Hungary

2 Wheels to China Ratings

Food & Drink: 8/10

The portions are huge, and some of it is heart attack inducing, but you only live once.. 

Not a huge range of local beers, but good nonetheless and imported beer is widely available. We have both long been fans of Eastern European red wines, and the Hungarian stuff is good.

Road conditions: 7/10

The cycle paths actually tended to be in worse condition than the roads! We cycled on many smaller roads, which were in more need of repair than the main ones. Having said that, these roads were often so quiet that we had the luxury of picking the best bits to cycle on. The main or primary roads were generally in good condition.

Traffic: 7/10

A mixed bag really. On the minor roads there was little of it (see above), but the main roads (our equivalent of A roads) could be very busy and the drivers on these were less courteous to cyclists. There were sometimes signs on these roads telling cyclists not to use them.

Scenery: 6/10

The run from Komarno on the Slovak side to Budapest was fantastic. On some parts we could almost have been in Austria! Budapest, in addition to everything else, is beautifully located. We then probably did not see the best that Hungary had to offer, travelling east from the capital. There was very little to see on that route.

People: 8/10

We met with some great hostpitality, and people tried to make sure we were not lost, despite our abysmal Hungarian.

Bureaucracy: 7/10

You would not expect there to even be a rating here for an EU country, but our passports certainly were checked at the border, and filling out endless registration forms to stay in a hotel did get a bit annoying. A relic of bygone days I suppose.