Friday, June 28, 2013

Fourth Day of Cycling - Mitterarndorf to Tulln

The tour package included tickets for a boat ride from Spitz to Krems. We decided to skip the boat ride and cycle this section instead. We were really glad that we did. This section was by far the highlight of the trip. The Wachau valley is vineyards, wineries and one incredibly quaint village after another.

We started our day by taking a ferry across the Danube to Spitz.



Spitz has its own castle ruin up the hill.



The trail took us through twisty narrow cobble streets and across vineyards.














The castle ruin at Durnstein is famous as the place where King Richard the Lionhearted was captured and held for ransom while he was returning from the crusades in 1192.




Durnstein is considered to be one of the most quaint villages of the Wachau.





There are countless stores selling local wine from various local vintners. Here at one store Cathy found a cat on top of a barrel who apparently had too many wine samples and was sleeping it off.






People keep their properties so nice. There are window boxes filled with flowers everywhere.



We stopped for lunch at pub right on the trail in a village just beyond Durnstein. There was almost a continuous stream of cyclists passing by as we ate. This time for a change I had a schnitzel.



After lunch, we had a look at the map and we realized that the day was half over and we had a lot of riding left. We continued on to Krems, the city we had visited yesterday. We got lost trying to find our way out of Krems and had to retrace our path. Finally we got through Krems and got to a nice open section where we could make up some time. The traffic, noise and industrial parks we experienced going through Krems was such a contrast to the idyllic villages of our morning.

We crossed the river at a power dam to get to the south side where Tulln is located.




Here Cathy had our only real mishap of the trip. She caught her handle bar on the gate exiting the dam and crashed her bike. Fortunately, she escaped with a skinned knee.

We still had another 20 kms to get to our hotel. Off we went again.

The ride on the south shore to Tulln was a little tricky and we had to be careful not to get lost.

We rode through Tulln's waterfront on our way to our hotel. It seems nice and a bit newer than the other places we've visited.

It was a 65km day with some real highlights and some real challenges. We were glad to see our hotel.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

No comments:

Post a Comment