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Austria! Finally!
Today was a tough, tough day, riding wise. The roads were nearly completely paved, which was good, but the bad news was that it rained even harder than the day before. I set out a completely do-able goal, of a town named "Engelhartzell".
First the good stuff: I got to take two ferries across the river which was very fun. Each time I was the only passenger, and each time it only cost 1.50 EUR to get across, which was probably a tiny fraction of the cost to keep a ferry boat idling in the Danube for moron bike tourists who like to ride in rainstorms. Here's an action shot of the Expedition cruising across the Danube at the Neideralteich Abbey crossing:
And here's a shot of the rain-soaked ferry captain on the Sandbach ferry. She was officially one of the nicest women I've ever met. She told me in her not-so-great English "An old man from Munich told me that I am happy when it rains because when it does not rain I am sometimes not so happy". I think the meaning got garbled a bit in the translation, so I just took it to mean "Buck up, trooper, and quit yer bitching".
The riding was actually spectacular, with well-paved roads most of the way and great scenery. However, it was also raining buckets and was around 50 degrees again. Harder rain than the previous day, and that's saying a lot. Here's me:
I got into Passau, a town that the locals call "The Venice of the North" because it has so many canals and is so beautiful. I think it's because the entire town was underwater when I was there.
From what I could tell, Passau was an extremely beautiful city. It's at the confluence of three major rivers: the Danube, the Inn and the Ilz. There's huge and well-marked bike paths along each of them, just like the one I'm doing on the Danube. I made a mental note that there's lots more to explore in the region, and blew through town.
Once past Passau and into Austria, the landscape changed dramatically. Through the last 4 days in Germany, the Danube was part of huge farm valleys, with the river providing irrigation as far as you could see. Here in Austria, all of a sudden, the valley narrows and become much more similar to the first part of the ride, where it is carving out a path among steep cliffs on either side:
Even though I was soaked to the bone, even though I was chilled and tired, this part of the day was spectacular. These pictures and my thoughts don't do it justice...
Once settled and warm, the Expedition's Planning Committee had a Emergency Session and it was decided to improve our weather forecasting capabilities. So I checked the The Weather Channel's home page and saw that the next day of good weather was on Friday. I'm taking another day of rest here in this town of Engelhartzell, drying out all of my riding clothes and looking forward to seeing the sun again soon. My room has a great view of the swollen and muddy Danube, and I can see huge river boats fill up with German biddies and make their way towards the nearby historical and geological sites:
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