Day 1 on the road - to Bratislava

the weather report said it would rain - and it did, but not very heavy and although it kept up a steady drip throughout the day, temp was up to 18 and I didn't get that wet.  But I kept the camera in the bag most of the day.
Once I found the bridge over the Danube and got onto Donauinsel, an island in the middle of the Danube.  Immediately I was cycling through forest with all the little birds tweeting about how nice it was to be raining.  After a couple of km, we crossed over the bridge onto the east side of the river and continued on the road alongside the flood levee.   There was a narrow dirt trail that some ride along, but ya can't see the river from there anyways, so I decided to stay on the sealed path and just pedal away.
It was an easy ride all day, even tho I clocked up 84km, it certainly didn't feel like it because there were No Hills!!  But there were forests getting ready for winter, their leaves turning various shades of brown, birds were twittering and dabbling in the swamps and there were pretty little towns to ride through and bike paths to follow. 
There was a mob of cyclists at a coffee stop, so I agreed it was coffee time too!  Then back onto the road, through farmlands with crops of potatoes and corn plus pumpkins, sunflowers already with seed set and rows of purple cabbage, looking rather more blue than purple.  There was a little bit of traffic, but all were kind.
Soon I was approaching Hainburg, where we crossed over the Danube again on a rather large and impressive bridge.  It was now only 17km to get to the Bratislava. 
What I really love about travelling overseas is the ancient buildings and just the fact that people have lived in these areas for so long.  Hainburg had plenty of history to offer for those that were pausing here awhile.  But after a bit of climb up into town, we were soon on the last section of this ride, which was really pleasant, with the Schloss Hrad Castle of Bratislava and a whole bunch of Soviet styled high rise apartments arising weirdly out of a forest ahead. 
Around a sharp corner and suddenly we were bumping over old cobblestones that after hundreds of years are still not squashed in the soil...  Thankfully it was only a short bit before entering another interesting little town called Wolfsthal. 
This lead to the border leading into Slovakia, thru an Iron Gate, brightly painted blue now, which was once the Iron Curtain... but today, its always open and after passing an old Soviet Bunker, suddenly I had arrived at the fancy bridge over the Danube into Bratislava. 
My acommodation for the night was actually in Petrzalka, but I crossed over the bridge into Bratislava.  But I didn't stay long...  There was a cruise ship in and the place was crawling with tourists and really it seemed that the historic part was really just a row of restaurants.  It was pretty, cobble stones and hanging baskets of bright geraniums and am sure a city worth exploring sometime, but not for me today.
So I turned back and pushed Hennie back up the steep ramp up onto the bridge and rode onto the Hotel Viktor, on a nice quiet narrow street.  Hopefully I will get some sleep tonight!
One thing I saw today, which I wasn't expecting, were the little Christian shrines along the way...  some had flowers planted, but all were behind fences and gates, quite inaccessible compared with the many very open and friendly shrines in Japan.  Another thing were the wildflowers - crocus even and lots of little white daisies, especially once I crossed the border.  I really thought they would have all died by now.  So that's a bonus!