“FORMER LINES”
Part 2
The day ride report of the second day continues! More adventurous sights, bunkers, old castles, nice landscapes and deeper insights into the madness of the Cold War was given. Enjoy …
The second half of the “Iron Side Ride-Day 2” started a few kilometers / miles eastwards of Austrian City “Laa an der Thaya”, where I fuelled up my black pony before and where I also stopped to …
have a fruity brake in a winery area. When the brake was over, we rode on eastwards along the former border strip.
Aside our route we have seen this eastern made truck. It was produced by the former DDR-Company IFA. It was still in use and in a real good shape.
A web search showed that this vehicle type is called IFA L60. It was a common truck model produced in the 70tys in the communist part of Germany. Often when I see such eastern made vehicles, I’m wondering about the effort which their owners throw into it, to keep them alive or in a good / usable shape.
We rode on along wide fields and passed the village Miculov. The similar named castle can be seen from far in the distance. Due to the track was leading along some small rivers …
we used old railway bridges like this one, where the thick wooden beams have been removed. Another …
railway bridge still was protected by an overgrown pill box. The same …
scenery was seen at the next used bridge (bunker in the left half of picture). Bridges are strategic important objects, therefore they have been guarded heavily with such defense buildings during the Cold War.
My black beauty and I …
moved on, always as close as possible to the border strip. According to the Austrian law the border crossing into Austria/ out of Austria is only allowed along official border crossing points (mostly main streets, train lines, official biking trails, …).
Since the “hard” borders between European Union – Member Countries have been removed according the Schengen Agreement, this Austrian regulation is unused/dead law.
So there haven’t been any concerns on my behalf, while changing from the right to the left side of this country dividing border track.
It doesn’t matter if I looked to left field aside the track to Czechia, or to the right-hand side field in Austria – In both countries the summer 2018 was way too hot. Plenty of the grown goods have been destroyed before the time of harvest. ๐
Suddenly, after a little hill climb, this impressive building, including a horde of tourists appeared out of nothing. What an eye opener!
I haven’t had that thing on the schedule. Therefore, I stopped for a moment to take a picture. Later I found out, that this building near the Czechian village Valtice is called “Reistenkolonnade”. It’s some kind of decoration building belonging to the Castle Valtice. What an impressive baroque waste of resources!
Riding now close to the border to Slovakia the hills got very smooth.
As so often before this day another pill box was seen. Knocking that massive buildings down is way too expensive, so they stay where they are surely for a few another decades.
Now the first …
obstacle appeared. This one …
was easy to bypass by following a trail, which was aside its areal fence.
Following the Iron Curtain in Slovakia was …
most of the time a boring undertaking. There are way to much ruler built tracks leading along the top of dikes, which are following the two long border rivers “Thaya” and “March”.
The boredom was disturbed by another machine gun bunker…
which was
inspected. It was…
nearly the same …
bunker type, like that one, which we have seen on the first half of this riding day.
Another interesting thing on the border between Austria and Czechia is this little ferry. It is connecting both countries via a short river crossing and is located in the Austrian village Angern. This picture shows the view from the Slovakian side. (Already in the year 2017 I was standing on the other side of this ferry during an extensive day ride in the swamp areas of the border river march.)
ะงะตัะฝะพัa and I didn’t use that ferry, instead our ride continued southwards and …
brought us right into a huge gravel pit with gigantic rusty iron equipment. O_o
At the horizon, the main hill of the Slovakian capitol Bratislava was slowly gaining size whilst getting closer.
Another thing I like very well when being out for exploring the surrounding is …
to follow such railway support tracks. Fast progress is the advantage of riding along such tracks, without the disadvantage of being on a highway, where not much of the surrounding will be seen. So stay away at your own rides from the Autobahn! ^_^
The next stop was Castle Devin which …
is just around the corner of the city Bratislava.
In Bratislavas south / near the stream Danube another Iron Curtain museum is located. The special thing at this short visit was, that …
parts of the former Iron Curtain Structure have been restored/conserved in a very good way. So it was easy to imagine how things must have been more than 30ty years ago.
I wasn`t able to decrypt the Slovakian language, but the pictures on that information board spoke a clear language: They are showing unfiltered how cruel people died at this iron border while they have tried to flee in a better future. ๐
The ride went on and showed another curiosity: Here on the left corner you see a Slovakian traffic light for the railway and in the background, the Austrian version of it.
Sometimes I wish to get just a tiny fraction of wasted public funds to support my hobby a bit more … -_-
After a last glance back to the huge industrialized residence buildings of the city Bratislava …
we rode in the late evening aside a highway and later …
a few more km / mi along gravel tracks, until we arrived in Hungary. There …
this days bivouac point was found. While …
the daylight was fading I fired the stove and swung the wooden spoon.
1x can tuna with oil, 1 big onion, 1 can of basil-tomato sauce, peper n’ salt and some parmesan cheese
After this great day of adventure-riding I rewarded myself with some tuna noodles. What a serving! ๐
After 450km or about 280 mi I called it a day and snoozed away quickly.