Wild raspberries and Baroque architecture

The joy of ice cream,

blue skies, hot sun, cold flavour -

it's gone all too soon.

From the sublime to the utterly ridiculous, following the Donauradweg (Danube cycle route) from Passau to Vienna.

Camping at the Canoe Club in Passau, late afternoon.

Our first taste of German beer - from a Passau brewery.

Passau, Germany.

Affixing the new Brooks saddle.

Neil cooking pfifferling omlette.

Linda and John, from New Zealand, our camping neighbours for a couple of nights in Passau.

After a couple of days exploring and relaxing in Passau in the very welcome sunshine, we departed last Thursday in the rain. Again. The rain lifted after an hour or two and we found ourselves in Austria. It didn't look or feel very different to Germany.

Then the hills started closing in around us and we came to the Schlogen bend where a huge granite mountain blocks the course of the Danube, forcing it to loop suddenly and us to take a ferry around a steeply wooded section. We had just missed one ferry, so had our lunch while waiting for the next. 

The ferries are small boats with seating at the back and a bare planked area with a ramp for bikes at the front. There were ten people and ten bikes on ours (though none of the bikes were as heavily laden) from Au on the north bank to Inzell around the loop on the south bank. The boat was probably about three quarters full.

The strictly controlled German - Austrian border.

Cycle ferry boat, Schlogen loop, Austria.

On the ferry.

On the south side of the Danube we edged around the river under the shade of dark forest. Not travelling too far so I could gently break in my new saddle without it hurting too much, we stopped at Kaiserau on Thursday night. It was a peaceful spot overlooked by castle ruins high up on the opposite bank. The first to arrive, over the course of the afternoon the campingplatz filled with cycle tourists – the Passau to Vienna stretch being the most popular cycle route in Europe. Every camping spot this week has been chock-a-block with the tents of cyclists.

Peaceful Danube at Kaiserau, Austria.

Friday morning we awoke to mist on the river and cloud on the hilltops but it cleared quickly into a hot and humid 35 degree day. Leaving Kaiserau and its peaceful valley we soon crossed to the other side of the river, passing through farmland then uninspiring industrial landscapes as we cycled past Linz. We camped that night at Au am der Donau after passing through Mauthausen, the site of one of the last concentration camps to be liberated after the second World War. We didn't visit the memorial.

Lunch by the river, just before finding the wild raspberries.

Keeping to the left bank (as you head downstream) for most of Saturday morning, we crossed over again just before Grein, staying on the right bank all the way to Melk. A pleasant day's cycling with the even nicer surprise of finding some wild raspberries at lunch, we cycled partly under the shade of forest and almost entirely along the riverbank. You might think that following the Danube cycle route we would be riding alongside the river the whole time but much of the route is away from the river, passing through villages, skirting around lakes and smaller tributary rivers.

I was very glad to arrive in Melk and get off the bike – 200km in three days is not the ideal way to break in a new Brooks saddle and still be able to walk. Or sit. Our first two nights saw us at campsites with picnic tables but I couldn't sit on the hard wooden seats. By the third, my bum was feeling so battered and bruised I was getting shooting pains down my legs as I pedalled the last few kilometres. We decided to rest in Melk on Sunday and explore the huge abbey that we could see rising above the town.

Melk Abbey was originally founded in the 1100's under the Benedictine rule then rebuilt in the early 1700's in the Baroque style popular with the Hapsburgs. How they reconciled the jaw-dropping extravagance of Baroque architecture and decoration with the simplicity of the Benedictine rule is beyond me. The church in particular is positively gaudy with golden embellishments and frescos adorn ceilings in many rooms. Even the famed library didn't escape. We did however like the pair of huge globes more than one metre across – one for the terrestrial continents (or what they were thought to be at that time) and one for the celestial bodies.

Melk Abbey from below.

Melk Abbey, entrance.

Abbey library.

Illuminated copy of the Benedictine rule.

Cool staircase, looks like the inside of a seashell.

The humble abbey church.

Pew decoration.

We were still shaking our heads in bemusement as we cleared our palates with ice-creams, walking through the cobbled streets of the town.

Sunday afternoon brought more rain and it was still raining Monday morning as we prepared to leave. Melk to Krems, through the wine growing district of the Wachau is considered the highlight of the Passau to Vienna section. Unfortunately we didn't take any photos in the rain but it was a lovely morning's ride.

We cycled along the right bank and we could see opposite the green hillsides of south facing vines – many of the vines are grown in horizontal rows, giving the hills a stepped appearance. However we saw it all through a veil of mist and rain. The taller hills were crowded with ruins of castles, again partly covered by clouds. Among these were the ruins of Durnstein castle where Richard Coeur de Lion was held captive on his return from crusading.

A momentary break in the rain, not far from Melk.

The rain eased through the middle of the day and the hills flattened out into riverine plain as we headed for Tulln, another old Roman garrison town. From Tulln we had an easy ride into Klosterneuburg, just outside of Vienna. We camped there and caught the train into the city, knowing our previous luck with navigating around a large town on the bikes. 

Heading toward Vienna, by the Danube - it's still not blue!

Tuesday we spent exploring Vienna, tramping the streets and gawking at majestic buildings, paying our first museum visit of the trip – the the magnificent Art History Museum. The museums (and churches) here are fairly expensive to visit, fortunately we are quite happy just wandering around absorbing the feel of a place, people watching and food sampling.

Foyer ceiling, Art History Museum, Vienna.

Ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, Art History Museum, Vienna.

Ancient Roman floor mosaic, Art History Museum, Vienna.

From here we head toward Slovakia and Hungary, putting away the German phrasebook and unearthing the Eastern Europe phrasebook from the depths of our panniers. Interesting times ahead !

P.S: I wrote the above post on Wednesday but we haven't had any internet access until now. We are currently in Komárom, Hungary, a couple of days away from Budapest, so hopefully we'll have more luck with internet access and we can post another update. 

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words - Gabby; images - mostly Neil