Eating trout in the dark

An inauspicious start to the day when after waking up in our characterful monastic cell Simon discovers he has another broken spoke. He manages to replace it successfully but it now leaves us without a spare (so much for lightweight titanium bikes, my good old heavy Dawes Galaxy is still going strong..so far!) We breakfast surrounded by Audi businessmen. The terrain today is finally the best of all worlds - smooth tarmaced cycle paths and if the wind had been a little lighter and from the other direction conditions would have been perfect. However, the sun is out and the scenery much more attractive than yesterday with poppy filled fields, small towns and even a couple of castles. Simon is now so paranoid about his spokes that at any suggestion of an uneven surface he leads us back onto the main road hoping that I haven't noticed the circular red "no bicycles" signs. We cross into Slovakia and nearly miss it as there are no customs or passport control at all. Our approach into Bratislava is along a pleasant tarmaced dyke road where we are joined by a number of roller bladers and pleasure cyclists. We leave the path to cross the bridge into the city and soon realise why the Eurovelo route does not bring us this way as we are immediately met by steep cobbled streets. We push our bikes uphill to our rather smart but good value apartment room overlooking the city. Bratislava is delightful with many attractive old buildings, churches and cobbled streets. We find a lovely restaurant with an inner courtyard and minimal lighting. As the sun sets we find ourselves eating trout in the dark. (Gyor to Bratislava - 50 miles)