September 16, 2010
Foktő, Bács-Kiskun, Hungary
Back on the dike
distance: 48.45km
duration: 6h 23min
The hungarian Puszta appears endless, cornfield after cornfield and little forgotten villages. The country is flat, nothing stands out for dozens of kilometers - and the horizon is far away.
And then there's the danube dike - i've travelled a big part of the last 500km on it. It's inconceivable how much material has been piled up and how much work has been put into building this everlasting line all the way from Vienna down to southern Hungary, 5 meters high, 20m wide. I wonder who did this and when it was created - has it been built over centuries, higher and higher with every generation? Was it part of huge infrastructure projects during the economic thrive of the 50s and 60s? Or was it created by workslaves during the Third Reich?