A truly stunning day with amazing scenery, great weather and boats. Lots of
boats.
Stunning scenery along the Danube.
Unfortunately the Passauer Wolf hotel not only lacked air conditioning, it was
also on a fairly noisy street. The receptionist did provide us with a somewhat
ineffectual fan but it wasn’t the most comfortable of nights.
That being said, we were up at 6am because this was a 95km day. However, it
looked like I had screwed up the routing somehow and we were regularly on the
wrong bank of the Danube — the hilly bank. We decided to follow the signs
rather than my somewhat suspect Garmin route. Which, as you will see, turned
out very well.
All packed and ready to go.
After leaving the hotel, we navigated the cobbles of Passau pretty well,
crossed the Inn and almost immediately we were in country number three.
The Donauradweg becomes the…Donauweg.
At this point, the Danube enters a narrow wooded gorge between the Bayerisher
Wald and the Sauwald. This proved to be the most beautiful and enjoyable
stages of the journey so far.
The early morning sun dappling the quiet waters of the Danube.
The Donauweg was intensively signed and was made of high quality tarmac. Every
now and then there would be a dam producing electricity and managing the flow
of water.
Some great big engineering.
Management of the water levels in the Danube has been a huge problem this
year. Water levels are so low that the giant cruise barges which ply the
route from Passau to Budapest are stuck at the various ports and can’t
navigate between them or at least will run aground if they’re full of
guests. So the cruise guests are being bussed from port to port which must
be…disappointing. The water levels at Budapest two days ago were less than
25cm which is shallow enough to wade across. All commercial barges have
stopped working the river. We had been commenting for the past few days
about how quiet the river was compared to the Rhine and it appears that
this is the reason.
One of the empty cruise ships navigating a lock
After a quick coffee, we crossed the Danube from the south bank to the north
bank on a funky little boat. It’s such a community driven thing that the boat driver came back to pick us up when we had arrived 30 seconds too late. How lovely.
This was basically the full size of the boat.
The north bank was just as beautiful and just as easy going as the south bank.
It was like a dream cycle ride. We whizzed along in the dappled sunlight
enjoying every minute of it.
Memo to self: time to get a shave.
Pretty soon it was time to get
another boat. This time we picked it up at
Au. While we were waiting we discussed whether or not there are any other towns
in the world with two letter names. We thought not but it turns out we were
very wrong indeed. There are over a hundred hamlets in Bavaria alone called Au and there are
even places with single letter names like Y, Å, and Ô. I particularly like the
river D believed to be the shortest river in the world. Isn’t Wikipedia great?
Anyway, back to the nautical fun…
They just pull up at a slip way and you get on. 7€ each. Bargain.
It’s a lovely way to travel. Not any faster than cycling but it’s cooler out in
the middle of the river and the scenery was absolutely georgeous. I had never
heard of this gorge and, indeed, hadn’t even clocked it when I was doing the
route finding. I imagine that it isn’t terribly well known in Germany either and
given that there are almost no roads going through the gorge, it’s not easy to
get to.
Finding a barber is definitely an urgent task in Linz.
The day mostly continued in the same fashion.
Lovely cycle paths, good weather, amazing scenery. What’s not to like?
I won’t bore you too much with more pictures of ferries across the Danube — although there were many. On each of the “Donaubus” there are descriptions of
the various routes and it appeared that there was a ferry from Ottensheim direct
to Linz which would avoid part of the route which is reputed to be less stunning
than the previous 85km. It felt right to not spoil a special day by doing the
worst bit of the route.
We were incredibly lucky to just catch it as it was pulling up to the slipway.
Look out for the ducks!
We were whisked the final 10km right to the centre of Linz. Linz has an
extensive tram network and the tramway rails are exactly the right width to
swallow your front wheel. This makes cycling a little worrisome but we got to
our hotel without incident and after a trip to the barbers for me, we headed
out for some food. We found a chaotic Italian restaurant that did great pasta
and decent wine. Topped off with a stop in an Instagram hot spot Eiscafe, it
was very good
Linz is not Passau or Regensburg. Although it has a rich —and in the 1930s and
early 1940s dark — history, the ornate buildings seem to fade into the
background behind the foreground of more modern buildings and the retail
clamour of a typical mid-sized town. Although, it is the seventh largest city
on the Danube. Top marks if you can get the largest 6…
This was maybe the best day we have had not just on this trip but on any bike
trip. It really was…perfect. If anybody is ever considering cycling in
Germany, this part of the Donauweg (and probably the two or three stages
before this) are not to be missed.
Tomorrow is another long day. At 110km it’ll be our longest day so far but the
weather doesn’t look too hot.
The Stats:
- Distance: 94km 🙂. About 15km of that was on a boat.
- Average Speed: 20.1km/h😐. It was too lovely to rush.
-
Bikes: 😐. Still going although more squeaks from the brakes are
indicating a brake pad problem.
- Soft tissues: 😕. By this point, it is what it is.
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