This was the flattest day of cycling yet. Pancake flat, with lush green farmland and woodland and 32 C under a bright blue Hungarian sky. And a 20 mph hot headwind. This is just how I imagined the plains of Hungary to be. To be accurate, this is the little Hungarian plain – to distinguish it from the Great Plain that is to come. But either way, whilst it is perfectly pleasant, in all honesty it soon gets monotonous, and it reinforces our plan to leave the Danube after Budapest and find some hills!

The interesting bit is the language. Hungarian is quite unlike anything else – so even if we had acquired a proper classical education, it wouldn’t have helped very much. To our relief, most people speak German as a second language, so the German we learnt over the past month has got us by. We managed to get a bowl of goulash last night, and omlette this morning. Brilliant.

Some people are doing very well in this part of Hungary. As well as the brand new 4* hotel right next to our (basic) campsite last night, we keep seeing brand new Dallas style mansions.

You can tell how it was monotonous, because my next news is about the local water towers. Not just your concrete monstrosities, but space-age creations in shiny metal.

In fairness, Mosonmagyarovar was a pleasant town boasting 17 bridges across its many waterways. But I forgot to take a picture. After that it was 20 hot and headwindy miles south to the large town (or small city) of Gyor.

Here we have booked into our first Hungarian hotel – a 7 story concrete block with hundreds of rooms. It is comfortable enough though. Gyor still has a little of its medieval centre, but the rest was bombed in the war. We spent a quiet evening wandering around the newly pedestrianised centre and enjoying the kids enjoying the dancing fountains.

Helen’s track of the day: Mumford and Son, Sigh No More because that was in my head from the start of the day.