Sunday, September 24, Linz to Grein; 62 km

The requisite starting selfie, in which, due to the immutable laws of optics, M once again towers over his diminutive cycling companions

Our motto: More than you’ll ever want to know.

Breakfast in our hotel’s dining room offers the usual assortment of dry cereals (including muesli), small yoghurts, various breads, jams, juices, fruit etc. Plus those standards of German and Austrian breakfast buffets (which would forever make it difficult for me to live long-term in German or Austrian hotels): a cornucopia of cold, sliced luncheon meats and pale, sliced cheeses. I’m still boycotting speck and all it’s cousins after that unfortunate incident at the Gasthof in der Exlau, upstream (which should perhaps be styled The Unfortunate Speck Incident at the Gasthof in der Exlau, to suggest a final Holmes-and-Moriarity-like showdown in which I barely escape with my life).

In Linz proper (our hotel was slightly upstream from the town centre) we rejoin the Donauweg cycle path, the one running along the river’s north bank, which we four refer to casually as “the R1”, since that is how it is referred to on all the signage. It is a beautiful, cool-air and blue-sky Sunday morning, and a carillon of church bells rings out just as we merge onto the path, bringing tears to my eyes.

Ahead of us on the path and behind us are Sunday-morning throngs of fresh-faced, healthy-looking and evidently happy people, all of them vigorous on their bicycles, and occasionally wearing roller blades (though not doing both of these at once). A few carry their feather-light rowing sculls to the riverbank, which they will presumably row (the scull, that is, not the riverbank) up- or downstream for a while; or they walk, pushing a buggy (or a pram, if you prefer) containing (I imagine) a contribution to the next generation of vigorous, healthy-looking and (one would hope) happy people. Or a dog.

The pavement is as smooth as those things that are really smooth, and you could, if you wished, take your morning constitutional along this smooth path as far as your vigorous legs would carry you, before turning back to where you began. This could go on every day of your life if you so desired, if you lived in Linz.

Speaking of signage, I offer this photo gallery, so that you can better appreciate how we find our way along (and if there is a WordPress expert out there: can you please tell me how one inserts a Tiled Mosaic block using the WordPress app, rather than the rather boring photo grid? I can do this in WordPress on my laptop when composing a post, but I can’t seem to find this option in the app; thank you!)

The R1, heading in various directions

Signage is sometimes painted directly on the path

End of path section shared with adults who walk with children

Turn right (the “turn left” variant is also found)

Where to go, and how far

Which way?

It is an ordinary day, a day that would be familiar to all of those (and there are many!) who cycle, or who have cycled, on the Donauweg towards Vienna. Nothing particularly dramatic occurs today, which is a good thing, I suppose.

At one point, as I stand solitarily astride my bike looking thoughtfully across the Danube, waiting patiently for J, a flock of four female cyclists of a certain age suddenly surrounds me. They wear matching pink outerwear, and they are also heading towards Vienna (for who is not!). Their words have a light New Zealand accent, and for a moment they seem to size me up with bright, hopeful eyes (for I may have, just then, appeared to be brooding, or forlorn).

I ask if they’d sampled Linzer torte while in Linz—it is the sort of thing one asks in these situations—and they smile and admit that they had shared a slice, but had not cared for it (and the nose of one of the four wrinkles slightly at the memory). They scatter abruptly when J re-emerges from the underbrush, so I learn nothing further about their tastes in Austrian pastry.

A view towards the south bank of the Danube, just east of Linz

At lunch we once again picnic by the riverbank, because it is a pleasant thing to do. While we eat, J2’s bicycle manages to defeat its kickstand, abruptly hurling itself to the ground. We later discover that this impulsive act has caused the front fender to dislodge, so that it now rubs against the tire.

M manages to (mostly) fix it, after doing dramatic things like retrieving the tool kit, looking intently at the contents, and saying things like “Hmmm; interesting“ and “I wonder if this one…” Repair (partial) involves the removal of both panniers, and the flipping of the flipping bicycle on its head; we can only hope that J2’s bike has now learned it’s lesson.

The Café Castello…

…where an Elvis impersonator will appear October 6th

Autumn fields

Gitti celebrates her 70th birthday

An enormous crow

I’ll bet the shellfish here is FANTASTIC

Approaching Grein

Our café in Grein

The Grein café interior

…and one of its cakes

Another cake: the Mozart

Coffee (as if you needed to be told)

The Pension Martha (garnished) in Grein

Over coffee I do the math and calculate that, after three riding days, we’re just past the halfway point in terms of distance, having cycled 166 km of the 330 between Passau and Vienna. Tomorrow: on to Melk.