Bruce on the spiral bike ramp off of the bridge in Vienna
Day 24: Wieners in Wien
Saturday July 20 - Day 24 - 43miles - Total 918miles
We luxuriated at the Hilton this morning and slept late which is always nice. We had our breakfast out on the terrace beside the Danube river again which was fabulous. We took our time getting packed up and caught up on some of the blog posting from prior days.
The package we were expecting in Vienna did not arrive by check out time which was very disappointing. It was a replacement bike part from Thorn Bicycles and it had 15 days to get to Vienna from the UK, but did not make it.....poor show. It is not an essential part but rather a USB charger powered by the front hub dynamo, which will be more necessary now we are heading into Eastern Europe. The Hilton are going to forward it onto Salem, MA when it eventually does arrive.
We left the hotel around 1pm and headed east along the Danube. We crossed the Danube on a bridge that had a suspended bike path underneath - it also had the cool corkscrews to get on and off the bike path - very fun! The bike path took us along another island in the Danube for a couple of miles before crossing us over to the North bank of the river.
As we were cycling along the north bank, we started to catch glimpses of what was clearly the nudist colony for the locals.......and as we noted to each other, it is never the ones you want to see naked. There were lots of elderly people and not so attractive people lying out in the sun catching a tan where you really shouldn't have one...... (thus the title of this blog...)
Then the bike path went through the middle of an oil refinery... and after about two miles of serious hydrocarbon smells, the chain link fence delineated the end of the oil refinery and the start of a National Park.....so within three miles of riverbank we went from nudist area to oil refinery to National Park......such a sensory difference it was incredible!
The National Park lasted about 15miles and the path was pretty isolated. The path was very straight and on a flood control levee (which had some action recently!). The surface of the path degraded a bit in the National Park. Initially it was excellent leaving town and with a tailwind we were hitting about 18mph on the flats - then it went to a cinders surface and then to older asphalt which badly needly replacing. This slowed us down some.
The weather has been wonderful again and we have been very lucky for nearly the entire trip. Today was about 30C, or high 80s F, with brilliant sunshine. Needless to say, Bruce has been wearing long pants and sleeves for the trip so his Scottish paleness doesn't get too burnt! (No nudist beach for Brucie!)
We finally reached the Danube bridge near Hainburg, Austria at about 3pm and we had a late lunch in the shade of the bridge. We met some local cyclists from Vienna and "chatted" with them a bit. One of them got a pinch flat when he moved his bike, so we helped them out with patching his tube.
The cool thing about this bridge is that it is the same bridge that we crossed in the Big Blue Bus almost exactly two years ago on our way to Mongolia! This will be one of only two points where we intersect that route. The other will be near Budapest - but we were on the motorway in the BBB, whereas we definitely won't be on the motorway on our bikes!
After the bridge, we turned off the Donau Radweg and onto Bruce's Radweg. We headed away from Hainburg and towards Bad Deutsch Altenburg and our first hill of the day! Once we were in the flat agricultural land again we watched in awe, the lessons of a glider school. We watched an airplane with a glider attached by a wire fly through the air until they released the tether and the glider flew on its own. This area must be pretty windy, since we were surrounded by wind turbines... and they were all facing us... which means we had a tailwind again! Yay! We cycled through Pama and towards the Hungarian border (which is now an open border) but we stopped for the night in Deutsch Jahrndorf, which is the last village in Austria. It is very near the tri-border point of Slovakia, Austria and Hungary and must have been a seriously militarized place during the Cold War. We tried to get a room at a Guest House for a last night in the "West" before heading into the "East", however there was a wedding and a beach volleyball tournament going on in this small town at the same time and thus all the rooms were taken at the two places we tried. We were told there was a small municipal campground in town though and we headed there. We set everything up and then we went down to watch the beach volleyball tournament since it was about 100 yards away! They had a small refreshments tent set up but this meant cold beer so we had a couple of those and also a hot dog, Austrian style....which basically just means that the bun was huge and crusty.
There weren't many spectators outside of the teams and their groupies so we were a little out of place, but we are used to that on this trip so it didn't phase us too much. We went back to the campground after the awards ceremony and were about to settle in for the night....
"We have a problem..." said by this middle aged Austrian guy who approached us as we are fitting out the tent for the night. He tells us there is a problem in a lot of German with a few English words thrown in for clarification. We were immediately skeptical of an impending scam or hassle, but he turned out to be very nice and genuine and basically told us that there will be an all night "disco" after the tournament which will last until about 6am, and that we really didn't want to stay at the campground about 100 yards away. We agreed and so he pulled up his van, we threw our bags in, followed with the bikes, and he escorted us down to the Sportsplatz, which was a minor league soccer stadium for the town's team. We could still hear the disco from there, but it was much more muted than before. We thanked him profusely for his help and we set up the tent again, this time under the canopy of a small soccer stadium! The music did indeed go all night and the interesting part is that 90% of the songs that they played, Bruce has on his ipod......
The World is Ours!
Saturday July 20 - Day 24 - 43miles - Total 918miles
We luxuriated at the Hilton this morning and slept late which is always nice. We had our breakfast out on the terrace beside the Danube river again which was fabulous. We took our time getting packed up and caught up on some of the blog posting from prior days.
The package we were expecting in Vienna did not arrive by check out time which was very disappointing. It was a replacement bike part from Thorn Bicycles and it had 15 days to get to Vienna from the UK, but did not make it.....poor show. It is not an essential part but rather a USB charger powered by the front hub dynamo, which will be more necessary now we are heading into Eastern Europe. The Hilton are going to forward it onto Salem, MA when it eventually does arrive.
We left the hotel around 1pm and headed east along the Danube. We crossed the Danube on a bridge that had a suspended bike path underneath - it also had the cool corkscrews to get on and off the bike path - very fun! The bike path took us along another island in the Danube for a couple of miles before crossing us over to the North bank of the river.
As we were cycling along the north bank, we started to catch glimpses of what was clearly the nudist colony for the locals.......and as we noted to each other, it is never the ones you want to see naked. There were lots of elderly people and not so attractive people lying out in the sun catching a tan where you really shouldn't have one...... (thus the title of this blog...)
Then the bike path went through the middle of an oil refinery... and after about two miles of serious hydrocarbon smells, the chain link fence delineated the end of the oil refinery and the start of a National Park.....so within three miles of riverbank we went from nudist area to oil refinery to National Park......such a sensory difference it was incredible!
The National Park lasted about 15miles and the path was pretty isolated. The path was very straight and on a flood control levee (which had some action recently!). The surface of the path degraded a bit in the National Park. Initially it was excellent leaving town and with a tailwind we were hitting about 18mph on the flats - then it went to a cinders surface and then to older asphalt which badly needly replacing. This slowed us down some.
The weather has been wonderful again and we have been very lucky for nearly the entire trip. Today was about 30C, or high 80s F, with brilliant sunshine. Needless to say, Bruce has been wearing long pants and sleeves for the trip so his Scottish paleness doesn't get too burnt! (No nudist beach for Brucie!)
We finally reached the Danube bridge near Hainburg, Austria at about 3pm and we had a late lunch in the shade of the bridge. We met some local cyclists from Vienna and "chatted" with them a bit. One of them got a pinch flat when he moved his bike, so we helped them out with patching his tube.
The cool thing about this bridge is that it is the same bridge that we crossed in the Big Blue Bus almost exactly two years ago on our way to Mongolia! This will be one of only two points where we intersect that route. The other will be near Budapest - but we were on the motorway in the BBB, whereas we definitely won't be on the motorway on our bikes!
After the bridge, we turned off the Donau Radweg and onto Bruce's Radweg. We headed away from Hainburg and towards Bad Deutsch Altenburg and our first hill of the day! Once we were in the flat agricultural land again we watched in awe, the lessons of a glider school. We watched an airplane with a glider attached by a wire fly through the air until they released the tether and the glider flew on its own. This area must be pretty windy, since we were surrounded by wind turbines... and they were all facing us... which means we had a tailwind again! Yay! We cycled through Pama and towards the Hungarian border (which is now an open border) but we stopped for the night in Deutsch Jahrndorf, which is the last village in Austria. It is very near the tri-border point of Slovakia, Austria and Hungary and must have been a seriously militarized place during the Cold War. We tried to get a room at a Guest House for a last night in the "West" before heading into the "East", however there was a wedding and a beach volleyball tournament going on in this small town at the same time and thus all the rooms were taken at the two places we tried. We were told there was a small municipal campground in town though and we headed there. We set everything up and then we went down to watch the beach volleyball tournament since it was about 100 yards away! They had a small refreshments tent set up but this meant cold beer so we had a couple of those and also a hot dog, Austrian style....which basically just means that the bun was huge and crusty.
There weren't many spectators outside of the teams and their groupies so we were a little out of place, but we are used to that on this trip so it didn't phase us too much. We went back to the campground after the awards ceremony and were about to settle in for the night....
"We have a problem..." said by this middle aged Austrian guy who approached us as we are fitting out the tent for the night. He tells us there is a problem in a lot of German with a few English words thrown in for clarification. We were immediately skeptical of an impending scam or hassle, but he turned out to be very nice and genuine and basically told us that there will be an all night "disco" after the tournament which will last until about 6am, and that we really didn't want to stay at the campground about 100 yards away. We agreed and so he pulled up his van, we threw our bags in, followed with the bikes, and he escorted us down to the Sportsplatz, which was a minor league soccer stadium for the town's team. We could still hear the disco from there, but it was much more muted than before. We thanked him profusely for his help and we set up the tent again, this time under the canopy of a small soccer stadium! The music did indeed go all night and the interesting part is that 90% of the songs that they played, Bruce has on his ipod......
The World is Ours!
We've been here before... but in the Big Blue Bus!
Getting ready for bed before "We have a Problem" arrived.
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