Arriving in Passau.
So we have arrived in Passau. The first part of our cycle journey completed, 300km in 4 days. We followed the winding path of the Donau from Pillhausen south past Regensburg (IM town) to Donaustauf and then onto to Mariaposching. From there through the farm land to Passau.
It rained again on and off on Saturday as we set of from Pillhausen late around 2pm. We tried to leave as late as possible to avoid the rain for as long as possible. The Radweg (bike path) through this part of the country was quite spectacular. We both agree that this part would have been the better part of the journey had we not had to keep our heads down to avoid getting rain in our eyes. The canal winds its way through the mountains in this region and then eventually out onto flatter farming land towards Regensburg. We stopped in Regensburg for a short time to look around. Couldn’t find a map of the city anywhere but eventually made our way into the centre of the Altstadt (old city) and saw the old church and the town square. The place was quite busy and lots of people were out and about enjoying the festival which was taking place this weekend. On Sunday there is a bicycle tour and also a classic car rally. The cars were being shown in the main part of town. My favourite was the combi van.
We wanted to see if we could try and organise some accom for Sunday evening, so we broke one of our cardinal rules and went to Mcdonalds. In Europe you usually have to purchase something and use the code on the receipt to access the WiFi. But not here! No code, but you have to put your German handy number (mobile number) and then you have to sign up to a plan and then you receive a code by SMS and then you can access the internet. Don’t have a German mobile number, so we can’t use and the staff weren’t so helpful either. So in the end all we got out of this experience was a meal (yuk) and respite from the rain for about half an hour.
We decide to leave when the rain eased and make our way back onto the bike path and head out of town for about 10km to Donaustauf where our FeWo awaited us. A few wrong turns and a lap around the city and we were back onto the path. By this time we were soaked again due to another intense downpour.
Found our accommodation quite easily. Now let me explain what a FeWo is. FeWo stands for Ferien Wohnung. (holiday house or holiday flat). This means it is self contained. It was a brilliant place, small kitchen and living area, bedroom and bath room. Muddy, I highly recommend this place if you do IM Regensburg next year. Only $40E for the night including Fruhstuck (breakfast). Its only $30E if you don’t get breakfast. There is a small supermarket just at the bottom of the hill which is also right on the bike route for the IM.
Watched TV for the first time for quite while and even got to watch some English speaking programs as the cable TV had CNN. Learned that there was a awful tragedy at the Love Parade in Duisburg and 19 people have died and many injured, some info on the oil spill in the gulf and watched the review of the time trial from the tour.
In the morning our breakfast was brought to us at 8am (we may get away earlier today) more yummy bread rolls and hams and cheeses. After brekky walked up the hill and walked around the ruined castle that stands atop the peak that looks across the river, the flat land back towards Regensburg and further south where the fertile farming land is. The views are amazing. It was interesting walking around the grounds and wondering what the castle must have looked like 500 years ago.
We were able to get away by 11am today and the weather is perfect!!!!! No need for a jacket, sunscreen applied and we were off, only to stop about 5 mins down the road because Donaustauf is also the location of a monument known as Valhalla. It was a building built on the order of King Ludwig. Read more about it here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donaustauf). Very interesting.
We had no set agenda for today other than to enjoy the fine weather (finally!!) and get as far south as possible. The participants in the rad-marathon were all coming towards us on the bike path. There were 6 different rides one could choose from varying from about 20km up to 240km. Most people chose to do the 56km route. There was about 7000 people in the event all together. A lot of the ride today was on asphalt which made the going a little easier. We eventually came to Straubing, which is a very pretty village, with different coloured buildings. We stopped here for a little while and had lunch at a café. So many cakes to choose from and so little room to fit them in. Mmmmmmmm. We were worried about finding anywhere to eat so this café was a good find, nothing is open on Sundays, so there is only the natural scenery to enjoy.
Every little village we passed through seemed to be deserted. I’m not sure what all the people do on Sundays, but they certainly aren’t out and about doing stuff in their yards. Because today was such a nice day weather wise, we were able to see many other people also bike touring. It is good to see what gear they have and how many bags they have and so on, to reassure us they we have approximately the right amount of stuff.
We decided we should push on and go a bit harder for a while as with no accommodation for this evening we need to find a village and start looking. No sooner than this decision had been made, bang, another flat tyre. Same rear tyre as on Friday. What a bugger, at this rate with all of our stops and leisurely riding pace we won’t get anywhere. The problem was a huge hole on the actual tyre. I didn’t see this on Friday, and I am sort of unsure of how to fix this problem and get going again. After a few possibilities, we decided to use some of the cardboard we had to patch the hole temporarily and try and make it to somewhere and then deal with the problem in the morning. We had to ride slowly as I wasn’t sure how long the patch job would last due to the size of the hole. No going quickly, going carefully over bumps, trying to avoid any sharp looking rocks!!!! This is going to take forever.
The next major village was Bogen (can you believe it??) and they had a number of different accommodation options, but as it was only 3.30pm we decided to try and ride till at least 5pm and cover some more ground to make Mondays journey a bit less. About 4.30pm we saw a sign for a Gasthof which looked nice. 1.7km links (left) it said on the sign. So we followed the trail, which was rocky and dusty and hoped that we had interpreted the sign correctly and it didn’t mean 1.7km up the road and then left. We found the Gasthof and they had rooms available. Perfect!!! We were both very tired after todays ride, not sure why we didn’t cover as much ground as the previous days.
We had a great dinner, it turns out that this place is the locals hang out for this town, and we got talking to a few people when they asked about us and Michelle told them about me having done Roth Challenge last week. A few of the guys have done ultra marathons before and one of them was a bike rider. It was a very funny conversation!!!!!!
In the morning we had to get away early as we wanted to make Passau by 3pm to get a train. Our first stop was Deggendorf and find a bike shop. Due to the rain over the last few days the river is swollen and it has burst its banks and has covered the bike path in places. We had one interesting moment later in the day when we saw a guy walking back the other way telling us the path was covered with water more than waist deep. We had to take a detour on the road and this was pleasant as we passed right through a few nice villages.
We found a bike shop with the help of a friendly local who escorted us right to the door. 2 new tyres and some new tubes and few other things and we were ready to go again.
We didn’t really stop for lunch today, just ate whilst we rode. It was a nice sunny day of riding and we covered a fair bit of ground and eventually made Passau by 3pm. Found the hauptbahnhof and bought tickets to Gmunden $35E, bargain! Only a short trip about 2 hours and we have ventured into our 3rd European country, Austria. Gunter and Danni, your bikes are now also international travellers.
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