DAY EIGHTEEN: NO ROOM AT THE RAINY GASTHOF

Day Sixteen (Linz to Melk) Daily Distance: 118.59 kms

Day Seventeen (Melk to Vienna) Daily Distance: 126.20 kms

Day Eighteen (Vienna Rest Day) Daily Distance: 17.81 kms

Total Distance: 1698.87 kms

Day Sixteen started with less interesting countryside but very good cycling paths as we passed several factories and Austria’s finest steelworks! We then rode through Mauthausen, unfortunately made famous when it became the location of a concentration camp that was responsible for taking an estimated 30,000 lives, mainly Polish citizens, during WWII. Later, we had lunch on a terrace overlooking the eerily quiet Danube on which we have seen considerably less traffic, tourist or industrial, than we did on the Rhine.

We arrived at our destination for the day, Pöchlarn, at a reasonable time and so we were looking forward to a relaxing afternoon ... until we discovered that there was not a single available bed in the town for that night. Thankfully, we stumbled across especially helpful staff at a cafe that phoned around and finally found us accommodation in the next town down the river, Melk. On arrival there, I discovered the Australia vs. Jordan football match on TV, so that ruled me out of the night’s activities, especially when we lost... (I still don’t understand why a World Cup 2014 qualifier for the Asian Confederation was live on German TV when it had absolutely nothing to do with Germany or even Europe, but was glad nonetheless.)

Day Seventeen began with a frustrating breakfast since American accents on the other side of the very large room reverberated around us. You may or may not be aware that this is easily one of my most intense pet hates. The accents don’t have to be American, although they invariably are, but it’s the volume that gets me most. I am trying to have my own conversation. I do not wish to be privy to yours as well, especially so early in the morning. And I certainly do not want to hear private details of your bladder movements through the night. Thank you.

This morning was our latest start by a long way, since we decided to be cultural and explore Melk Abbey, the dominating feature of the town that I have driven past many times but have never had the chance to explore further until today. This Benedictine Abbey is a masterpiece of Baroque architecture that was built in the early 1700’s, 600 or so years after a monastery was first built here. Its two main goals are education (inside, there is a secondary school with 900 students enrolled) and parish duties (monks still work to maintain Christianity and culture) and its sheer size and beauty make you wonder how it isn’t better known around the world.

Melk Abbey

So at 11:00am we set off just as the drizzle began, meaning that we had a soggy ride for the first time in what seemed like months. Despite the drizzle we had some amazing scenery as we wound our way through the Wachau Valley, cruising through town after town, all filled with dense rows of grapes that clung to the trellis as they sucked up every drop of the rain. While for the others it was just one town of many for the day, I was quietly thrilled to ride through Willendorf in the morning, given the number of times I have told the story about the Venus of Willendorf, an 11cm limestone female figure believed to be one of the oldest pieces of art in the world given its estimated age of 24,000 to 22,000 years BC! It was found in this town in 1908 and is now held in the Natural History Museum in Vienna.

A large copy of the Venus of Willendorf

(As we passed through, I recalled to someone the time that, upon hearing this story, an American girl once said to me – no doubt 40 decibels louder than necessary – “So what’s this statue then? Venus of Will-what? Is that like Venus Williams, coz I know her, she’s like this totally aaaaahhh-som tennis player. Her sister Serena is like so much better but...” I think this was the same girl who was awfully confused as to why there are no kangaroos in Austria...)

It was never our intention to make it to Vienna yesterday. Our schedule only required us to make it to Krems, but given that it was just 35kms from Melk we decided to aim 50kms further ahead, to Langenlebarn. The idea was that we would overnight there and then on the following day have a relaxing 30 or 40km ride into Vienna to arrive by lunch and have a half day free to roam. Quite wet and tired, we made the decision at Langenlebarn to ride on until (and I quote) “the next town or nice looking Gasthof”. Well, five “nice looking Gasthofs”, six additional “average looking Gasthofs” (as our standards lowered) and about eight towns later, we arrived in Vienna... in the dark, at 7.30pm! Clearly we did not learn our lesson from the day before! Even once we arrived in the Austrian capital it proved a mighty mission to find four beds for the night, since apparently this is a pretty popular place at the moment – although no one is able to explain to us why. Anyway, we ended up in a hostel with what seemed like one-third of ALL 14-year old Austrian school children, but thankfully we didn’t have to share a room with them. Or more appropriately, thankfully for them, they didn’t have to share a room with us – and our wet cycling gear!

We would like to praise the cycle paths of Vienna, as in no other city in the world, in our combined experiences, can you enter like we did yesterday. Not once were we in doubt of our location, or that of the city centre, and not once we required to ride on the road. We would not, however, like to praise the weather of Vienna: cloudy, dark, and slowly drizzling since the moment it was in sight. It was this weather that made our hunt for a meal as unpleasant and hard as finding accommodation. We ended up hopping into a taxi and asking him for the nearest restaurant, and ended up at a reasonably nice Italian restaurant a few blocks away.

With a few longer days than anticipated leading into Vienna, we are now officially a full day ahead of our schedule. Today, our second rest day of the trip, began with a bit of a sleep-in before I ordered the boys back on to their bikes so that I could show them Vienna. We did a bit of a riding tour of the city, weaving in and out of the most prominent buildings and monuments on the RIngstrasse, while avoiding cars, trams, buses and even numerous horse and carriages! After having coffee and Sacher Torte at the hotel where this traditional Viennese delicacy (chocolate cake with marmalade) was first made 180 years ago, the tour ended at Stephensdom, the main cathedral of Vienna and one of the tallest churches in the world.

We went our own ways for the afternoon. I went out to see the Hundertwasser Haus, a colourful and jagged apartment block built by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. This incredibly funky building has a range of bright colours, different shaped and sized windows, huge and small trees exploding out from the balconies and wavy mosaics throughout. It’s almost like a masterpiece of architectural graffiti rather than an apartment block:

After that, I headed to the Belvedere Palace, summer residence of Prince Eugene, which now holds Gustav Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’.

In the meantime, on my recommendation Jim and Alan headed out to Schönbrunn Palace, which I understand they enjoyed immensely. Not recommended by me, however, was that they get the first puncture of the trip, which is exactly what Alan did after he ran over a tiny spring! Thankfully they sorted it easily enough and didn't have to walk back. Dan was unable to join them as he had to begin his hunt for some trousers to replace the ones he’d left in the previous hotel – he’d put them under his pillow to bulk it up and forgot about them!

Tonight, we had a big feast in a typical Austrian beerhall so we're happy with having seen Austria's capital, and so tomorrow we can move on to the Slovakian equivalent!!