Hello Komárno

Day 8:

Start: Penzione Platan

Finish: Čičov / Komarno

Kilometres: 16

Number of babies who learned to shriek: 1

We awoke to a gut-busting breakfast at the Penzione; our family downed two pitchers of juice, a whole loaf of bread, eggs and cheese aplenty, and a peck of tasteless colourless peppers. As we chatted with the family who owned the place, it felt strangely like an Ingmar Bergman film, with these well-dressed, always happy and gracious people going about their work. 

The mosquitoes mercifully abated early on, and we zoomed through the walk to avoid the worst of the heat. Our trail remained a smooth levee, much quieter than earlier on. We passed a weird compound featuring a solitary huge black smokestack and a flock of geese, roosters, ducks and chickens making a riotous noise. We tried to take a break under a partially collapsed bikers shelter, but the tables were so ramshackle that even breastfeeding seemed unwise. 

Čičov was a cosy town: the playground has a brightly painted fence, the grocery store had four aisles, and someone was listlessly sweeping the town square clean of leaves. We met three English bikers headed to the Black Sea from France, Tamar mistakenly bought a very strange fizzy raspberry drink that looked like something from Alice in Wonderland; we ate a very sad orange; Zadie took up shrieking like a banshee; and we decided to skip town at 4pm and catch a bus to Komarno. 

See, the next leg from Čičov to Komarno was either on busy roads with no sidewalk, or a terrible path that the stroller would struggle on. Since neither of these appealed, and the girls could use a break, we decided to jump ahead 25 km and treat ourselves to a zero day instead.

So by dinnertime we were in Komarno. Our first impression was unhelpful people: when Jakob asked three teenage boys the way downtown, they laughed crazily and pointed in random directions. Tamar asked a woman who hurried away and refused to say a word. Finally a woman with a baby glumly and reluctantly oriented us. We have increasingly noticed that people give us dark looks in the street, even when Sophia and Tova aren't hitting them with the Frisbee. Do they think we're American? Re we too shlumpy and weird-looking? Is this just how they look at all strangers? We're not quite sure.

Anyway, entering Old Town meant crossing an invisible line: cracked asphalt gave way to smooth cobblestones, concrete to rosy brick. Tamar found Frantiskanov St. by sheer intuition, and soon we were eating pasta and getting ready for bed.

Day 9: zero day!

Start: Komarno

Finish: ditto

Kilometres: zero, ahhh

Ancient pickling vats viewed: 6

Let's face it, Komarno is a pretty random city to spend your Zero day in. But we liked it! What bliss to stroll out for a sunny breakfast of crepes with Nutella, strawberries and cream! To browse the countless used clothing stores (€2.50 for a skirt and THEN 50% off?) To wait eagerly for the famous Changing of the Guard in Klapka Square, only to discover it consists of a single automated manikin! To buy ten cones of gelato at €0.40 a scoop! (Did we mention Slovakia is cheap? Also they have Kinder Egg flavour gelato) 

To laze in the extremely oddly coloured waters of the thermal pools! Sure, we may only be allowed into one of the nine pools, but at least the water is lime green, oily and sticky, and has Sophia,flying down the rainbow-painted waterslide with one hand over her eyes and one over her mouth!

To explore the catacombs of the 16th-century fortress! No flippant exclamation marks here, this was cool indeed. A pleasant guide unlocked the massive gates and let us in; we had the entire thousand-room fortress to ourselves. We went deeper through layers of history: old granaries painted scarlet by the Soviets and used as ammunition storage; an ancient swimming pool used by commandos for scuba training; deep stained pits for pickling tons of cabbage and cucumber; the birthplace of King Ladislavus V in 1440; a Hapsburg carving from the 1550's; and on and on.

And totally empty and largely bereft! Everything crumbling, tractor tires slapped across gaping holes in the ground to prevent falls, black cellar windows exhaling icy subterranean air, pitch-black tunnels that thrilled the girls (Tova had to be watched closely as she'd lunge for every dark opening). Oh, and the walls are about twenty feet thick and covered in grass. 

Otherwise, we bummed around planning logistics, supervising playground mania (the universal language of spitting water at other children) and preparing for the next leg of our journey: on to Esztergom!

Sophia investigates antiquarian pickling technology

You can just see the famed Changing of the Guard up in the church tower

Europe Square