Our Route - Day 3

I managed to get more sleep last night. (about 5hrs.) Breakfast at the Hotel was Ham & Eggs, quite nice considering the austere surroundings. Bob‘s morning started with a flat. He wanted to fix it outside, but the hotel manager insisted that it was safer inside.

Now having discovered just how difficult it is to do business in Slovakia without cash, a trip to the Bankomat (ATM) seemed appropriate. Bankomats are readily available and offer service in a variety of languages. On leaving the bank, we were approached by a well dressed gentleman in a business suit. He offered directions and when learning our intended route, recommended that we visit a very ancient church in Diakovce.

©2000 Bob Simonds On the road just outside of Galanta

Less than 2km. outside of Galanta, Bob stopped to fix the flat again. Where we stopped, there was a building under construction. It was being constructed out of mostly rough concrete blocks to be stucco‘d over later. The roof beams were thicker than you might expect to find in the U.S. I guess this was to support the heavy tiles used here for most roofs. Less than 12km from Galanta, a 2nd flat! While Bob was fixing this one, a young kid in a car stopped to ask about the bikes. He spoke English reasonably well. He wanted to know about our type of bike and where to get one. I told him about B.I.E.R. Fahrrad Studio in Baden. I was not surprised when he expressed a desire to immigrate to the US. I asked about his skills. He said, animal farmer... I wished him luck.

A little further down the road, we stopped in Diakovce searching for that old Church, now recommended by two people. The first church we found did not look like anything special. We took some photos and wandered about the town trying to find the road we needed to get to Šal‘a (pronounced "Sha-la"). Once we found the way out, we found the ‘real‘ church. The outside was undergoing renovation.  Bob and I stopped for some more photos.

The first church we found in Diakovce	Old Church in Diakovce (Note the recumbents parked at the gate)
Sanctuary of the Old Church in Diakovce	Bob at the door to the church

Next we reached Šal‘a, a town about the size of Galanta. The improvement in economic conditions was apparent. Near Sal‘a was a small village Duslo Šal‘a which was the location for some kind of plant with smokestacks and air intake pipes that were extended about 1km to either side of the plant.  Does this mean that the air being emitted from the plant was not clean enough to use? I held my breath while we rode by.

As we approached Močenok, I noticed another of several small highly colored furry animals that seem about as common in Slovakia as roadkill as do armadillos in Texas.  My guess is that they are some kind of vole or perhaps a wild gerbil. They were cute...dead but cute. There was a grove of trees outside of town, the first I have seen in Slovakia. Coming from the grove was a little old man on a bike with several ~10ft. poles strapped alongside the bike.

We were now starting to encounter hills. Going up was not as bad as I feared and I managed to turn over 60kph on one downhill stretch. For us to get into Nitra we were forced to turn onto a tertiary route with lots of traffic. There were a couple of close calls on this two lane road. Probably not unsafe but well inside my comfort zone.

We got into Nitra (Pop. 90,000) at around 12:30 and rode straight into the center of town  called in most cities, the Centrum.  In Nitra Centrum, we checked at the Info booth to get Hotel information.  We picked the Hotel Olympia about 3km away. Again, we were able to park our bikes inside the building (Lobby Entry). Although more upscale than the City Hotel in Galanta, the Olympia was still a Soviet era high rise concrete slab structure. After checking into the hotel (760SKK ~$21) and getting cleaned up, we ate lunch at the hotel restaurant.

One view from our 7th floor Hotel balcony at the Olympia. (Note the peeling paint on the wall of the building on the right)	One view of our Hotel balcony at the Olympia.
There is a third type of valve, very rarely seen, which has a bottom similar to a Schrader and necks down to about the size of a Presta. This is a Woods valve, also known as a "Dunlop" valve. Woods valves were formerly popular in the British Isles and Asia. You can pump them up with a Presta pump. (from Sheldon Brown‘s Bicycle Glossary)

We then walked about 3km to the town center where Bob got a new tube with a most unusual valve. I remembered seeing it on the Sheldon Brown Web site. It is called a Woods/Dunlop valve and I thought they were extinct!

Back to the info booth for directions to the cyber café where 67SKK (~$2) got both of us 1 hour of internet access to check e-mail, weather etc.  We then had a very nice dinner at a courtyard restaurant in the pedestrian only section of town. After dinner, we took a short hike to the Nitra Hrad (castle) and walked back to the hotel as darkness fell.

For more Information about the oldest city in Slovakia, click here

Restored Central Pedestrian Plaza in Nitra	Central Pedestrian Plaza in Nitra at Dusk
Restored Old Town Baroque Buildings	Castle Walls built in 17th Century to defend from the Ottoman Turks.  In the foreground with Bob is a bronze statue to St. Cyril and St. Methodius. The two priests that brought Catholicism to this area (not to mention the inventor of the Cyrillic Alphabet.)
14th Century Castle