Tag Archives: Danube

Bike Trip 2 – Day 13 Linz – Perg

02 Saturday Jun 2018

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40 miles, 3.5 hours on bike, flat with some short climbs

Today’s route was to be only 26 miles so we added a couple of detours. The most memorable stop was at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial site.  Several people said it was worth the stop.

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On Augus 8, 1938, five months after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, the first inmates arrived at Mauthausen from Dachau concentration camp.

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At the end of 1942 there were 14,000 inmates in Mauthausen and some satellite camps. In March of 1945 there were more than 84,000 in these camps. From the second half of 1944 thousands of inmates were evacuated to Mauthausen from concentration camps to the east.

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Barracks on the left. Infirmary and crematorium on the right.

Almost 190,000 people were deported to Mauthausen between construction of the camp in 1938 and its liberation by the US Army in May 1945.

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Just outside the camp were many memorials.

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Such a contrast between the barbed wire sculpture and the peaceful meadows beyond.

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We are now settled in Perg at Gasthof Manner.

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Definitely not our typical day.

 

Bike Trip 2 – Day 11 Schlogen to Linz

31 Thursday May 2018

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39 miles, 3.5 hours on the bike, elevation gain 0

What a lazy riding day this was. All of 39 miles. We’d planned to explore a few towns off-route but didn’t find the right roads to them.

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I forgot to mention that yesterday we were wearing our Northwest Tandem Rally jerseys and met another couple wearing their New England Wicked Tandem Society (NEWTS) jerseys. We had a great time talking about the challenges of organizing tandem rallies. Today we wore our same jerseys and met up with a group from Vancouver, British Columbia. They recognized Puget Sound on our jerseys. It was a lot of fun chatting with them. They are riding from Passau to Budapest. We also met a guy traveling from Munich, Germany to India.

In Aschach we stopped to visit the Ship Building and Fishing Museum but it was closed.

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Here’s a really cool gate in the woods we came upon while looking for the road to one of those towns.

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In Eferding we bought some sandwiches and wine and biked along the Danube to a nice bench along the river and had our lunch. Here’s my picnic pal who joined us.

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After another 10 kilometers we crossed the Danube on a cable ferry. A cable ferry is  one that is guided across a river or large body of water by cables connected to both shores. The cable keeps the ferry from being swept down stream on its crossing. What was especially fun about this crossing is that we got there right when a whole herd of kids arrived on their bikes heading home from school. They completely blocked the path for the cars getting off the ferry and just headed right on board as the few cars just squeezed their way off. It was clear these kids do this ride every day.

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The ferry ride.

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And the mass exodus on the other side.

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After about 10 kilometers we arrived at our destination – Park Inn Hotel in Linz.

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Believe it or not, this is a very nice place. We even have windows that open and air conditioning. (The past two hotels were just hot , hot , hot.)

A less than so-so dinner at a highly rated pizzaria and the end of another day.

 

Bike Trip 2 – Day 10 Passau to Shlogun

30 Wednesday May 2018

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31 miles, 3 hours on the bike, 415 elevation gain

We were on the road before 9 and it was already toasty warm outside. No need for jackets. Today we retraced our steps back downstream along the Danube except this time we were on the opposite side of the river.

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Our first stop at 27km was the Trappist Monastery Engelszell which was founded in 1293.

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In 1699 a fire destroyed the gothic monastery and church. A new abby and church were built from 1700-1764. In 1939 the Trappists were forced from the abbey by the Gestapo. Of the 73 monks forced from the abbey, only 23 returned after the war. Since 1945 the community has persevered despite economic hardships and the small number of monks. The Trappist Monks produce beer and sell liqueurs of several different kinds made from traditional recipes and are said to have medicinal properties. We thought it would be a good idea to support the Trappist Monks.

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Here’s a peak inside the chapel.

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There were six of these, three on each side.

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And a close up of the golden box.

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And look at how modernistic the ceiling artwork is.

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Back on the cycle path we passed a lot of scenery like this, big fields of grain – wheat, barley? – with poppies sprinkled throughout.

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We got to our hotel around noon,

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and had a delightful salad lunch. Lucky for us, they had a pool which was great for cooling off. It was a hot one today. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the nearby marina/campground and planning tomorrow’s adventure.

There’s really nothing else here so we had a wonderful dinner of lamb shank with their house white wine at the hotel. Chris wowed the waiter with his questions about Austrian ice wines and red wines and while we were eating his recommended dessert – pancake (crepe) with strawberries, etc. he brought us two different samples of Austrian reds that were perfect with the dessert.

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They were both great, but Chris really liked the one on the left – Blauer Portugieser.  We’ll be heading into Austria’s primo wine region in a few days and now we know what we’re looking for.

Today I will end with this. Not sure about who or what he represents but I think he might be Kokopelli’s Bavarian kin, don’t you agree?

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