Danube Cycling (Passau to Bad Kreuzen) |
Getting There |
|
|
||
The town hall tower and clock |
View down towards the Jesuit monastery |
The Veste Oberhaus - 13th century fortress of the prince-bishops |
|
||
Streetscape in Old Passau |
Ceiling of St Stephan's Cathedral |
Confluence of the green Danube and the muddy Inn Rivers |
|
|
View across the Inn River to the cathedral |
Passau sunset |
|
Day 1 - Passau to Niederanna (35 km) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
The "Kristallschiff" arriving at Kasten |
The river near Kasten |
|
|
||
The architecture of Obernzell |
The rock of Isa - home of the legendary Danube nixie |
|
Soon after Jochenstein, we again left Germany and entered Austria without realising it (the beauty of the Schengen state borders), this time for good. Passing Engelhartszell and its Trappist monastery on the opposite bank, we picked up the old towpath where horses towed the barges upstream in days gone by, to reach Kramesau and a lovely little farmhouse-restaurant for a bite of lunch. |
|
|
Day 2 - Niederranna to Linz (65 km) |
|
||
View from Niederranna - the Danube cuts through the Bohemian Highlands |
In the forest between hillslope and river |
|
|
Marsbach Castle high above the river flats |
View from the bike ferry to Schlögen |
|
|
A peaceful part of the river at Schlögen |
Panorama of the Schlögener Schlinge (the big loop in the river) |
|
|
|
Coffee stop at Kobling |
A barge passing the 17th century customs post at Obermühl |
Back on the track |
|
A "floating hotel" cruising up the Danube |
Looking towards Neuhaus Castle on hiitop eyrie |
Closeup of Neuhaus Castle (first built in 1262) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The wheat fields of Feldkirchen |
Mühldorf Castle |
|
|
||
A peaceful country road near Hagenau |
Market day in Ottensheim |
|
|
||
The old cathedral in the Hauptplatz (Main Square) |
The buildings of the Landstrasse, main street of Linz |
|
Day 3 - Linz to Grein (65 km) |
|
|
|
||
On the levee bank east of Linz |
Black and orange gravel heaps ready for transport by barge |
A natural channel of the Danube near Abwinden |
My mind began to wander to purge these images - as we sped along with the fair Nello on my rear wheel, now passing people who had overtaken us earlier, I was the domestique in the Tour de France bringing my leader rapidly back up to the peloton. It was the first time the tour had been along the Danube and I was determined to get her there for the final sprint. Head down and teeth gritted, we rolled along this long levee bank and, one by one, moved up towards the lead, when ooops! we missed the turn to St Georgen. The reverie was over and we did a U-turn - we were back on the Danube cycling tour and heading inland towards the villages of St Georgen and Gusen, where we stopped for coffee and cake at a pathside guesthouse. Gusen and the neighbouring village of Mauthausen share a dark history - during WWII, they were the sites of two concentration camps where over 160,000 people were killed. Once a peaceful rural setting, today a bit like everyday suburbia, in between a death camp - we really can't afford to be complacent. |
|
|
|
|
||
the massive concrete levee around Labing |
Heading out across the floodplains of the Machland |
Thick deposits of silt from the June floods line the track |
|
|
View over Grein from the Greinburg Palace |
An idyllic river scene near Grein |
|
|
|