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Pilisvörösvár looked gray and rained out last night. The next morning, the curtains of my humble guest house revealed a different world: a deep orange-blue sky, not a cloud to be seen.

At 7:30 I was on my bike, but I woke up only after 10 km of riding carelessly straight ahead on the main road between Pilisvörösvár and the next village of Pilisszántó. Goddamnit! I had planned to ride through the forest. No mercy: turn back!

A beautiful gravel road winds through the forest, it’s part of an official off-road cycling network through the Danube-Ipoly National Park. The 🏔ZAJNÁT hills offer steep climbs through tunnels of pine trees.

The gravel road descended out of the forest, into Pilisszántó. And there he loomed, the cone-shaped giant rising from the landscape: the Pilis. My first thought: am I supposed to ride up there? 

This is where the biggest ascent of the day started, to two of the highest peaks of the Pilis Mountains: the Pilis itself at 757 m and the Dobogókö at 700 m.

The asphalt road climbs all the way to the top of the 🏔DOBOGÓKÖ, quite a difficult 13 km climb with steep parts around 12%. 

I couldn’t tell if it was cold or warm. But my body eventually could: the sweat ran incessantly from under my helmet down my cheeks. My glasses fogged up so hard that I couldn't see a thing. The 4 warm layers of clothes were clearly too much.

At the top of the Dobogókö I gazed in awe at the endless dark green waves of the forests of the Pilis Mountains, as far as the eye could see.

I took the descent down the same road to the point where a narrow, crumbled asphalt road, sometimes looking more like a gravel road, turned right and started to wind up: the ascent of the 🏔PILIS.

5 km of gradual ascent through the forest. Suddenly, snow appeared. And soon the entire road was stark white. Snow was the last thing I expected after 2 days of torrential rain at 10 degrees. But Budapest is at an altitude of 102 m and the Pilis above 700 m.

I climbed and navigated between ice patches towards the top, an open plain. From the lookout tower the view was unparalleled, the surrounding wooded peaks jutting out sharply above a veil of mist, surmounted by blue sky.

After descending on the same road I turned into Szurdok valley, the gorge deepened by the centuries-long flow of the mountain river Dera.

The river carved deep forested walls. Sunlight hardly penetrates here. But as soon as the next climb started, over a beautiful asphalt track through the forest, I got too hot again. All around me was the sound of the sloshing of the river, which in some places even flowed onto the road due to the heavy rainfall of the past few days.

The ascent to the 🏔PRÉDIKÁLÓSZÉK (740 m) starts on asphalt and then turns left on a wonderful forest gravel road. Climbing the Prédikálószék is legendary in Hungary, because at the top one of the most beautiful panoramas you will find in this country unfolds: the Danube Bend.

To see this from an altitude of 740 m is to witness the result of a mighty geological history: the Danube met the mountain here and struggled through. With a big bend as a result.

A gravel biker also arrived at the panorama.
- 'A good bike?', he asks
- 'Definitely, rented it from  in Budapest.’
He had already left, when I suddenly heard:
- "By the way, where are you from?"
- 'Belgium.'
- 'You are kidding me! Are you that Belgian who is on a long journey through the North Hungarian Mountains?’

He had seen my post in the Facebook group Gravel Cycling Hungary. And here I am with Gábor Balázs on the summit of the Prédikálószék.

In the distance we could see the Citadel of Visegrád on a hill further down the Danube bend.

I would climb it later on, but first I had to descend all the way to Visegrád. Looking at the map, I had wondered what kind of road this would be. An impossible path through an impenetrable forest? No. It was a phenomenal descent on a beautiful asphalt road winding through the woods on the valley walls. The lower, the higher the rocks, until the road finally arrived at the outskirts of the small town of Visegrád. 

There immediately began the ascent to the 🏔CITADEL OF VISEGRÁD. 5 km of gradual climbing on a wide road, at the end steeply to the castle towards yet another phenomenal viewpoint over the Danube. Here no geology, but politics: the Citadel of Visegrád is one of the defining places in Hungary’s political history of 1000 years.

The descent from the castle to the Danube was another speed fest! Evening had fallen, and I still had 20 flat kilometers left along the Danube to Szentendre, partly on a quiet Eurovelo cycle path, partly in the middle of the busy evening rush hour.

At the hotel in Szentendre, my question if they could wash my dirty, sweaty cycling clothes in a washing machine quickly turned into a conversation about Hungarian politics. The young bartender, a sociology student in Budapest and jazz saxophonist, apologized that he had to charge 10 EUR for this "because of the extremely high energy prices" in Hungary these days.

He linked it to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And he was quick to point out he does not support the Hungarian government’s behaviour in this regard.

‘I am ashamed of my government. They act like Putin's accomplice in the EU. But Szentendre is a kind of island of free thinkers in Hungary. None of my family and friends supports Viktor Orbán’s government. Here is one of the few municipalities in Hungary where Orbán's party does not have the mayor. I’m sure it’s due to the special history of our town.'

There is indeed something special about Szentendre. I noticed immediately when I drove through the cozy, medieval alleys. Over the centuries, large communities of Serbs, Germans and Croats settled here. The panzio I am staying at, belongs to a Serbian family who came to Szentendre more than 300 years ago along with many other Serbs fleeing the Ottoman invasion of Serbia at that time. Add to that an artists' colony that settled here at the beginning of the 20th century, and you get an interesting diversity of religions, cultures, languages, worldviews,… Today, these communities are only tiny minorities, but their stamp is still visible in the architecture and atmosphere of the town. Does a history of diversity and art create free minds?

Tomorrow I will ride a 140 km-long transition stage from Szentendre to Gyöngyös at the foot of the Kékes, the highest mountain in Hungary, which I will try to conquer the day after tomorrow.

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Pieter Stockmans

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