The Danube Bike Trail

The Danube biking trail from Passau to Vienna - at last.

 Oh, I'm having such a hard time organizing this trip in words.  It's easiest of course to do a chronological description, but frankly it gets a bit repetitive - we biked along a river, a very impressive and wide and sometimes narrow and always pretty one, but the pictures of the river look pretty much alike, regardless of the place, and we had nice hotels everywhere and (except for one) amazing breakfasts in the morning.

(Aside:  Do you know Birchermüsli?   It seems there are endless variations, but basically it's raw oatmeal with milk or cream and either/or raisins, sunflower seeds, grated apple, vanilla, dried cranberries, a bit of sugar, some maple syrup, all together in a bowl in the fridge overnight so the oatmeal is soft and full of cream and then served with lots of chopped fresh apple on top.  OK.  We got that almost every morning. I LOVE IT.  But if you want it decadently rich, use cream. )

But how do I avoid chronology?  Seems I can't.

We started in Passau, about 7 hours by train or car, so of course we chose train and we chose bike rental since taking our own would have meant too many transfers.  We arrived mid-afternoon, literally dragged our bags about 2k to our hotel, took the bus to pick up our bikes, and we found the place, though with some difficulty.  I was worrying about omens for the trip.

There were plenty of bikes (approx. a thousand!) to choose from.  We got our bikes, had our saddles and such adjusted, and went on our way. Good service from beginning to end.

Passau was worth exploring. It's a river city and as such, a magnet for markets and river walkways.

The flying buttresses from one of the Gothic churches are wide enough to be used for a roadway.

 We had our first really good look at the Danube and ate a traditional dinner on the banks. 

Sleep didn't come easily to either of us and the 3AM drinks delivery next door didn't help.  Sounded like the inside of a bottling works!! At breakfast in the morning they announced the beginning of the heat wave on TV!  Off we went, into the heat.
 
Passau to Niederranna.  32K

St. Stephan's  has the largest church organ in Europe and every weekday at noon there's a concert. Of course we can wait to start the trail. BUT after seeing the SHIPLOADS (read: many, many hundreds) of tourists all lined up for the mid-day concert we decided it was not for us. There were six? seven? eight? river cruise ships tied up and it seemed every one of the travelers were in the city and determined to hear the concert. It felt like Disney World. Off we went.

 

The beginning was, well, not so nice - directly along the highway with lots of traffic and I asked Werner if this was how it would be the whole time.... Of course not, he said with confidence.  And after a while, we left the busy road and had a quieter, more picturesque ride along the Danube to Niederranna.


Quiet places, too.

We arrived and rested and took a walk.  There was a water skier on the river, and then a skier on a chair!!  How funny! There were folks bathing in the river, and fishing.  It's a river, no matter how famous or how busy and it reminded me just a little bit of the St. John's in Florida where we had a vacation or two as kids - also with fishing and skiing.  

 

We picked up two smooth stones  as souvenirs and tried to skip a few.  Boy was that a waste of time and rocks!  They sunk like, well, rocks.  Dinner of Zander, a type of perch, and fresh veggies and Käsespätzle (local pasta with cheeese). No complaints there.

The night before was so noisy it was hard to sleep, and this night sooooo quiet we thought we'd never get to sleep!  But at least there were stars!!

Niederranna to Linz  65K

Next morning the breakfast highlight was from a group of women, obviously choir members, who were walking the trail.  They slipped into song, harmonizing at the breakfast table.  Breakfast concert!

We took the first of what would be three ferries across the Danube, all quite small, two of them only for bikes and pedestrians.  

This part of the trip was so picturesque - we biked to the bridge, took a pic, then on to the ferry to take us across the Danube Schleife (ribbon or bow) - that part of the Danube that makes an S-curve.  We hiked the hill - 482 m high, 30% grade - to get a good view and it was amazing .

A little video of our biking that day:

The final leg that day was the least pleasant of the trip - along a busy road, hot hot hot, noisy - but we were heading into Linz, a good sized city.

Linz to Enns by train, then to Marbach  75K

We discovered there's no way to really visit places AND bike!!  We thought we'd allowed plenty of time to get to the train station for the 20K train ride to Enns, but we were so rushed at the end - and no elevator to the platform!!  Gasp.

But we made it and got off in Enns and - went the wrong way!  Arrrgggh.  Check the map, Werner says, after we discovered our mistake, "We don't want to be in Enghagen."  Me:  "We ARE in Enhagen!"  We do that with some regularity, take the wrong way, but we made a nice recovery and found a charming ferry and got to the other side and met a guy from The Netherlands who was doing two weeks on his own with four - FOUR - packs on his bike.  About an hour later, we met up again when his chain flipped off and helped him with wipes for his hands.  Later on we had a chance to point him in the right direction where the signs were not so clear.

 There were others along the way we noticed - older women, on their own; families with small children; couples; small groups.  Many, many were in "professional" biking gear.  It seemed half of Austria was on bikes and in great shape. Lots of them were faster than us!!

Lots of crops, too.  Here, sugar beets that we learned later are over-farmed and get sold too often at dumping prices.

Entering the "Most" region - lots and lots and lots of fruit trees, mostly apple and pear, that are made into ciders.  Tried one - and that was enough.

This was not a very busy road, but a road with the dedicated bikeway on the left. And rocky cliffs, too.

Evidence of the wind that we were facing!

And heading by a power station.  We must have passed or ridden over four or five generating stations along the river.  Good, clean energy.

Ah, one of the few of us together and the only one I took with the tripod.  Not many chances, it seemed.

 And more evidence that the Austrians seem to have lost their vowels.  Where did they go?

Our hotel - a lovely old place looking out on the river.  We had our immediate shower, washed out some things and headed to dinner and then to collapse in bed.

 

Marbach to Krems  51K

There was a large Italian family at dinner the night before and of course at breakfast. I wondered what they were doing, vacationing there.... Well, they were all biking the trail, too!  Three adults, four kids under 10.  Wow.

And then we saw this.  They start them young, here!

See the little dark line there on the side of the dike?  That's the hay that's been mown and gathered.  We saw other small fields where they were tossing the freshly cut hay - by hand - to be bound later.  They seem to be frugal here....

The first town of note today was Melk, home to a significant abbey founded in the 11th c.

There are river cruise ships again, disgorging their passengers, so we push our bikes through the old city, have an ice cream, and keep on keeping on. 

Wow.  Two bikes with trailers for the small kids, all the equipment for camping.  I am speechless.

 The patron saint of Melk, Colman, an Irishman who was martyred here.

 One of the lovely corners here in the old city.

Then we took a short stop in Aggsbach, under an old ruin of a castle stronghold.  I hate to say it, but after a while, there are so many ruins of castles and strongholds that you just stop looking.  How awful of me.

Nevertheless, our rest was nice and the beer was cold.

 On we go, and the vineyards are multiplying!!!  Next year's wonderful wines...

Later we made a short detour at one village and found this pretty sight.  Flowers were abundant and everywhere.

And then we got to this point:  DETOUR!  Danube bridge closed.  Take the ferry to Dürnstein.  OK, I guess we must. Finding the ferry was another question altogether.  We went to the end of the road, turned around, found nothing, met others looking for the same ferry, finally figured it all out.

The ferry.  I truly wonder if some of these things are licensed!  

Finally on the other side, we biked through more wooded areas and then, suddenly, our hotel for the night. This place is now in its 5th generation of hoteliers.

Krems was really important to us because cousin Fritz lives nearby.  We'd arranged a meet-up and we'd hardly got finished with shower and freshening up before they arrived.

I am continually amazed about the power of family. We really aren't in contact with Fritz so often and though Werner got to know him when they were teenagers (Werner's father and Fritz's father were first cousins, and the fathers both died in WWII), there's been little contact since then.  But Fritz reached out on a visit to Germany some years ago. Then, we met in Vienna in 2004 or so, and it was so dear to make contact again.  Really, you just can't discount family.

They took us to a restaurant high above Krems.  Great views!

 Cousins. Is that sweet or what?!

And the four of us.

What fun it was!  Fritz and Hedi are all about positive and though they have had a few health set-backs recently, nothing keeps them down for long.  We had a wonderful dinner at a local place - Schwarzalm Krems -  up in the hills over the city - and later a walk along the river. It's a place I'd gladly visit again and especially to visit Hedi and Fritz.

Krems to Tulln  43K  Vienna Train Station to Hotel  10K

Another traditional, and hearty (read: rich and full and lots of stuff and eggs and ham and everything but grits!!)  breakfast, served by ladies in Dirndl.  The hotel has been in the same family for 5 generations.  I'm thinking the kid will have a little pressure to continue.

Heading to the end.... In Zwentendorf  there was a  charming Manor house and lovely old town and just outside, a Bier Garten right next to the built-but-never-put-in-service nuclear power plant.  It is strange.  Stranger still was the music- Jimmy Buffet and Jimmy Cliff - reggae and Margaritaville.  In Austria.

 And one of my wishes for the trip was finally fulfilled - a nap along the river.  We found a place with high grass, shady, quiet, and laid down the cloth.  Sooooo very perfect.  I actually fell asleep and awoke refreshed.  If I could do that every day ??...

 This on a wall:  every day a new beginning. Yes.

It's almost over!  We get to the train in Tulln (where are the vowels in these town names?) and sit across from two guys also finishing up a bike tour.  Turns out they're from Israel and totally impressed with how much biking we've done!  They didn't do more than 50K per day and think we're amazing.  Me too!

We reached Vienna.  Had another rather demanding 10K to bike before reaching our hotel, modern and AIR CONDITIONED!  Lordy, I am back in civilization.  A Lebanese restaurant in the area fed us well and we went to sleep to the sound of the carousel.  

Day last  0 K on bikes, but a few by foot

We thought about a museum, but decided to go low-key.  We just walked and looked.

At the City Hall, I sat in a dumpster re-done as a sofa along with stools held up by lots of books.

We enjoyed an organ concert at one of the many downtown churches, looked and gawked and in the evening had a Wienerschnitzel  that was so too much.  There was enough left over for sandwiches for our trip back!

Oh, it was a good trip!!  No issues!  Everything went like clockwork (almost).  Great hotels.  Fantastic food.  Amazing company (thanks, Werner!)

We're thinking that maybe we could do the next bit from Vienna to Budapest.