How 𝘕𝘖𝘛 to travel Europe #5 – This episode was too eventful to name

[Music] you rejoin us at a difficult time we've been out hitchhiking in the blaring Sun for the past seven and a half hours now the last five of which were spent marooned here in Hungary whose people we were beginning to take a mild disliking to meanwhile over at the Austrian border Sam was stood in his garage staring vacantly at the two shiny bicycles that he'd found for us thinking what a shame it would be they never got to star in the final chapter of our journey then the phone rang Sam was coming to get us it was a miracle from out the blue the trip was saved and all our worries were over thanks mate thanks including the threat of our stomachs folding in on themselves the only downside was a sense of guilt that Sam had to drive a hundred miles to come get us but that feeling was soon replaced by the excitement that came with the smell of frying Jerry's cause yet living off the land night it's not exactly the way that he might have envisioned but technically we were passing the challenge yeah there it is can't wait to talk into it and fucking ravenous all it needed was a bit of seasoning and we were good to go Greg's somehow managing to polish his off before I even had a chance to turn the camera on we both could have eaten that meal again so we did I mean some wouldn't be here until 10 p.

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so we could afford to eat relax and enjoy this lovely evening turns out the local youths congregate at the petrol station on a Tuesday evening so we were doubly pleased to see Sam and his dad Robert roller unfortunately the footage is far too dark to make anyone out but the four of us had some incredible albeit a bit depressing philosophical discussions about society politics and the future and those insightful chats continued right up until the moment that the lights came on in Rob's Gary we couldn't have been happier with our bikes in fact it took me right back to Christmas 1994 which is probably when these ones were built but the point is we were super excited for tomorrow's shenanigans right now though it was well and truly time for bed oh yeah we were camping in their garden by the way all right perfect the end of the trip but it's not right tomorrow for riding on these things our two bikes for the day in the morning we left a little something in Sam's letterbox as a thank-you for saving our trip and hopped on our bikes for the first time all night this is smooth I don't a jinx it but we made for the village center which Robert had assured us had its own bakery but we weren't necessarily looking to run any errands just yet see challenge number five on the list but rather to reintroduce things like sugar fat and gluten into our blood streams things that we would surely need if we were going to carry out our ambitious plan to cycle to Vienna without rucksacks on our backs and nothing but a list of towns and villages that we needed to aim for along the way now I know what you're thinking Bratislava is right there why on earth would you want to cycle to Vienna it's a very good question the first answer is that we didn't actually know where we were I mean I thought we were roughly here the second answer is that we'd been kind of obsessed for a while now with the idea of hitching a ride on a cargo boat down the Danube from Vienna to Bratislava and we actually had a couple of people working on that for us one of whom we could stay with in Vienna but that was a long way off in this particular bakery they didn't have a clue what we were talking about when it came to errands [Music] I tried my best to translate the word but it ended with this old man offering us a permanent job at his friend's vineyard down the road well everyone these are the noble steeds that are getting us to Vienna hopefully today mine's an old woman's bike literally from sounds great-grandmother and that's from wise grandfather we think we're not sure all we know is their claptrap they're rusty these tires have more cracks in them and what was defense at the moment and I think there's a good chance that these tires might go down somewhere or another in the first sort of five miles [Music] what's the first town mate we're heading for tap turn here we come [Music] it's nice to be able to propel yourself and just cruise through these villages when you yeah making good ground at the moment flat as a pancake round there oh yes that is a bakery never saw one surely gone village bakery the lady behind the counter who are also confused instantly summoned her son who not only run the show but spoke good English too that would be very much as bakeries it can be big boss michael then left us under the capable supervision of filling who had a scrubbing the flowery residue from the dough baskets a job that you'd think would be easy enough but after your first five just as your forearm starts to Cesar and quickly realize it's not and then you look over at Philip and realize that he's actually buffers fuck then it all makes sense to say the leave a linearity but did we deserve a job is it good Michael's obviously impressed by my work Michael entrusted me with a proper job thanks a lot Phillip [Laughter] [Music] tripping over a little holy cow golden brown now for a sample yeah they'll cool down in our hands good just out the over that is the best bread in Austria in all seriousness it was the nicest dough based piece of food I've ever had the perfect reward for our hard work with Philip who we bid farewell along with Christian was the hardest man west of the Danube and of course Michael a new favorite boss we'd ever worked for in any sense no I was expecting best like a you know the little shop front the facade you know maybe they're mocking the are by now gonna chow so it was on to the next village to see what was in store for us there what you're saying Greg game of football in the next village [Music] Thank You Sun and rock you have served us well well we've served you well to be honest but yeah fuck it out you may have gone slightly off track here any normal person would concede that this is not the right way but we don't fear okay I think we're actually just lost now where we cycling to today great Vienna apparently [Music] we try to be on there now [Music] about a mile from our next village we saw this nice Charlie Joe remote stumbled across the most sort of in plain view genuinely confused we stopped an elderly couple to see if they knew what was going on cannabis cannabis turns out they were Dutch the only Dutch people I've ever met who couldn't speak English but he could cheers Greg in Welsh before having a good laugh with his wife at our expense holders door see if the locals are absolutely baked off their head around it tell you what we're baking about bake now on the side of the road in Poe Dorf was a series of fruit stalls which not only offered shade but bursted with the colours of countless local fruits and vegetables and the various condiments and beverages that can be derived from them so we asked the nice girl who worked there about the secret cannabis farm down the road then she showed us something else that might get us feeling somewhat lightheaded it's like okay the more alcoholic that will become yeah do you want to try yes sure yeah so we sat back and enjoyed our grape juice wine hybrid to the sound of the local church bells when the owner of the stall Stefan a well-traveled well-spoken man took an interest in where we were from and what had brought us here to his table well I've got a YouTube channel filming everywhere we go so we've been we've been doing crazy stuff Stefan then fetched his wife who had recently lived in Redditch near Birmingham and probably wanted someone she could bond with over its shitness she then too took an interest in our adventure especially the concepts of using as many different modes of transport as we could find and we are making of all food that would be fun rate another one we want it was a tractor tractor farm attractive oh my god you like to eat oh you like to evil no no people eat just on there okay real good and the wine by the time we left their entire workforce was standing by one of whom questioned the white powder on my hat we worked in a bakery I'll give you the channel yeah hold on tight so good Oh the ride down to the lake was something I'll never forget the Sun was out the locals were waving and hollering at us and we were riding freestyle on a 1961 Austrian built tractor thanks to some more staggeringly lovely people best of all we were technically making ground we were venturing into passages knew and even though it was only 500 metres down the road it was more beautiful than we could have imagined and just like that it was over yeah let's carry on [Music] [Music] we're basically in a place where people go on holiday to cycle I mean we genuinely didn't plan that we're just basically stumbled across it in the next town we kept our eyes open for football games we did find pitches but sadly they were missing players hot and hungry we headed into the center for some grub serving food sick mate we stopped at an Italian joint where we ordered a garlic based pasta dish but with extra garlic which clearly we had an unexplainably strong craving for for some reason it smells like garlic and it's fucking amazing well we asked for garlic and by Jove we got it home it may have gone to Greg's head a bit though because just as we went to leave keen to crack on with some much-needed mileage he brushed his leg against the wooden decking outside of the restaurant and got a painful splinter hardly noticeable on the surface but apparently very painful but as luck would have it there was a pharmacy just over the road well that's what we've just extracted from the regs leg in the pharmacy the stern but caring ladies who worked there had insisted that I performed the procedure but did reward Gregg's bravery with a Star Wars plaster on top of that they didn't charge us a cent for the tweezers or the sterilized needle which I almost took with me [Laughter] after locating the monstrous void that was Greg Splinter we set off for our next town pond Dorf how's your bitch doing mate is it the only issue apart from my aching Gooch was that Pandora itself was only a third of the way to Vienna and it was already 3 p.

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at the moment we'd be lucky if we were there before dark and that's if we knew where we were going and didn't get distracted easily that's gonna make a perfect meal two pawns door panda hahaha we basically had to decide between all-out cycling or hopping on a train to give us more time to find a football match the house of God challenge had sort of slipped away from us a bit until now we've gotten so hot and bothered on this particularly long stretch that the idea of entering the cold stone shadows of a church was now so heavenly that we both agreed that it definitely constituted refuge could be an aircon soup so we ventured our way into pond off and started scanning the horizon for a steeple when Oh God I'll take acid legs now weak with exhaustion we battled our way up to the humbling temple that was pawned off Church oh I don't think I can make it would the church door be open or would it be firmly locked alas it was locked along with the side door we were distraught so much so that we snuck around the back of the church to see if there was anyone we could speak to round there there's hope and there was Cathedral we have a look around churches in Germany while the first lady went off the other lady whose passion for her church is almost reducing me to tears just thinking about it told us about a brand new painting that had recently come to the church until the other lady returned with great news we're very hot we need to seek refuge yeah the enthusiastic pair were more than happy to show us the steeple the small chapel where I lit a candle for my mate Jim and the stunning cool sanctuary of the church nave and that is another challenge completed thanks to these lovely ladies the Clyde on of the Vicker as we left overwhelmed by the kindness and positivity of yet another group of our fellow human beings we had to take a moment to reflect on it all genuinely uncool had a cultural experience and lovely heartwarming experience and another challenge of the list lovely ladies you know they're laughing their heads off you know I think today laughing with other people yeah meeting people charitable lovely people and restoring your faith in humanity quite frankly when you live in a city like Birmingham or London it's just I don't know people don't find the time for each other you know you come out here and just heartwarming yeah now all we need to do is win a nightclub dance-off yeah and score a going a football game by this point we'd conceded that if either of those were going to happen or if we were actually going to make it to Vienna full stop we needed to get on a train to add delight there was a train that went straight to Vienna from Parnes Dorf I mean if we'd have known that Bryce lava was actually 20 miles northeast of Pandor we might have reviewed the situation but we didn't so it was on to Vienna to carry out our own much more stupid plan right cycling across the huge busy city that is Vienna in rush hour with no helmets and in my case one hand as I'd lost the gopro headstrap roughly here we aim to blag our way all the way over to the west of the city where Paola Greg's friend from University was kindly letting us stay the night during our dicey – across the city we'd of course be keeping our eyes peeled for any FIFA Street style kicker bouts that there might be I have absolute confidence that we're going the right idea a hundred percent now but we mean that but on the football front the only street urchins we could find were passing about on bikes just like us you do buy yeah hahaha football looked like it would have to wait until tomorrow but we had gone west and with a helping hand from Burger King's plug sockets we're fuckin gone and done it we found Paola's apartment safe and sound in Vienna that evening Paola took us into town via tram was this our tent mode of transport number 11 I think it was actually our 11th if you include taxis but we were hoping to make it 12 tomorrow morning down on the Danube where we plan to flag down a cargo barge right now though we were down on the Danube canal sipping otter cringes we're straightaway the presence of a different kind of boat got us thinking this could be what we might be breaking onto tomorrow if things don't go to plan basically it's big enough I think to hide it was probably the two otter cringes talking but at that moment it felt like a strong option and as the evening went on we pretty much scrapped the barge idea and with fully in favor of budging a ferry fuck yeah meaning we had no time to hunt for footie games Wow instead it was back through the city where we caught a fleeting glimpse of some of its beauty fucking Coon and straight back down to the Danube canal to try and get on a boat for free which when you're hungover is a lot more of a scary thought than when you pissed especially when this is what you're dealing with right our original plan of trying to hitch a ride on a cargo boat on the actual river donger Danube da now about two miles that way was just I don't know maybe it was doable but this is plan B if we can't talk our way into it maybe we'll sneak on we're going to offer our scrubbing services that we honed back at the bakery and I don't know see if we can get to Bratislava in style realistically sneaking on wasn't an option if we were going to do this we would need to put on our best persuasive charm because we weren't in the countryside anymore we were in the city where money talks I wondered if we could in exchange for a trip we could sort of advertise the service the brand on the channel minutes oh no footage species from right here do you know the guy who makes the decision oh oh sorry [Music] she gave up this even manager of the university liner look super happy you can try and yeah see what she said I cannot promise anything but yep thanks okay let's give her a bell but Eva's phone was lifeless them again so not sure what else to do we decided to return to the guy on the desk tell him the boss wasn't answering her phone and try and convince him one last time to help us out but please don't advise me on he had allowed us to go on through without a ticket and speak to the captain who we explained the whole situation to again this time putting emphasis on the working helping out side of things now there is nothing to get asked the restaurant yeah okay in five minutes we go okay okay look he was on board so were we okay in many ways we just want to order I could tune up an image chill out on the cello but what's happened is they've arranged a job for us in exchange for our trip to Bratislava we have no idea what it will be well it's not nautical though it's gonna be the restaurant so it could be pop washing it could definitely not about hopefully that could be mopping the floors you know it could be could be serving people on a really busy torrid shift but we'll see he's coming over now but he didn't come over at all he went straight to his cockpit leaving us to explain to the staff that we were supposed to be working with them an idea that this poor guy really wasn't on board with for a few minutes we thought we'd got off scot-free but then this guy turned up again and led us outside to a little red cabinet inside of which was a bucket somehow already filled with soapy water and this little device here a squeegee I always wanted to give this a go actually the scrub and swipe and I have to say it didn't disappoint Gregg adopted a slightly different technique for the opposite side but before either of us could even begin to improve our technique we were done two windows clean the basic rice lover the ferry we were on was actually rapid and it really wasn't long before we'd crossed the Slovakian border and approaching its capital here we are Bratislava but what did it have in store for us well in the spirit of the entire trip we decided to wander aimlessly into town to have a look around in doing so we came across the perfect opportunity to fall a few tourists before making our way past this guy who almost supplied me with the best footage of the entire trip past this girl who almost supplied me with the most horrific and to the nearest hostel where we could recoup and make a speech well [Music] [Laughter] there's no more traveling to do for this trip this is the end brightest lava and we propose to get a pretty nice view of the city really sunset so no it's been a great trip ups and downs mainly ups to be honest and it's just a great feeling of adventure throughout this trip it's been so so many different countries and so many four experiences and so many lovely people yeah this great great piece is surprising when you put yourself out there people can be often very willing to help and I think that's something that we'd all feel a lot better for if we went out and did it yeah it's inspiring inspiring stuff but it's not over we've still got this town to paint ready let's do it an hour later we met a sound Aussie guy called Alex and enjoyed a slap-up Slovakian meal and a few beers with him nightclub dance-off was still possible but our chance to score a goal we thought had all but gone Alex thought otherwise he told us to get back out there and try and find a football pitch and give this one last bloody good go so four pints down that's exactly what we did having had a quick glance at Alex's Google Maps we headed back down to the river to try and find a series of pitches located about two kilometres upstream I've got a really good feeling about this I really it up rightly or wrongly well soon say I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride my bike I want we absolutely bombed it along the flat surface of the Riverside path keeping our eyes open for floodlights then oh yes little it is like piste up in rice lava about to join a football game or at least try just trying to gauge the standard here it's great it's absolutely great no for a while we watched nervously from the sidelines as big Martin Skrtel type figures charged each other down and stroked the ball around confidently now me and Greg can both play but inviting ourselves into such a physical high tempo game with potential nutters was a nerve-wracking thought even four points down there was another game to our right which looked slightly less scary but when I spoke to one of the subs he said that it was just about to finish it looked like The Clash of the skirt all's was our only hope or was it okay the far pitchers finished this one's still playing but we've just noticed this little game going on over here looks a bit less official I'm gonna pester them we approached David Luiz who was on the sidelines where he belongs and asked him if we could join in for five minutes [Music] okay would racket itch who was currently putting in a shift let us join in so you can play with them there in dark yeah sure sure sure you can play we also go here okay could we could you cause that I movie guy so okay so guys going to play from Geneva here right now I'm hopefully he get the head trick so let's see let's see what these guys going to do okay Neymar right there Barcelona my first contribution to the match apart from running around like a madman was to pass the ball straight to an opposition player and then proceeded to wipe him out Oh some collision right there not long after that I was putting goal where I made a string of brilliant saves to keep our team in front some of the more bald-headed men pulled out a few tricks for the cameras and there were some tidy goals flying in from time to time as well keen to prove that I was more than just a goalie I charged back out and came painfully close with this post shattering effort before coming off on account of not being able to breathe anymore Greg it's up to you now mate unsure whether I'd kicked my last ball or not I watched Greg's rasping shot clearly heading for the side netting cruelly blocked before being summoned back on for one last go and a minute later or two a bit of great determination and skill from our first cameraman I was threaded through on goal surely I couldn't miss now I'd done it I joined a local football game and scored a goal but Greg was determined to have the final say skinning me alive charging down his favored left wing and rattling the post with a venomous shot I knew he was gagging to score and with three minutes to go in the game he was teed up on the corner of the box for a chance that required a lot more accuracy than minded needless to say he slaughtered it beautifully into the far corner with his magic one of a left peg I soldiered on for about another minute before calling it a night okay no job I put in and we both scored goes completely Charlie they've just had to have his goal without the difference was Gregg's was slotted mine was sort of fumbled in by the keeper but they all count they all count and that very nicely concludes the story of our adventure plans to meet up with Alex and paint the town red never came to fruition because we had no way of finding him on tour and every bar me and Greg went to when we did venture out was filled with jubilant Croatian football fans that and my early flight in the morning meant that winning a nightclub dance-off would sadly have to wait until our next adventure this trip though had been about much more than just the challenges it had been about exploration mischeif highs and lows but perhaps most significantly it had been about people interaction kindness hospitality treating others how you would like to be treated yourself a mantra that's so readily forgotten in today's world and what of the bikes well it was about time we gave something back to the people of Europe much like with the kayaks we had limited time to get rid of them but the pleasant waitress who served as breakfast was as deserving a candidate as any and in the spirit of the trip she accepted happy laughter or shocks laughter we don't know but it was a nice way to end the trip Gregg would go on to donate his bike to an orphanage in Vienna but not before we shared the final goodbyes of many don't you worry though it won't be the last [Music].