Although we enjoyed this trip, we felt the scenery wasn?t different enough to warrant a 5 day trip, 4 would have been enough as it just seemed to be more of the same on some days. We had beautiful weather and whenever we used the train, people were very kind and helped us load / unload our bikes.

For the most part, the bicycles were good (although mine didn?t have a bell) as they shifted gears well and had 3 panniers. However, when I emailed Gabriella Hirsch on Sept. 17 regarding the bell and the possibility of getting our handlebars raised as they were too low for any long rides, I never received a reply. We found the local bike shop in Siofok ourselves and adjustments were made to one bike. In order to follow such instructions as " ... follow the road for approximately 3 km," it would have been helpful if one bike had an odometer otherwise this distance is hard to judge.

As usual it seems, we had some issues with the instructions in the book. We realize that some of the confusion probably occurs because of the language translation, but on day 3 (Fonyod-Badacsonytomaj-Siofok) the directions fail to mention that the bike path ends at the train station in either Balatonrendes or Revfulop (forgot to note which one) and that you have to ride on the main road for about 500 m before you turn R to get back onto the bike path again. After riding around looking for it, luckily we found a map of the village posted by the train station and were able to figure it out. Rather than leave the longest route of 64 km for the last day (which we altered greatly) perhaps this route should be in the middle of the tour. For days 1, 2 and 3, the same 15 km (Szantod - Zamardi-Siofok) are to be ridden a total of 4 times which isn?t very interesting after the 2nd time, so we ended up taking the train.

Although various sites to visit were suggested along the way, there was no indication on the maps provided how to get to them from the bike path. I guess it?s assumed that one should follow any posted signs, but a couple of road names would have helped greatly.

Despite these shortcomings, we enjoyed our time spent in this area. Since it was mid September, most of the tourists had gone so it was often very quiet in some places.