Planning the route from the cozy room

I’m sure many of you are wondering how we planned the route – so here are the behind-the-scenes secrets. But don’t be surprised – there’s no earth-shattering, world-changing ideas 🙂
First, of course, I planned the route with Google Maps – and here a few things pop up. First of all, if I use the cycling route planner, the routing algorithm avoids the Czech Republic and Slovakia by a wide margin, as Google has no reliable data on cycling paths in these two countries. Let’s stick with Google for another round: try pedestrian planning. This offers quite a nice route at a glance, without a big detour, but here the question may arise as to which roads it takes you on. I downloaded it in GPX format, and then tried other route planners specifically for cycling, but they all offered a longer route than the walking version of Google Maps. In the end, I managed to get a very similar route guidance on Mapy.cz by adding more manual points as the walking version I just saved. Then I compared and checked these – there were one or two parts where Google Maps suggested roads with gravel or dirt surface, but I avoided these to save time and our bikes. There was only one place on the track that needed some fix, where a road was only apparently connected, but the spatial connection was missing, and there was no way any of the route planners could ‘drive through’ it. Thus, the shortest feasible route between Copenhagen and Budapest was established. You can see this line on the tracking map, but if we don’t follow it exactly, don’t worry, we hopefully won’t get lost! (I won’t deny – it comes handy that I’ve been orienteering and working as a GIS developer for many years!)
Then we could split up the track. We had agreed in advance that we would try to get to the ferry on the first day (which basically starts around 3 pm), even if we only got there at night, as there is still a ferry between Gedser and Rostock at around half past one. The next stage is to Berlin, where we can stay in a flat of Andris’s colleague, on the third day we want to get to the Czech Republic, cross that in two days and then do the rest in one push – we have subsequently modified this to cycle only to Esztergom and then organise a ride together on the last day.
I then looked through the map again along the route, now looking for accommodation. In Gedser, I found a very good-looking, completely free hut, which was listed on a Danish accommodation locator map (https://udinaturen.dk/map-page – Thanks, Árpi Harkányi!). In case we’d rather cross the big water without sleeping, I also looked around Rostock. First I found a patch of woods as close as possible, perhaps far enough away from the noise of the city, and then in another round I discovered a rain shelter – now that’s a splendid place to stay! No street view of this one on Google, but on mapillary.com it’s even better! Our next accommodation was a given – in Berlin in the flat of Andris’s colleague. After that I noticed bunkers in Czech territory on the map – hopefully we can hide in there and it’s not completely trashed by the local youths. In the middle of the Czech Republic I was lucky enough to discover another rain shelter, right on the road, but still slightly hidden, so we didn’t have to detour for another covered corner. The only place I couldn’t find any visual information on was the last place in Slovakia – a rest area next to a lake called Valsa in the northern corner of Holič. I’ve marked the points on the map, created POIs, which we carry with us on our navigation devices. As our more sharper minded readers might have guessed, we plan save time by not pitching tents, we’re hoping to be able to sleep under cover at all the places mentioned, even with the bikes. Nevertheless, we will bring a tent and also a tarpaulin as an emergency plan – the latter will also be very useful to protect our gear from rain and mud on the bike.
Since we don’t want to carry all our food for the week, and prices abroad are already competitive with the ones in Hungary, it’s important to be able to get food on the go. I looked at the itinerary from that point of view, but luckily the distribution of the major cities is just right to allow us to pop into a shop every day.

What I often wonder about this trip is how it was almost 100 years ago, in 1932 for example… I wasn’t even a thought then, and my Dad wasn’t even born, but there were big adventures even then. I warmly recommend my favourite book, The Wanderer of God by István Regőczi. Even for those who are not religious, at least one chapter is worth reading: you can experience an incredible cycling adventure without GPS, Google Maps or other space technology. (Fortunately, the book is available completely free online (but only in Hungarian) at http://www.ppek.hu/konyvek/Regoczi_Istvan_Az_Isten_vandora_1.pdf – look for the chapter starting on page 56, or better yet, read the whole thing!)