It seems vaseline is the answer! Yesterday Elly and I cycled from Glasgow to Edinburgh – 57 miles. I’ll write more about it later. There’s a few snippets for now, however:

• I’ve replaced the lights stolen by some git in Worcester: Lev Davidovitch now has
  • on the front
    • skullies on the left and right handlebar-drops
    • skully on the head tube
    • frog on the head tube
    • micro-LED light on the handlebar
  • on the rear of the pannier rack, from right to left
    • knog
    • skully
    • knog
  • on the rear of my helmet
    • micro-LED light

    (I’ve shown the colours of the lights’ plastics, not the colours they give out.) So if anyone hits me, I’ll know it was deliberate!

• Photos from cycling in Austria are here.
• I’ve signed up for the Tour de Forth: a fairly leisurely 70 miles. I hope to do it in 6 hours. I know Lev has the cruising speed to achieve this. He certainly wanted to run at 14 to 16 mph on Scottish cycle-paths (now there’s a joke I’ll blog about later) yesterday. Whether I have the stamina, leg-strength and vaseline supplies is another question…

Now we’re back from Austria and into normal lives, we’re both missing distance-cycling. (I commute to Napier most days: 2 miles of traffic fumes, potholes and 15 sets of traffic lights. Elly has been working at her High Street office, to which she walks. [She usually cycles the 4 miles to her office in Saughton.])

So to re-bond with our own bikes, we decided to try the National Cycle Network route 75 from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Elly prefers to ‘maroon’ herself somewhere so she’s ‘forced’ to cycle, while I was looking forward to not slogging uphill through Uphall. Here’s the usual map and here’s the nightmare as it happened:

• The first joke was getting to Haymarket Station – the tram works simply shouldn’t be taking so long.
• There are plenty of trains from Edinburgh to Glasgow and vice versa. Most of these have 4 bike-spaces (some have 6) so during the day, apart from rush-hour, getting your bike on a train shouldn’t be much of an issue. Our only problem here was getting our bikes and someone’s fold-up wheelchair together in the same space.
• At Glasgow Queen Street, the route emerges on George Square: it’s a bit intimidating for people who don’t like urban cycling and/or don’t know exactly where they’re going so they can get the lane-manouvres right. It’s even less fun trying to co-ordinate over the traffic-noise. I’m looking into iPhone solutions – what I need is something that connects our phones via Bluetooth. (I already have a bluetooth headset that works well for normal phone calls when cycling.) Anyway, we wobbled our way to the Clyde near the Clutha bar and started east.
• Quite how anyone thinks roughened, poorly set paving slabs constitutes a cycle-path is beyond me. We don’t all have mountain-bikes with suspension up the wazoo. I know I’m not alone in thinking this – see here.
• The next obstacle was a blockage where Dodge City’s dirty denizens were having their annual day in the sunlight or some such nonsense. We were advised to cycle on the pavements around this: the hi-viz-draped warders didn’t appear to have been properly briefed about cyclists. If you zoom in on the People’s Palace on the map, you can see the results of this lack of information.
• Anyway, having regained the Clyde-side path, we had the usual problem several times: the path splits with no visible NCN sign to indicate which fork to take. The surface is occasionally muddy and slippery, with bouts of bend-induced poor visibility so we didn’t dare get up any speed.
• At Cambuslang, there is a bridge over the Clyde tributary. We then had to take an immediate (and poorly sign-posted) left turn to avoid going into Cambuslang town centre and getting horribly lost (bitter previous experience!)
• About a mile later, the route turned south away from the Clyde, taking us for a couple of nervous miles along a rural rat-run. Not fun.
• The path then took us through Uddingston. Unless you’ve been lost there before and so have eventually found that the signs have been missed out, removed or altered, you will not find the route under the underpass to the school.
• Thereafter the route crossed busy roads in a staggered way. Right turns agains traffic are not fun unless you’re fond of kamikaze manoeuvres. (I am, but not when I’m trying to co-ordinate with another cyclist.)
• The route then droped along another footpath to the ‘Showcase Cinema – Glasgow East’, near Bargeddie. At this point we realised we taken nearly 2 hours to do 15 miles of cycling but were only 8 miles from our starting point.
• Then there were several miles along the Monklands canal – Elly’s least favourite type of cycle-route. The path was slippery and muddy, so I didn’t enjoy it either.
• At the end of this, you’re dumped into the Centre of Coatbridge. Thanks to yet more poor signage, we found ourselves north of the A89 outside an Asda. (This did at least provide a toilet-opportunity.)
• Once we’d found what we thought to be the correct route, we were taken up onto what appears to be a former railway viaduct. The surface was good and the conditions were fair: what was completely staggering was a gate across the path with an official-looking notice stating that the path was closed – with no indication of what to do. You can see our sudden stop and about-turn at the 20-mile marker.
• We then abandoned the NCN75. I used my handlebar-mounted iPhone to navigate us onto the A89, the direct road from Glasgow to Edinburgh. We made quite good speeds along this, but stupidly gave into the temptation of a sign back onto the NCN75 east of the town centre. Of course, there were no further signs – we found ourselves hauling our bikes up steps in an attempt to regain the route according to the NCN iPhone app.
• We stopped for lunch at Katherine Park, east of Airdrie. By now, we’d been travelling for 4 hours and had cycled 24 miles to get 14 miles from our starting point. We were advised by a passing local cyclist to get on and stay on the A89 for several miles – east of Plains we’d find the decent cycle-route to Edinburgh.
• True enough, we did. The route does gratuitously cross and re-cross the Bathgate to Airdrie train-line several times, and does meander (with the occasional missing sign) through Caldercruix village. However, it’s mostly pretty, with good surface and pleasant views of the trains the other side of a substantial fence.
• East of Blackridge (and hence in the Lothians – hooray!), the path took us through unexplained meanders through what felt like Vietnamese jungle. Having loaded-myself up with Viennese coffee and having been very concerned for my fellow-cyclist’s safety for the last  5 hours, I was beginning to half-expect the VC to leap out.)
• Eventually, the route threw us out in the centre of Bathgate. We decided to abandon path-hunting and the prospect of getting seriously lost in Livingston estates for the relative safety of the A89. Fortunately, the road was relatively traffic-free: the stretch from Boghall (east of Bathgate) is another HGV-laden rat-run.
• Just east of the big Tesco complex, we turned onto the A899 and coasted downhill through Dechmont, Uphill and Broxburn and were favoured with the welcome sight of the railway viaduct that marks the western border of Edinburgh.
• At Ratho Station, the official route is across a bridge with steps to the south side of the A8. Hauling bikes up and down that appealed much less than simply cycling on the road. It’s a dual carriage-way so cars should pull over to the middle lane to overtake. Glory be – most did!
• At the junction of Maybury Road and the A8, we met a spanish cyclist who was trying to find a station to take him back to Glasgow. We made up a wee convoy to trundle towards Haymarket Station. The last obstacle was the extra barriers put-up to control the Madonna-fans heading too and from Murrayfield.

Oh, and along the way, I attached something to Elly’s bike.

So that’s it: 57·3 miles and 7 hours in the saddle (8 hours total journey-time) at an average of 8mph, when it should have been 45 miles taking about 4 hours with no stopping except for traffic-lights. (I hope to test this in the next week or so.) As ever, I’m in awe of Elly for managing this distance on a commuting-bike.

Today was our last full day in Vienna, and our last day with Curt and Vonny (the bikes), so we decided to make the most of it by cycling as near to the full length of the Donauinsel as we could. Here’s the map.

So we started with the almost traditional trip southwest down Praterstraße and across Aspernbrücke before turning southeast and following the cycle path along the south bank of the Donaukanal. This took us through suburbs (and past a quicker route to Hundertwasserhaus and Wiener Kunsthaus) and then past the industrial zone that fills the gap between Vienna and it’s airport at Schwechat.

Just before the Donaukanal rejoins the Donau proper, there’s a bridge (confusingly called Klosterneuberger straße: Klosterneuberg is northwest of Vienna and we were well to the southeast) to a small spit and then another bridge over what looks like flood defences to the Donauinsel. We then cycled on to the southeast tip of the Donauinsel. We sat there for a while, watching the blue (really!) river flow on its way to the Black Sea. A real cyclist arrived: I think his stopwatch software said he’d done 70km in 3 hours.

We then cycled north along the Donauinsel as far as Brigittenauer Brücke, where the lure of ice creams  temporarily halted us. (There’s a little break in our path on the map because I didn’t start recording straight away.) We pushed on, against increasing headwinds out of Vienna and into Niederösterreich (Lower Austria), aiming for the Donauinsel’s northern tip. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite make it: the last 20 meters are gated off to non-authorized people. So we crossed the nearby bridge and used the now-helpful winds to cycle south along the riverbank in search of a place to paddle and/or swim.

We stopped for lunch at an Imbiss on Arbeiterstrandbadstraße (‘the street of the workers’ swimming beach), the sunbathed for a while before both of us took dips in the Danube from a small but very popular shingle beach. This is where today’s first map ends.

About 4pm, we thought it was time to go and hand back our bikes at the Donauzentrum hotel. Here’s the map of our route there. We arrived just in time: we’d not been told what time to hand the bikes back in but a van from the bike company was there, with two blokes loading bikes into it. So I removed Lev’s pedals from Curt and we said emotional farewells to him and Vonny. It’s quite true: we’d both become fond of our ‘steeds’ and I’d bonded with mine in a particularly ‘Bruce-ish’ way only today.

To try to lift the mood, we took a 26 tram (see upper-right route on this map) to Hardegg-gasse. (I like the name for very obviously puerile reasons.) yet again drinks called: this time cokes from a local Turkish Imbiss. Then it was time to take the U-bahn back to Schwedenplatz and then to Nestroyplatz to pack away cycling gear before going out for our last evening meal in this trip to Vienna.

We took the U-bahn from Nestroyplatz to Schwedenplatz and then north to Spittelau and then south along the Gürtel to Burggasse-Stadthalle so we could have Wienerschnitzeln and a different type of chocolate cake at Loving Hut. I wish I could make cake that well! To make the most of our last night here, we took a number 5 tram north to the university area then east and back south to Praterstern, before walking back along Praterstraße to 3/4 Takt for a quick drink (Schloss Eggerberger beer for me and a peach wine spritzer for Elly) and then returning to our hotel. Some of the route is shown on the top left of this map.

So that’s almost it! A last Viennese breakfast tomorrow morning, then some shopping and maybe an Eiskaffe before taking the Schnellbahn to Schwechat for a 14:35 flight to Heathrow and then a 10pm flight back to Edinburgh, changing back into long trousers, fleeces and waterproofs and letting the memories begin to fade…

We wanted to explore a new part of Vienna today, using the bikes we’ve come to enjoy. While returning from Favoriten 2 days ago, we had seen signs for the Wientalradweg (Vienna [river-]valley cycle route). So, while I pushed up ZZZs and then accidentally scared a chambermaid, Elly obtained a free Vienna cycle-route map from the cycle-shop next to the hotel.

We set out steadily enough: along Praterstraße, across Aspernbrücke and along the Ringstraße as far as the Opernring, where the first sign directed us down Babenbergerstrasse. (OK, I admit we overshot a little.) The next sign directed us along Getreidenmarkt but after this we couldn’t find any more signs. (They probably were there but we just missed them.)

We met there some okker cyclists who had cycled to Vienna from Amsterdam via other bits of Europe and were now looking for Westbahnhof. We directed them as best we could to the Gürtel and then took ourselves to Gumpendorfer Straße (how I live that name!) and hence back to the covered-over part of the Wienfluß.

From there until Margaretengürtel, the route was easy to follow but wasn’t obvious thereafter: we found ourselves circling a ‘Buggery Queen’ (my name for a certain chain of fast food  restaurants) until we realized that a river valley cycle route should follow the course of the river. So from there we followed the resurfaced Wienfluß out west through Meidling to Schönbrunn U-bahnhof.

There, Elly saw a sign for the Wienflußradweg, the cycle path right alongside the Wienfluß. So we followed this increasingly pretty path through the western suburbs. At the end of the river-path there is a funny curved bridge up to the bank. It has steps but a trough for bike wheels, which we both appreciated. We cycled on for maybe another quarter mile before the oath ended at the very edge of Vienna.

We were asked by a local chap what we were looking for. He directed us to a nearby Italian restaurant run by Turkish people. There was a TV in the corner showing a Turkish medical soap opera, full of synthetic emotion.  It’s good to know some things are constant all over the world, even if one of them is ham acting. After this, there was a seemingly interminable advert for comfortable bras. Check out this if you want to buy any.

We then retraced our path back to Ringstraße, had a drink in the Palmenhaus restaurant in the Burggarten and then went to the Burgtheatre Kino to watch ‘The third man’, a gripping movie set in post-war Vienna. While it’s an unquestionably good movie, the part that brought (and is still bringing right now) a lump to my throat was seeing the bomb destruction to this beautiful city. While I know other places got far worse, this city is a place I know and care about personally. Also, if the film is to be believed, the hotel Sacher, which I imagine to be a symbol of Viennese (culinary) pride, was forbidden to Austrians. To the victors the spoils?

Anyway, when we emerged, it was getting dark and raining quite heavily, so we splashed our bikes back to the hotel, and I’ve been blogging since then. Here’s the inevitable map.

I should say a word or two about this hotel: while there may well be others that are just as good, this hotel is in a well-connected spot just out of the central district (so isn’t stupidly priced) but is in a pleasant safe inner suburb full of life. Yet the rooms are quiet, big and well appointed with enough safe power points for our electronica and showers which can be set from gentle rain to warp-factor enema, the staff are very friendly and helpful (it’s a family-run business), there is safe parking for bikes and cars, most rooms have balconies, and joy-of-joys: the bathroom light and fan are controlled by separate switches, so you can go to the toilet at night without disturbing anyone!

To the north of Vienna is a 500-metre hill called Kahlenberg, which gives a fantastic view over the city and surrounding areas. You can go to Nußdorf and get a funny little buggy up the hill. Or you can take a regular Wiener Linien bus. But, we we still had the bikes and the weather was getting slightly cooler, we thought we should do something energetic. So we

• cycled along the west bank of the Donau almost to Klosterneuburg (i.e we overshot)
• retraced our path back to Kahlenbergerdorf
• found there was no cycle path up Kahlenberg from there
• went back to the south of Klosterneuburg and and, from there;
• found the aptly-named Hohenstrasse, which winds slowly, surely and very sweatily up to the top of Kahlenberg.

This road is mostly cobbled, presumably to avoid tarmac crumbling in winter, but the cobbles are square, flat-topped lumps of granite that gives good traction, not the rounded slippery death traps I’m used to in the UK. Also, I don’t think I saw any missing cobbles on this road.

We enjoyed the view and some very welcome Vöslauer bio-himbeerensaft (organic raspberryade), before heading back to Vienna via Grinzing, a wine-growing suburb (and former separate town) and then returning to the Donauinsel via a bridge dedicated to cyclists, pedestrians and skaters. (There is a parallel bridge for infernal combustion engines. I imagine the authorities might stretch a point and also allow steam-engines on it.)

We returned via the Donauinsel, partly to avoid traffic but mostly because we had seen people swimming in the Danube here and wanted to try it. There are a number of pontoons moored along the banks so people can sunbath and dive into the river but these were all already occupied. So we found a shady spot with reasonable access to the water, then Elly sunbathed while I tiptoed in. (For anyone concerned, I was wearing trekking sandals: lifeguard training has taught me not to trust underwater surfaces.) once I’d worked up the courage, I found the water was lovely: cool, CLEAR, and relaxing. I couldn’t swim proper strokes apart from backstroke and sidestroke due to my frozen shoulder but these were enough to take me where I felt like going.

I think I stayed in the water about an hour. I didn’t want to get my cycling gear wet so I cycled back along the Donauibsel in my trunks. (Elly was much more discreet and lady-like, as is only to be expected!) Once we’d changed, we took a tram to the 3 Bezirk to eat in a veggie/vegan Taiwanese restaurant called Vegetasia. This uses ‘meats’ made of plant protein and tofu to make very convincing oriental dishes: highly recommended! We had planned to walk back to the hotel but a sudden downpour saw us firstly sheltering in a doorway the making a dash for the nearby Landstrasse U-bahnhof and a dry but unromantic trip.

Here’s a map of yesterday’s cycling as far as Donauinsel. (Ignore the bit about going to Alsergrund: that’s spurious.) And here’s a map of our tram-journey to Vegetasia.

My mum’s potato salad recipe
​Use small salad potatoes or small Jersey Mids or Jersey Royals. The quantity does not matter & does not alter the recipe.

1. Boil the potatoes until just pierceable with a thin skewer.
2. Pour off the hot water and cool the potatoes in cold water.
3. When cool, peel the potatoes and cut them into thin slices or, if they are very small, cut into halves.
4. For the dressing
   1. use olive oil and white-wine- or tarragon-vinegar.
   2. Use just enough liquid to moisten and mix into the potatoes to coat all.
5. Add salt to taste if desired.
6. Chop 2 or 3 gherkins into very small pieces and mix into the salad.
7. If non-vegetarians or non-vegans are eating the salad, one can add very thinly sliced Kabana (a very thin Polish sausage).

That’s all.  Eat & enjoy.

n.b. As a small child, I had never eaten potato salad with mayo.

I really should have mapped today’s wanderings! We wanted to do three things:

1. Visit the Narrenturm (tower of fools)
2. Visit the Freud museum
3. See an exhibition at the Kunsthaus Wien (Viennese art house)

then eat at the other branch of ‘Loving Hut’.

I think we must have cycled twice as far as we needed to go due to clashing senses of direction, my iPhone being almost completely flat (it didn’t charge properly overnight) and my dislike of stopping for any reason, especially to look at paper maps. I’ve grown used to letting iPhone plot a car route, clicking it into its handlebar holder, then following it, even if there aren’t cycle paths. Austrian drivers seem to give way to pedestrians and cyclists much more readily than UK drivers do. However, Elly is less gung-ho and more sane/cautious than I, especially when cycling abroad.

So, after a very leisurely breakfast, we cycled (as far as I can recall and understand):

1. southwest along Praterstraße to the Donaukanal
2. northwest along Obere Donaustraße to Friedensbrucke
3. across Friedensbrucke
4. west along Alserbach Straße
5. south along Nußdorfer Straße and Währinger Straße
6. southwest along Sensengasse and south along Spitalgasse, then through some nameless alleys to Narrenturm,

only to find it’s closed on Sundays!

We then took a very roundabout route, including most of the side-streets around Votivkirche, to Berggasse. At the bottom of this street is a museum set up in the apartment and office Sigmund Freud used until he and his family fled Adolf and co. There’s a lot to learn here, and I won’t make a fool of myself by trying to describe it. See it for yourself or read his books, then read ‘The Therapy of Avram Bloke’ to see what a Jewish humorist can do with it.

Our next plan was to return to the Ringstraße and follow it around to Radetskybrucke, which would put us very near the Wiener Kunsthaus. I think we got to the Ringstraße relatively efficiently, and had very little problem following it, especially once we realized you can go in either direction along the cycle lanes on both sides. (The only real issue was a thunderstorm, on a day when the weather forcast promised none.)

However, the one-way system and some streets devoted to trams southeast of the Ringstraße had us piddling about for quite a while before we got to the Kunsthaus. Once we had arrived and drunk enough to stand (today has been the hottest day so far, over 90 degrees F), we were treated to two exhibitions, one of Friedensreich Hundertwasser‘s paintings and another of Elliott Erwitt‘s photography.

Our plan was then to return to the Ringstraße, follow it as far as Kärtner Straße, then go south along Kärtner Straße and Favoritenstraße as far as Reumannplatz, where the other Viennese branch of Loving Hut can be found. This plan was semi-thwarted by Kärtner Straße being one-way, not in the direction we wanted to go. So we went

1. back along the Ringstraße
2. south along Akademiestraße
3. through Karlsplatz
4. along Karlsgasse
5. through some other small streets

before regaining Favoritenstraße.

At Sudtyrolerplatz, Favoritenstraße becomes a pedestrian shopping area. We didn’t realize this at first and so carried on along Laxenbergerstraße before meandering through Columbusplatz back onto Favoritenstraße. Another tip for cyclists: you can cycle down the centre of this bit of Favoritenstraße but you must walk along the edges!

Anyway, we got to Loving Hut without much further ado, to find that this branch serves mostly an oriental cuisine. We shared a starter of summer rolls (rice, noodles, tofu and gluten) wrapped in cabbage leaves and served with a rich peanut sauce. Our mains were ‘Three-cup wonder‘ (soy protein, seaweed sauce, salad, rice) and ‘Veggie kebap‘ (Turkish döner kebab), followed by a shared piece of chocolate cake.  This is how I know you can make wonderful vegan chocolate cake, so there are no longer any valid excuses!

Our return was not unevenful. Iit was now dark and I dont like dynamo lights because they go out when you stop and I’d not brought my toolbag containing my battery lights so it couldn’t be stolen. (Favoriten may not be totally wonderful but this Salzburger author isn’t find of the imperial and post-imperial pomposity and insularity he perceives in Vienna.) In place of the U1 line, which is being renovated from Stephansplatz all the way south to Reumannsplatz, the city authorities have clearly signed a cycle route back to the Ringstraße. Our only ‘incident’ was a youth shouting sarcastically ‘Sicher, helm tragen!’ ([It’s] safe to wear a [bike] helmet!) but by the time I’d processed this I was too far past him to shout back ‘Ja, weil es so stark geschneit hier’ (work it out for yourself!)

The cycle-route took us back to Ringstraße. However, somehow we managed to cross It, rather than turning right onto it, quickly getting to the Donaukanal and then hopping along to Nestroyplatz. Instead, we ended up in 3 Bezirk, back near the University again. It took a while (and I forget the route, apart from passing through the Stadtpark) to get back to Asperbrücke and the familiarity of Leopoldstadt.

In the two hours I’ve taken to write this, the heavens have been blasting rain down, yet it’s still easily the hottest night we’ve had here. I think I’m going to stand on our balcony and get wet (and hence cool) so I can sleep.

So yesterday we moved from the horrible Donauzentrum to our preferred viennese hotel, hotel Capri. It’s not in Mitte (the medieval city centre), so isn’t stupidly expensive, but is just across the Donalkanal in Leopoldstadt right outside the entrance to Nestroyplatz U-bahnhof (U1 line) so you can easily go from it to anywhere in Vienna.

So Elly took our bags on the U1 from Kagran U-bahnhof (just outside Donauzentrum) straight to Nestroyplatz, while I cycled Curt. Here’s a map. As you can see, the cycle path wiggles a bit to take cyclists through the UN complex. I then took the U1 back to Kagran, collected Vonny and cycled him to Capri. I tried videoing the route but most of the time I had the phone pointed too low so all you can see is tarmac. I’ll post it anyway when I can.

We had to return to Donauzentrum because we’d left some things in the safe in our hotel room. By then both of us were hungry so we had lunch at ‘Happy Noodles’ in the Donauzentrum shopping mall.

Wienfluß wanderings

I’ve always been curious about the way the Wienfluß seems to appear from under concrete, just before it meets the Donaukanal under Radetsky bridge/Urania, so I wanted to see some more of it. Here’s some of what Wikipedia says:

The Wien has its source in the western Wienerwald near Rekawinkel and its mouth at the eastern end of the city centre of Vienna, next to the Urania, where it flows into the Donaukanal (“Danube canal”), a branch of the Danube.

Within the city limits, the river bed consists almost entirely of concrete, which was installed between 1895 and 1899 in order to stop the devastating floods, sometimes accompanied by cholera, which the river had regularly caused before that time. At the same time, the Stadtbahn (“city railway”) was built, which makes use of the concrete river bed and is only separated from the river by a wall. It is now part of the Vienna U-Bahn system.

The Wien is subject to huge variations in flow. In its headwaters in the Wienerwald, the soil is underlain by sandstone. Because of this, during heavy rain the soil quickly saturates, resulting in substantial runoff. Thus, the flow of the Wien can quickly increase from a creek-like 200 litres per second to 450,000 litres per second in the heaviest rains or during the spring snowmelt in the Wienerwald, a ratio of over 2000.

Along the course of the river, the Naschmarkt and the Theater an der Wien can be found. Much of the river is covered over in the city, particularly in front of Schönbrunn palace, in the Meidling and Naschmarkt neighbourhoods and around Karlsplatz near the city centre.

For safety reasons, cycling or walking in the concrete bed of the Wienfluss is officially prohibited. A continually controversial topic is whether to build cycle paths and footpaths next to the water. Proponents believe the water flow can be safely regulated, while opponents do not believe this is possible. In 2005, a short segment was opened to the public, near Hütteldorf railway station. It features an audible and visual alarm system to warn users to leave the path if flooding is imminent. Extensions to this path have been proposed, but continue to receive much opposition. The path is open from March to October.

So we took the U-bahn from Nestroyplatz to Schwedenplatz. Then we walked

• from Schwedenplatz to the mouth of the Wienfluß
• then along the Wienfluß through Stadtpark,

then had a drinks stop where I had a Greiskirchner dunkel bier. Then we walked on

• Along Wienerstraße into Karlsplatz
• Karlsgasse
• Paniglgasse
• Wiedner Hauptstraße
• Schleifmühlgasse
• Along the Naschmarkt (being near intoxicated by the colours and smells of spices and clothes!)
• Along the Linke (left [bank]), following the resurfaced Wienfluß and Stadtbahn
• Then along the Gürtel (outer ring road and red-light district) to Loving Hut vegan restaurant for vegan wiener schnitzel with potato salad (this time made with something like mayo but vegan) and green salad, followed by chocolate cake (E) or Eiskaffee (B). I can’t recommend this place highly enough, to vegans and non-vegans alike. You get to sit in a little courtyard under shady, pleasant trees and eat enjoyable food in a peaceful place. Elly’s reports that the chocolate cake is very good, not just among vegan stuff but comparable to good non-vegan cake. So what can you lose by trying it?

Neither of us fancied walking back so we took the U-bahn back to Nestroyplatz and sleep!

Today’s map is again in two bits, this time because cyclemeter auto-finished recording while we were stopped for lunch. Perhaps it  only allows quick toilet-stops. Anywhere, here are the bits:

• Traismauer to Korneuberg (lunch-stop)
• Korneuberg to Vienna

So we did it! 231 miles in 6 days. OK, not much distance by some standards (Alasdair M springs to mind) and definitely no Scottish-style hills and acne-textured road surfaces but lots of intense sun and a fair amount of headwind (especially today) so I think we can feel reasonably proud. I would advise anyone doing this sort of thing to take their own saddle and a good supply of vaseline (also called Vaseline‘ in German).

So what happened today?

• It was quite hard to get moving and today’s breakfast lived up to last night’s dinner: lovely bread, especially thin slices of a walnut-containing rye bread; pickled green pepper; pieces of yam in a semi-sweet yellow sauce. All good miles-fuel!
• We had decided to do as many miles as we could before stopping: our hope was to reach Greifenstein, about 30 miles into the journey before our first drinks stop. However, we were cooking by the time we reached Tulln, after only 20 miles. I think it was here that I freaked out a waitress by ordering a beer and a coffee, but it might have been at our lunch-stop. I do recall her morning-mood and her child’s cute wee dog, so small it could have been a mutant rat on a leash.
• We crossed the Danube at Greifenstein power station, so we could come into Vienna via the Donau Insel, the stopped for lunch at the first place we saw along the route in Korneuberg. This turned out to be quite a local pub, serving the nearby town and marina: smoking allowed inside, with political pub-banter between the patrons (as far as I could tell, of course) and with the toilet walls decorated with miniature Jaegermeister rum bottles. Whoever drank all those is either dead, still drunk, a hero or all three at once. The landlady accidentally knocked Elly’s drink over, giving my legs a welcome cold shower. She asked where I was from, my answer being ‘Schottland’. (It’s true that Scotland is where I came from to get to Austria: I don’t claim to be Scottish, of course!) She then asked how I spoke German so well. (I dont! I can get by with words, ZERO grammar and some gesticulation! Elly has a Higher in German), so I thanked my Viennese mother, German-speaking (but Australian) dad and a year of lessons when I was 13. She told us she too was a foreigner, having come to Austria 14 years ago from the Ukraine for love. She told us that she’d found learning to speak Czech hard, something to do with the variants on ‘ch’ sounds. I didn’t understand how Czechoslovakia/Czech republic fitted into her story: it’s been a number of years since Austria and Czech-whatever were part of the same country!
• Anyway, we pushed on through intense heat and against a severe headwind, feeling as though we had many more miles to go. However, seeing the Kahlenberg (a hill that marks the north end of Vienna, especially its wine-producing area) was reassuring. Pretty soon, we were at the Donauinsel, an island separating two parallel streams of the Danube’s modern course. It seems to be the Viennese equivalent of a mixture of Edinburgh’s Portobello and Joppa with St Andrews’ west sands, but with better cycle paths and more bridges. So we meandered along this to Reichsbruck and then fumbled our way vaguely along Wagramerstrasse to our hotel. By the way, this is in 22 district. Don’t go unless you have a fetish for 1970s concrete, shopping malls or the UN.
• We met Gillian and Victoria, two Glasgow-based women who have been on the same tour as us, although not always in the same hotels, again here. It’s their first time in Vienna, so I’m rather hoping they like it. (I feel a bit protective of my ‘home towns’!)
• After a couple of hours of down-time, we ventured into Mitte (central Vienna, to find food. We met up with V&G in Stephansplatz and then threaded ourselves back through Vienna’s underground system to Nestroyplatz and Cafe Dreivierteltact (3/4 time) for schnitzels, more veg and Kartoffel-salat and drinks. I had my second coffee of the day -and year to wash down the Wieselberger beer. (So I like the name. It also reminds me of seeing a baby weasel barking at a car this morning in Traismauer.)
• So now we’re back in the concrete box, it’s 11:30 at night, warm and still and I’m quietly pleased with our trip here. We have a few more days in Vienna: stay tuned for more Kartoffelsalat but much less vaseline!

I’m finding it hard to believe that I’ve got up, mostly uncomplainingly, at 7:30 five mornings in a row, had a hurried (albeit delightful) breakfast and then cycled 35 miles on holiday. And I’m about to do 45 miles tomorrow! However, that will take us to my favourite European city, namely Vienna. I might even be persuaded to drink coffee,

Anyway, here’s today’s map and wibblings:

• Bought lunch ingredients at a Spar near our hotel
• Bought stamps at a stationers even nearer our hotel
• Set off through Melk and then along the south bank, intending to cross to the north bank by the first bridge. However, we were firmly told by an older lady we met at the bridge to stay on this bank because it would be nicer. I’m grateful to this Radlerinhexe because our route did go through some very pretty countryside. Pictures, as ever, to be posted later!
• Didn’t do 2 extra km of crazy slopes up to the ruins of Schloss Aggstein.
• Visited a simple country church, supposedly dedicated to cyclists, in Hofarnsdorf.
• Impressed (or maybe depressed) a waitress by my ordering tea at a drinks-stop. This was a sign that I was British, apparently. We also had a conversation with a Czech couple, who I guess are in their 60s and are doing the same route as us before visiting family in Vienna
• Took several diversions due to road or farmwork. This explains the jaggedness (looking for the correct route) and breaks (where I paused recording while looking for signs but then forgot to restart recording when we got moving) in some parts of the route-map.
• Ate lunch at Rossatzbach, in a field overlooking a small beach. People were swimming in the Danube: I rather wish Id done so too.
• Crrossed the Danube on a tiny bike and passenger ferry to Dürnstein. This is apparently where Richard 1 of England was held for ransome. However it’s also where we had vouchers for free tastes of the local apricot schnapps. Well worthwhile!
• Cycled on through more prettiness and baked air to the outskirts of Krems, before crossing the Danube again and pushing on to Traismauer and tonight’s hotel, Zur Weintraube.
• Despite this being a supposedly short day, we both felt the need to collapse and take in more liquids before doing anything else.
• This hotel prides itself on good local food: rightly so if Elly’s Verhackert-Törtchen (pancakes filled with minced pork and covered in creme freche and local cheese) is anything to go by. My salad was topped with fried potato noodles. (Apparently this is an Austrian thing but I don’t recall having it before.)
• Went for a walk through Traismauer, stopping for more drinks (beer and hot chocolate with rum and whipped cream) at a local cafe. It feels civilised to drink a small, tall glass (krugerl) of refreshing lager outside in a pleasing breeze that complements an otherwise very warm evening: far better than down in some dingy hole downing pints of fizzy piss.
• Back to Zur Weintraube to write this and sleep in preparation for tomorrow’s 45 miles!