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Pirate Island

molnar sziget kompAfter a major vegetable shopping and langos with Akos at the Hunyadi ter Market, I met up with John G. and Gyorgyi for a bike trip to Csepel Island. The last time I tried this with Mookie last April, the wind was brutal and it was a very beautiful but difficult ride. This time, the weather cooperated with a very hot, sunny day.  European Bike Route 6 could use some better sign posting, especially within the Budapest city limits. Even with a map and google maps on 2 phones, we got turned around several times. However, we were in no rush, and it was a beautiful day. We arrived at Molnar Sziget just as the ferry was pulling in and made a snap decision to take it across to Csepel rather than going over the M0 bridge. They saw us coming and charged us each 600 huf for a 30 second ride. The Csepel Strand was very close by and Gyorgyi wanted to sunbathe, so we checked that out. It seems like a big complex and was not too crowded, and 2200 huf for a day pass. We decided to save that for next time, and instead grabbed a couple beers and turo rudis and hung out by the Danube in a nearby park. While Gyorgyi sunbathed and swam in the Danube, John G. and I went looking for a restaurant. The Bicikli Bufe had no food, but we grabbed a sneaky pohar by the river as families cooked fish in a bogracs. We ended up retracing our route back to the first restaurant we found since no one we asked knew of anything in or near Sziegtszentmiklos. Unfortunately all the tables were booked for some reason at 4pm. After an argument, John convinced the waiter to sell us food take-away. Not the cheapest option, and they kept the change - we had begun calling Csepel "Pirate Island" - but the portions were large and we were starving. Rather go back to the M0 bridge or recross with the pirate ferry, we cycled up the near side of Csepel Island and then home. Its a lovely 40-50km flat ride that will take you through some very interesting and forgotten (for many of us) parts of Budapest, but I advise you bring your own food.