Biking Through Austria: A beautiful ride to Melk

This morning's breakfast buffet was unusual - first of all, we were never told what time it was. Usually they're very exact, and it starts at 7 or 7.30. So, we were downstairs by 7.40, to find nobody there, and no breakfast buffet. Eventually a lady came, got us coffee and hot chocolate. I was wondering what else would happen, because there was still no breakfast buffet visible. But what happened is that she started bring us our very own breakfast buffet, at our table! A huge assortment of the standard stuff (cold cuts, bread and rolls, juice, etc). Then when other guests came down, looking for their breakfast, they did the same for everybody.

It was a LOT of running around for them, and pretty inefficient and wasteful of food - unless they took the food back, and that would be pretty weird, once it's already at somebody's table. I think they were new owners, who didn't really know what to do. They're weren't Austrian, either, they seemed like they were from eastern Europe. I'm sure they'll figure it out, because the current setup was unsustainable.

After breakfast, we cleared out quickly, because today was a long biking day - 46 k, to Melk. We took the ferry right from Grein, there was a very friendly older lady who chatted with me a bit, she had been to Seattle 40 years ago. They were going to Melk as well, but didn't have anything reserved - it seems that most people, the ones who bring their own bikes, anyway, do not reserve rooms until the day of the stay.

The ride today was beautiful - the landscape is flattening out, occasional castles visible on the hills overlooking the Danube.

I had a nice chat with a Canadian lady for quite some time, while we were both biking. Peter and I had seen her and her family around town in Grein (it's a small town) a number of times. She had married an Austrian, and they just moved to a small town near Salzburg, to be near his family, and take over the farm. They were biking with their daughter, age 7. The dad had a long stick he was using, to push her bike forward, and make it a little easier for her. It seemed like she was having a difficult time adjusting, and learning German.

Unfortunately I got an email, while we were biking, that the hotel I'd booked (via booking.com) had made an error, and they had to cancel our booking. They did book us in another place, HOWEVER, this one has has no internet! That's 3 nights in a row of bad or non-existent internet in hotels. I use the internet on my sim card to do basic things, but to upload photos for this blog, because the files are so large and I don't want to use up the sim card, I went to the tourist office and used their wifi.

Dinner was at the Gasthaus zur Post. I had backhendl - which is baked chicken (I thought). I was surprised when it came out fried, not baked. That's the second time that's happened. There were a few tables of older people when we sat down to eat (early, around 5.30) having some rowdy card games, using coins as counters (or betting?)

This is the first place we've been to that I've seen Chinese tourists again, being shepherded through town in groups. It's probably more noticable because it's a one-attraction tourist town

Waiting for the ferry in Grein

I staged this because I thought it was a good view - in this photo, Peter is headed upstream, but we're actually going downstream

It was a long ride, so we took plenty of breaks

These logs had sprinkler systems spraying water on them.

I think this road crew was removing potentially dangerous boulders - one of the trucks said "sprenngstoff" (explosives)

The dam at Ybbs

Lots of lovely biking

Based on what the map says, I think in the background is some kind of asylum for the disabled. They had a playground (with in-ground trampoline) out front