Heading south out of Budapest, EuroVelo 6 enters a broad plain dominated by agriculture. We cycled for several days on mostly unpaved levees, through fields of sunflowers, corn, and the Hungarian national spice - paprika. With few lodging options before Baja, wild camping was the way to go. So we spent several peaceful nights sleeping on the soft grass that borders the levees.

Once we decided that we would like to “bike across Europe,” we still had a lot of decisions to make about which countries to visit, when to go, and which route we would take. With more than a dozen major routes to choose from, we had our work cut out for us.