Bike trip #15 to the Daniubiana Art Museum
Sunday, 11 June, 2017 – to
the Daniubiana Art Museum (excerpts from my
journal The Pressburg Diaries, vol.
4 and a biking logbook)
Sunday was a nice day for biking, despite Zuza having awoken with another one of her migraines. Since we decided to bike together, we left a little later than we’d wanted to so she could wait for the aspirin to kick in. However, by 9:30 in the morning we were on the road. We swung across the Pristav Bridge and onto the long stretch of bike trail that runs down the Danube River on the Petržalka side, known as Hradza. A pass by the Flintstones (a buffet-bar along the river and a popular stop for bikers and joggers) revealed a possibility for a lunch stop later on.
We biked through the throngs of rollerbladers, bikes, and people with dogs and kids in strollers. The traffic was terrific. We stopped for a drink and a rest at Vyza, another “buffet” (bufet in Slovak) along the way. Here was a sign which said:
“Trinkgeld nie je mesto v Nemecku”, or “Trinkgeld is not a town in Germany.” Trinkgeld is the Slovak word (from German) meaning tip money. At this point, we’d cycled 12.391 kilometers, to be exact.
We meandered down the trail and stopped along the Danube for a view of the estuary and the art museum in the distance. We were now at 19.8 kilometers since leaving home. Another five kilometers or so and we’d arrived at the museum, which was built on a man-made island in the river. We were now 24.09 kilometers from home. We locked the bikes and went into the museum for a gander. We saw works by artists such as Palo Macho, Dorota Sadovska, and Petra Lajdová.
From the museum, we got back on our bikes and pedaled back up Hradza to another bufet called Obrátka. But when we’d locked up our bikes, we were dismayed to find out they didn’t have any food! How is that possible?! So many bikers, right off the trail and no bloody food??!! We were at 26.9 kilometers and hungry. They only had some pagač (traditional Bratislava-style biscuits baked with pork fat), which was better than nothing. Those filled us until we could get back up to the Flintstones and have a proper lunch. By now Zuza was winded. I was OK, since I’m accustomed to long distance biking, so I just took it slow and easy. We both ordered pljeskavica (grilled minced meat patties with onions, ajvar and mustard, which seemed more Balkan to me than Slovak) and bread on the side. Zuza wasn’t impressed with the food, but for me it was fine.
We got back on our bikes and began the trip up Hradza home. Along the way we passed a nudist colony at a small lake in Rusovce. On a really hot day that could be a fun place. Now we were at 40 kilometers, and we arrived home, at last, having cycled a total of 48.51 kilometers. I had never considered that biking and art could be combined, and today we did just that.