Trail description

Trail direction and length

Iron Curtain Rote enters the territory of Slovakia from Austria through the bridge over the Morava river at Hohenau der March and continues northwest to the municipalities of Moravský Sv.Ján, Malé Leváre and Gajary. It crosses the municipalities of Senohrad, Záhorská Ves and Vysoká pri Morave, leads through the west edge of Devínska Nová Ves, crosses Devín and enters Bratislava in its part called Karlova Ves. Via the Lafranconi Bridge it moves on the right bank of Danube, it crosses the quarter of Petržalka, copies the border with Austria and leaves the territory of Slovakia east of the municipality of Kittsee.
The total length of this trail on the territory of Slovakia is 90 km.

Relief

The trail profile is plain with no superelevations.

Character of environment

The trail environment is various, mostly bordered by agricultural land, meadows and riverine forests. As the country varies and is abundant in many picturesque places, the scenery is far from monotonous. The trail trespasses several villages, urban area of Bratislava and a huge housing estate of Petržalka located directly in Bratislava.
 

Surface

The surface of the whole trail is reinforced (mainly asphalt), only a few very short passages run on forest paths, the trail is therefore possible to be ridden on tourist bicycles.

Traffic

The trail mainly runs on the roads with no or very low traffic – agriculture and old army roads, dams, independent cycling paths, state III. category roads. It is thus suitable also for families with children. The only problem may occur on a 5 km long passage on the busy Devín road between Bratislava and Devín.
The cycling traffic in both directions of the passage between Záhorská Ves – Devín is busy especially at weekends, which requires more carefulness especially on narrow places.
In the passage of Devínska Nová Ves – Devín, as well as on the passage through Karlova Ves – Lafranconi in Bratislava, the cyclists share the trail with a large number of pedestrians.

Marking

On its whole length, the trail is correspondingly marked by a cyclo-tourist sign “C” of red colour and sign-posts in line with Slovak standards. The sign posts bear the logo of EuroVelo 13 Iron Curtain Trail. The passage between Hohenau and Senohrad in marked, but not sufficiently, whereas the passage Senohrad – Bratislava – border at Kittsee is marked abundantly and correctly. The number of sign posts is adequate, although many of them are slightly damaged.