European Cycle Tour 2005

As we said, we had to leave Germany but had a fabulous first day in Austria. It was a Public Holiday so there were people on bikes everywhere, which added to the atmosphere! A little judicious tooting on our horn (yes - the Wellington Waterfront Xmas present) didn't go amiss when our freight train was rolling through . . . . We had a 100km day into Linz on nice flat, easy terrain, including a meander in the Danube and a wee trip on a wee ferry to get across the river.

Day 14 took us into Grein, a lovely little town on the edge of the Danube. The town centre is pictured below, as is the town from the other side of the river. We had a very nice campground to stay at here. You'll notice the lovely blue sky - we have been having temps of late 20-early 30 all week.

The third photo is a Baroque church St Donatus which was too high on the hill for us to climb up to on a searing hot day!!!

On our 15th day we rode 120km to Zwentendorf through some lovely forest along the Danube and we saw this amazing Monastery in the town of Melk. We didn't have time to stop but we could see it for quite some time. We camped in a tiny wee camp ground that promised to be peaceful (Sat night) until the locals arrived for an old time dance at the restaurant centre next door . . . . But we did meet a nice chap who gave us a great tip for our time in Wien, as you will discover on the next segment. Needless to say, we are having a fabulous time. We are in good health and enjoying great riding.

Sunday 29 Mai saw us arriving into Wien (Vienna) and brought up our 1000km. We found a great campground just out of Vienna and went straight in to the Schönbrunn Palace grounds to get this first picture of some of Vienna from on high.

The second photo is of the Gloriette viewing terrace which is where we took the first photo from.

The tip we got from the man on Day 15 was to get "standing room only" tickets for the Opera and so we did!!! We got tickets for approx NZ$7 to see the L'Elisir D'Amore by Donizetti last night. The whole experience was fantastic - the third photo is outside the Opera House at intermission.

Today we've been to the amazing Lipizzaner Museum and Spanish Riding School (not allowed to take photos sorry) and below is a photo of one of the pedestrian malls and also the ferris wheel that gives a great view of the city. What a wonderful city!!!

Hey! here are some more photos which we missed the other day.

The first is our bike on the wee ferry that took us across the river.
The second is a sample of the numbers of cyclists that were out on the Danube on the Public Holiday. This is only a small sample!!
The third is unique - this is a new type of male sport . . . . .
The last is a Radstationen - this is on the cycle trail exclusively for cyclists. Has refreshments and toiletten and tinking wasser, along with lots of info.

How do you like our dedicated cycle bridge as we cycled our last day in Austria??? This was a real treat. . . . The next photo is Carl knocking on the town gate in Hainburg - this is one of the oldest and most well preserved fortifications in the whole of Europe.
Actually when we got to Hainburg we also got to see some TV and the program was an info slot on NZ - we saw the main street of Johnsonville amongst other places!!! They were showing the 24hr Woolworths and the price of petrol!!

Well this was an interesting day as we left Austria, spent about 3 hours in Slovakia and finished in Hungary!! We had a nice visit in the city of Bratislava (below first, and town square second) - we missed Elton John by one day.
Sandy was keen to see a horse and cart and this happened in a place called Arcs. Also outside of Arcs we experienced the worst surface to date - lots of ruts and bogs for about 2km and overhanging branches - this is in picture 4.
The type of traffic has changed in Hungary and the sign below speaks for itself!! We see a lot of skodas, ladas and trabbants now . . .
The next few pictures are of Esztergom which is the Golden Bend of the Duna, in the past a strategically important place. The first picture is us above the Duna at the Basilica, which is pictured outside and in.
The last shot is Carl relaxing in the thermal baths at Visegrad - this was a lovely interlude.

I made Carl model his orange and black ensemble as we waited for the ferry (background) to take us over to an island for a 15km ride.
We are now in Budapest and it rocks!!! We are having so much fun here. On the Pest side is Parliament which was built in the 1900s, and the 3rd shot is the Buda side of the Duna.
Carl is enjoying the view of the Duna from the Citadel on the Buda side, then we enjoyed the Grand Market (inside and out)
These are just a few of the cool things we have seen here.

We've headed South from Budapest to Lake Balaton, which is apparently the largest lake in Europe. Anyway, we arrived at the North end of Balaton Wednesday afternoon, and soon after setting up camp the rain started (first we've had) and it rained solidly for two days, yesterday we rode in the rain all day - 1o7km to get us to Hévis which is the home of the largest Thermal lake in Europe! So with all the rain we did not see Balaton in it's full glory.
Today we spent the morning swimming (it has stopped raining) in the amazing milky blue-green water of Lake Gyógytó, which bubbles out of the ground at the rate of 80 million litres a day (will post some photos in a few days). The water is slightly radio active and supposed to cure stuff. It was not really hot, about 28C, and 33C in the centre. Anyway we are revitalised for the journey ahead!

Well we have moved on to a new country! On Sunday we left Hévís behind and headed south to Lenti, which is near the south western border with Slovenia. Yesterday morning we crossed the border into Slovenia and headed for Ptuj. This is a lovely town on the River Drava. We are back to riding on roads again (rather than cycles paths) which is faster, but always has more risks!
Slovenia feels very different to Hungary, it is a bit more affluent which is evidenced in the look of the houses, car and towns. The country side is very green and rolling - we are getting some hill workouts now on the bike.
We are staying in a camp ground attached to the Ptuj Termal Spa. So we have been soothing our weary bodies with hot pools and saunas. Have got lots of cool photos which we will put up when we get to Ljubljana (in a few days time).

Here we are with a view of Ptuj (pronounced Pitew)
The second view is of a church that we cycled up to but we can't remember the name of it at the present time - it was noted on the map as a church of signifance too!!
The third photo is us trying to capture the lovely countryside that we cycled through but it is hard to do the country justice with a photo . . . .
The last one is of Sandy coming out with our typical daily lunch - baguette, ham, cheese etc, drink and maybe some other treat . . . . . .

The trek through Slovenija continues! It is a lovely green country and quite hilly. Yesterday we set off from Ptuj to Läsko, which is the source of Läsko beer. We climbed a number of reasonable hills to get there - the toughest a 14% incline, and we got to descend a 16%. We eventually arrived at Celje and found a lovely quiet road following the river valley to Läsko, but unfortunately the track ran out after a few km, while we gazed around looking for our next move a guy appeared on a mountain bike going our way, he didn't speak a word of English, but we communicated to the point that he indicated that we should follow him - well we all pushed our bikes up this really really steep hill, that wound itś way up the side of the valley, so after much puffing we made it to Läsko just before a thunder storm arrived. Today was a similarly beautiful ride now following the Sava river to Ljubljana, although we started our day with a respectable climb to get us warmed up. We arrived at our camp and got set up again just before a massive thunder storm with awesome lightning - sounds great in a tent!

The first photo is a view of L from the castle up on the highest hill;
Second is of the Triple Bridge in the town square along with the tourist train that does a loop of the streets and up to the castle (yes we did ride this because Sandy was very keen!!!)
Third is the equivalent of our $2 shop in NZ.

On Friday, we jumped on a bus from Ljubljana for Bled, which is a beautiful lake and castle in the Julian Alps. We climbed up to the castle which is pictured in the first photo (this is taken from our gondola);
and then we took the second photo of the church and island from the castle - this is what we visited via gondola;
at the church on the island you can ring the bell and supposedly you get what you wish for, so see you in October 2006
the next photo is taken outside the church looking back toward the castle and township
the gondolas look like little junks returning from a day of trade . . . .
Carl ate both of those Kremna Rezina "Park" cakes on his own . . . (yeah right)

We had a short day of riding to savour our last day in Slovenia. Again we enjoyed beautiful scenery and forest riding and a blue sky sunny day. Our campground was set in the bush and we found ourselves a nice terraced spot - not much grass but it was a great spot! In the afternoon we visited some great caves. They are 200,000 years old and we went about 5km through them on a train that made us feel like we were in Disneyland! We did get to do some walking though - the temp is a constant 8° or so in there so it was good to be forewarned to take something warm.

This first photo is a good example of some of the bike routes we get in the cities - this was Ljubljana as we headed out of town. You can see we also get our own little bike light alongside the pedestrian light.

The second is of Predjama Castle - built in a cliff and has stood since 1201.

The third photo was a great treat - we had left the castle and were thinking it was about time we found some morning tea. We were in the middle of nowhere significant, but as we cycled into this tiny wee village we spied the bakery truck in a driveway, so there was our morning tea!!! It also gave the locals a wee giggle.

We are very excited to be in Italy!!! We have hit the 2000km mark now and when we got into Trieste we found our campground was set high above the city so we could look down on the city morning and night (see first photo) We spoke to some locals (our travellers Italian class is working) at the campground who actually have homes in the city but in the hottest part of summer they come up to campgrounds in the hills to sleep because the temp difference can be between 5-12° cooler up there.

This next shot is for Bella - Trieste is a real scooter city!! (Italy is a scooter country from what we have seen) People were scootering around in business suits and casual gear, whatever. This is just an example of a small parking lot of scooters - there were many, many more. It was great to see them all lined up at traffic lights . . .

We left Trieste after a day and headed to lovely Aquileia - one of the four main Roman cities. Our campground had this nice pool for some reason Carl wasn't required to wear a bathing cap. In the background you can see the tower from the Roman church in the town. The third photo was next to our campground - these are the remains of what was once the Roman port.

The last photo is Carl's first cappucino in Italy - we have been missing our Caffe L'Affare coffees.