Melk, a pretty little Baroque town of 5,000 people in Austria, is famous for its Benedictine Abbey built in the early 18th century on the site of an earlier abbey dating back to 1089 and affording a stunning view of Wachau Valley and the Danube. The abbey library contains numerous mediaeval manuscripts, including 750 incunables, while the church, completely renovated thirty years ago, is splendidly baroque.
The medieval town of Regensburg at the confluence of the Regen and Danube Rivers in Bavaria, is on the Unesco World Heritage list. Its many buildings of exceptional quality include ancient Roman, Romanesque and Gothic constructions and reflect its history as a trading centre and to its influence on the region from the 9th century. Regensburg’s 11th- to 13th-century architecture – including the market, city hall and cathedral, medieval patrician houses and towers, a large number of churches and monastic ensembles and the 12th-century Old Bridge – defines the character of the town marked by tall buildings, dark and narrow lanes, and strong fortifications. You may remember our unforgettable meal in its most famous restaurant, Historische Wurstkuchl, when we were cycling along the Danube.
I’m not really sure how much sympathy I’ll get on this one – obviously the best way to avoid post-holiday depression is not to go on holidays, particularly month-long ones.
It’s amazing how quickly you get used to not working and being stress-free. No boring mundane activities either.
A typical day during our cycling holiday was to get up around 8.30, get dressed, straighten the hotel room (after we discovered the cleaners usually came during breakfast) and go to the breakfast room. We would then put what we needed for the day in our sac de liaison and go out/down to the car. Jean Michel would take the bikes off the rack (unless we drove to our starting point first) while I would get the bags and paniers ready. Then we put on sunscreen plus insect screen for me and donned our caps.
After cycling about half the day’s distance, we’d stop somewhere for lunch, then cycle the remaining distance, visiting various places along the way and picking up something for dinner towards the end of the journey. Sometimes we got back to the hotel around 5, but it was usually 7 or 8, because we wanted to make the most of the long twilight.
We then had an apéritif (except on fast days), followed by a light dinner in our room or on the balcony if we had one. After that, Jean Michel would write up the travel diary while I answered emails and wrote a blog post. We eventually got to bed around eleven or twelve, then read for a while. We usually fell asleep pretty quickly.
Now, I can’t say there is really a typical day at home because I freelance and weekends and weekdays are different as well. Jean Michel usually gets up earlier than I do to go to work so we don’t have breakfast together during the week so I wake up when I’m ready.
I prefer to work as much as I can in the mornings though because that is when I am the most efficient, but other things often get in the way. Also with the unusually hot weather we’ve been having so I would much rather stay in my air-conditioned office in the afternoon.
I came home to two very boring translations – one about a patent for an eye dropper that’s designed to use up the last drops in the bottle (I thought they purposely made droppers so you’d waste half the contents to tell you the truth) and another, much longer one, consisting of often cryptic messages in a software program for a company that sells industrial gas cylinders.
My work is not usually THAT boring but my most interesting clients all seem to be on holidays now (state-of-the-art bridges, cosmetics, contracts, etc.). Fortunately I’ve had some light relief for the last couple of days translating IT security recommendations. At least there are real sentences! But now I have to go back to the messages.
We went down to Blois for the weekend so that we could do something about the jungle that had developed during our 7-week absence. It’s amazing how quickly the vegetation takes over. Virginia creeper was completely covering the number of the house, which isn’t very useful for the guests renting Closerie Falaiseau.
Apart from spending an hour cycling to and from the mushroom wood to no avail, and a couple of hours with our friends and neighbours on Saturday, the two days were completely taken up with gardening. On the Saturday evening, our lovely young German guests invited us to a most enjoyable barbecue!
So today I’m feeling very depressed, particularly since Leonardo’s now gone to Berlin to work for a few months and I have to get back to the software messages. Looking at the photos has made me even more nostalgic. I selected some I thought were typical.
We’re staying at Gasthof Dexler in Niederranna on the Danube close to the S-bend between Linz in Austria and Passau in Germany so are able to start directly from our hotel. It turns out to be one of the highlights of our trip.
The sky is blue and it’s 22°C when we leave at 9.30 after saying goodbye to the Aussie cyclists. We come to the end of our shady cycle path at Au and take a little ferry across to Schlogen.
We cycle towards the second bend at Inzoll and take a rest stop at Gasthof Steindl and watch the river traffic.
We continue on until we are opposite Untermühl. It’s wonderfully quiet and peaceful with no cars. However, by now I’m severely bitten by mosquitos because I’ve stupidly forgotten to use spray and although the little waterfalls along the way might be cute they’re a great breeding ground.
We locate the ferry opposite Untermühl, but there is no sign of a ferryman so I go to a nearby gasthof where I am told in German with appropriate handsigns that I have to press the button on the intercom near the ferry.
Fortunately a young German couple who speak English have arrived by then and are able to interpret the message that the ferryman will be there in 10 minutes. He soon turns up on his little tractor, jumps into the ferry and takes us across while Jean Michel studies the next part of the trip.
From Untermühl, we cycle back to Obermühl crossing a couple of rivers on the way and have the most delicious wiener schnitzel and a very cold glass of riesling on a shady terrace overlooking the Danube. By the time we get there, it’s 2.45. I just love the way they serve meals all day in Germany and Austria!
With renewed courage, we continue on to Steinbruch where we are to take another ferry which is already halfway across the Danube.
An Austrian couple waiting to go in the other direction (Aschach) tells us in English to call the ferryman on the intercom so he can come back and get us. I ask the man if he would mind doing it for us as I am afraid of not being understood.
This time, the ferry is bigger and our trip back up the river takes about 20 minutes – a little mini-cruise in the middle of the Danube.
We get out at Au and cycle back to our hotel, a total of 59 kilometers and a cycling time of 3 ½ hours. My knees are feeling a little wobbly!
It’s only 4.30 so Jean Michel suggests we go up to a blick (lookout) near Schlogen and get a bird’s eye view of the loop we have just ridden. We park the car and walk through the forest for about a quart of an hour before we reach the blick. The view is absolutely stunning.
When we get back to the car the sky is threatening and we can only spend a few minutes on the terrace before the rain starts. I have the brilliant idea of taking the table and chairs into the room so we enjoy our apéritif watching the rain and reminiscing over our truly exceptional day.
Today I nearly got run over by a train when on my bike. When I heard the blast just next to me, a searing pain shot through my head and my legs turned to jelly. I immediately backtracked and got out of its way. Then I burst into tears.
Now how could this happen, you may well ask. It’s because level crossings in Germany don’t always have boom gates and when they do, they don’t necessarily extend to bike and pedestrian paths. I was a little sluggish this morning when we set out on our bikes from Riebersdorf near Straubing and had trouble keeping up with Jean Michel.
He got to the level crossing in Bogen before me and crossed the tracks, without noticing the flashing red light over to the left. When I rounded the corner of the bike path and saw him across the tracks, I didn’t even look to see if there was a train – there are a lot of disused train tracks in this part of Germany – and followed him. That was when I heard the blast.
I looked right and saw the train coming along the track VERY FAST. I have never been so frightened in my life. After a near accident that you have successfully avoided, the important thing is to remember that it didn’t happen and not imagine the consequences. We went to a pharmacy to get some aspirin to relieve my horrendous headache which gave me something practical to do.
I don’t know what the girl in the pharmacy thought was wrong, but she discreetly gave me a packet of tissues which I thought was very sweet of her. The pharmacy also had a water distributor and paper cups which is very civilised.
By then I had calmed down and could get on my bike again but it was not our most successful day. There are usually gasthofs all along the Danube, but the few we found were all closed on Monday, including the radler freundlisch one which I didn’t think was very cyclist-friendly at all! What’s more, we hardly ever saw the Danube, just fields of crops.
We hoped that Mariaposching, the village from which the ferry was to take us across the Danube might have something open, but all I saw were a couple of radler zimmer signs (rooms for cyclists) which weren’t much use. However, we got to the ferry just in time so at least we didn’t have to wait around in the boiling sun. It was the most rudimentary ferry we’ve seen so far – and the cheapest at 3 euros for us and our bikes.
Stephans-posching on the other side was much bigger but nothing was open there either so since it was 3 pm by then, we sat on a shady bench with a harvesting machine droning opposite and ate all our emergency biscuits.
An hour later, having ridden along a very busy road and over a very long bridge whose bike/pedestrian section was closed for some unknown reason, we were back in Bogen where all we could find to eat was a cheese and tomato sandwich and an ice-cream sunday. At least the ice-cream was good and the chairs had padded seats because 50 kilometers of flat paths without a proper lunch break take their toll.
Now it’s 8 pm and we’re waiting for our Rheingraf feinherb riesling 2009 bought in Straubing this morning to be cold enough to drink.
The only thing Jean Michel remembers about Regensburg when we went there about 15 years ago is eating sausages and sauerkraut in the oldest roast sausage restaurant in Germany on the banks of the Danube! He wants to go there again. I vaguely remember the restaurant episode but have no other images in my head.
On the way, we drive past the Walhalla, which we both remember, because we passed it several times on our previous trip. Built at the instigation of King Ludwig I of Bavaria between 1830 and 1847 overlooking the Danube, it is a hall of fame for distinguished people in German history.
We arrive in Regensburg late morning and park in Bismarckplatz where there is a fresh food market. We buy cherries, raspberries (himbeeren) and cheese and leave them in the car. Unfortunately no one is selling wine.
Following the Michelin Guide’s itinerary, we visit the town, as we no doubt did the first time. Neither of us remembers a single thing! What, you may wonder, is the point of travelling if you have forgotten it all fifteen years later. Yet we loved that trip and remember other parts of it, thank goodness so maybe not all is wasted …
Our visit culminates in the famous restaurant, Historische Wurstkuchl, built in the 12th century to feed the local dockers and builders. Despite the fact that it’s 1.30 pm, the outside tables are crowded so Jean Michel suggests we eat inside.
The menu is in German so with the help of my less than usefu dictionary on my l iPhone, we decide we’ll have the basic dish of six little sausages with sauerkraut and another dish which appears to include salad. The waiter, who speaks only very basic English, is rather dubious about our choice, but he checks we want everything at the same time and off he goes.
When four plates arrive, two with little sausages and two with two large sausages and a large amount of potato salad with a couple of leaves of lamb’s lettuce on top, I understand his reticence! We laugh and eat them anyway. We’ll just have vegetables and fruit for dinner.
It’s 2.30 by the time we leave to cycle along a tributary of the Danube, the Altmuhle. I doze in the car after the 25 cl glass of reisling and all that food. Between Kelheim, where it meets the Danube, and Dietfurt, the bed of the Altmuhle was straightened and incorporated into a canal connecting the Main and the Danube.
It’s a favourite with local Germans and tourists, so we aren’t the only ones on the bike path. We stop off at the pretty little village of Essing to see the wooden bridge and have a coffee at Gasthof Schneider, which is famous for its local beer.
We then push on to Riedenburg, which offers a plunging view of the Danube, after unnecessarily riding up a long hill due to poor signage again. Finding our way back is much easier.
We stop at least six times before Jean Michel takes what he considers is the definitive photo of Prunn castle we can see high up on a hill.
The path takes us past the bridge on the opposite side of the village of Essing and the six o’clock light gives a perfect reflection of the little church in the water. Once again, we marvel at how many different experiences our cycling trip along the Danube has to offer.
We nearly missed out on one of the highlights of our trip. If our home exchange in Budapest hadn’t fallen through, we would have passed over Washau altogether. It was Jean Michel’s fault, of course (he organised the itinerary and read the guide books!) but he he hadn’t realised it’s a Unesco World Heritage Site.
Melk and its famous abbey were on our list when we were in Aschach but in fact they were further than we thought – 125 K by bike – so after leaving Aschach early due to bad weather, I suggested we stop off at Melk on the way back from Budapest.
After consulting the Routard and checking the website, I phoned Weingasthof Donnauwirt at Weissenkirchen to see if they had a room for 2 nights. Bingo! As we neared our destination, we became more and more delighted. Quaint little villages, lovely scenery dotted with vineyards, panoramic views of the Danube. Exactly like the photos in our book and such a relief after the river banks around Budapest.
Our room in the gastfhof is beautifullly decorated and has a table and chairs in one corner which is much better than the last one where I had to use the laptop sitting up in bed and we had to have dinner perched on one side making sure we didn’t get the sheets dirty, but best of all, it has its own terrace.
Weissenkirchen is perfectly located. Just opposite the hotel is the ferry that takes you across the Danube. There are bike paths on either side which meant we could cycle along one bank and back along the other.
Since we arrived at the gasthof around 2 pm, we had time to book in, get changed, go across on the ferry and ride to Krems which is on the eastern tip of the Wachau.
The entrance to Krems is via the Steiner Tor, built in the late 15th century, the only one of the four town gates still standing. There are various other buildings of interest including two churches and a mediaeval quarter worth visiting.
On the way back, we visited Durnstein, one of the most popular villages in the area. By then we had completely fallen in love with the area.
Next day, we crossed on the ferry again and rode 26 kilometers west this time, to Melk. We were definitely on the right side of the river because the prettiest villages are across the other side.
At Melk, we rode up to the Baroque Benedictine abbey built in the early 18th century which overlooks the entire valley and left our bikes in a bike shelter that even had lockers to leave our paniers. The Austrians are very organised.
The entrance was expensive at 9.50 euro each and we weren’t that taken with all the religious exhibitions.
However, the library with its numerous mediaeval manuscripts, including 750 incunables (books printed before 1501) was very impressive, though not nearly as extravagant as the one in Wiblingen Abbey in Germany.
The baroque church, whose renovation was completed about thirty years ago, is absolutely dripping with gold. There was even a lady polishing up the main altar to make it even brighter. There are also some unfortunate modern paintings on the side altars.
We had a cold drink in the summer house with its beautiful frescoes and admired the view from the garden behind. The Benedictines certainly picked a wonderful spot.
The trip back along the other side of the Danube was not nearly as exciting. Most of it wound through vineyards and apricot and cherry orchards. We even bought some fruit from a sulky wayside vendor. While we were there, a man pulled up in his truck and got out, wearing ledenhosen! They were even better from the front but I couldn’t take a discreet photo.
In the evening we dined al fresco in the hotel restaurant. The meal was expensive and disappointing, except for the wine which was excellent, reinforcing our usual practice of eating in middle-of-the-range family-run restaurants that cater to the locals.
A total of 110 km, but it actually took two days. We’ve definitively adopted the train-in-one-direction system which means we can see more and not have to cycle up all those hills again on the way back. Jean Michel thought we should start with the source in Donau-Eshingen so we began day 2 by driving an hour to Tuttlingen and getting the train to Donau-Eshingen.
Although it was as sunny and hot as the day before (over 30°C in the afternoon), it was not nearly as pretty. Our first disappointment was that the source is undergoing renovation so is not open to the public. So after having lunch in Donau-Eshingen, we set out for Tuttlingen.
The cycle route doesn’t always run along the Danube and we often rode through hay fields interspersed with flowers, which did, of course, have the advantage of mostly being flat. There were lots of irrigation canals, water irises, storks and covered bridges, but I missed the wonderful surprises of the day before. We didn’t see a single rococco church.
On the way home from Tuttlingen, whose main attraction is its modern covered bridges, Jean Michel suggested we go to the lookout at Knopfmacherfelsen which is about 750 metres above the Danube.
The view is absolutely breathtaking with the monastery in Beuron in the distance. We then drove down to Beuron to see the monastery up close. Access was through a covered bridge. It was a truly wonderful way to finish off the day.
Fortunately, day 3 was not as hot (only 23° at 9 am), because was lucky because it was VERY hilly (and also an intermittent fast day). We drove to nearby Riedlingen and parked at the train station since we intended taking the train back from Ehingen. It’s a pretty little town, with lots of colourful half-timbered houses and painted façades.
Before cycling along the Danube, we looped back to Altheim which our Gasthof owner had told us about. We found another beautiful rococco church with a painted balcony featuring bas-relief musical instruments. There was also a stunning vase of peonies which are very prevalent here and grow taller than they do in the Loire Valley.
Back on the Danube we crossed a couple more wooden bridges and stopped for coffee in Riedlingen. We then passed several fields full of storks which obviously explains why there are so many shop signs and sculptures of storks in the villages.
Our next stop was the Monastery Cathedral of Obermarchtel with more wonderful rococco and a balcony, but not as rich as Zwiefalter. As we came out, it was starting to spit which was a bit annoying as I had taken the rain capes out of the paniers. Fortunately, there were a few rumbles of thunder and nothing more.
More hills and dales before we stopped at Munderkingen for a surprisingly good coffee. The sky was not looking very encouraging and we feared the worse. By the time we got to Rottenacker, about 7 or 8 K from our destination of Ehingen, fat drops were started to fall. We got a bit wet, but not soaked, and just made the train station in time.
When we got back to Andelfingen, where we’re not staying at Gasthof Sonne (that’s the next one!) but at Gasthof Swanen, Frau Smidt told us they had had golf-ball size hailstones! That was a lucky miss. Tomorrow I’m putting the rain capes back in the paniers.
And just for the record, despite our fast day (500 calories for me, 600 for Jean Michel), we cycled 61 kilometers including lots of hills. Tomorrow, we can have ice-cream and riesling again.
There’s thunder and lightning and pouring rain when we leave Paris at 9 am but after 3 hours driving east, the weather improves immensely and by the time we reach Germany, it’s an incredible 31°C and the sky is an intense blue. Now, that’s what I call holiday weather!
We come round a bend and see a shining white bulb that turns out to be the cathdral of Zwiefalten completed in 1750. We have a cold drink at the bar opposite and visit the beautiful baroque interior just before it closes at 6 pm. It reminds us of the first time we saw a rococco interior in Germany. It was the Pilgrimage Church of Wies at the foothill of the Alps and we walked for hours up a hill. It was very plain from the outside, but the inside was extraordinary.
The village itself is very pretty and peaceful, especially with its little stream.
After checking into Gasthof Sonne (sonne means sun) in Andelfingen, we change into cycling clothes and head for the Danube by car. We picnic before setting off on our bikes. We’re delighted to be in holiday mode so soon.
We pass several villages with their clean white houses and church spires along the path.
We’re amazed at the number of crosses along the way as well, often next to picnic tables.
Fifteen kilometers later, we arrive at Mengen, a quaint little town with a tall spire, many colourful half-timbered houses, one of which was built in 1596.
They have a number of very large storks on the buildings which intrigues us. Many of the shop windows also have dummies dressed as soldiers in traditional garb, including a a surprising Beefeater but I stupidly forget to take a photo.
By the time we start on our way back, the light is waning and we reach the car just before it gets dark. As soon as we open the door to Gastof Sonne, we are greeted by welcome coolness. One thing I did not worry about when booking our accommodation was air conditioning and I was afraid we were in for a sleepless night! We need to be fit for tomorrow’s 40 K!
