oh, and frying fish and cooking Goulash (f/1.8 comes handy in the dark ):