Day 45 - Bratislava to Györ

78.3 km - Total so far 2,435.40 km - Route pedalled.      Relive Video (with pictures)

Video of the day: Europe Day 45 

Note: There is a mistake in video Day 44.  It indicates Slovakia is Country#9, it should have said Country #6.  I will fix the video at a later date.

We are safe and secure in Györ, Hungary.

Today we got to cross the border from Slovakia to Hungary. It was a pleasant surprise to encounter an actual marked border. What we did not know at that time, is that this event would be the highlight of the day. Everything that followed that did not offer much stimulation.

We took pictures for ReLive so as to give an idea of what we were looking at and where. We looked forward to getting fresh bake goods but where we stopped, they were cleaned out. We made it to a Coop supermarket hoping to get some bread for lunch only to be told we closed 5 minutes ago. No bread for sandwiches for lunch so meat, cheese & grapes.

We did manage to pedal 54 kms before noon at 11:54 am so that was good. We got to Györ at 2:11 pm and after a quick change, we went for coffee and deserts. Prices are so much lower here than they were in Austria and that is for restaurants, grocery stores and accommodations.

Tomorrow we are heading to Patince, Slovakia on the otherside of the Danube once again. 

Stumbling Stones. In Vienna, our apartment was in Leopoldstadt (2nd District) which has always had and continues to have a large Jewish population. On one of the street corners there were three brass plaques imbedded in the sidewalk, a white rose and a lampion candle. We just walked by three times but eventually curiosity got to us so we stopped and bent over to read the inscription. Naturally the plaques were in German but the word "Holocaust" is spelled the same way in English. See picture below.

We thought there might be more plaques and as we walked to the grocery store, we found more. Exploring side streets, we found more plaques. We had to find out who was responsible for these plaques. 

These plaques are called STOLPERSTEINE (Stumbling Stones) are an art monument by Gunter Demnig. A project that keeps alive the memory of the expulsion of Jews, Sinti and Roma, politically persecuted people, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and euthanasia victims under National Socialism.

You can read about and see the Plaques in Leopoldstadt here.

"Keeping alive the memory of people" is an important take away from our time at the Mauthausen Memorial.