Arriving in Grein - should have called this blog "Playgrounds Through Austria" instead of "Biking Through Austria"

We left the hotel last night around 8.30 in the morning, after one of the skimpier breakfast buffets that we've had - no yogurt, which had been there at every breakfast buffet. But it was relatively cheap (65 euros) because he gave Peter a kids discount, so not too many complaints. Except there was no internet...  Chatted with some British guys at the breakfast buffet - two young men, and their father, who were biking together from Passau to Vienna, as almost everyone is. They were headed to Melk today, which is 80 k - far longer than we've ever done.

But I'll bet they don't stop at all the playgrounds, like we do! Yes, pretty much every single one - there's always some fun equipment for Peter to play with for a while. They take their playgrounds seriously here. Like I said in the blog post title - this blog should maybe be called "Playgrounds through Austria"! Here's a few pictures from along the trail.

I remember in the late 1970's, this same piece of playground equipment was in Charlotte, NC. Not any more!

These pieces of equipment seemed like they were from the 1960's. They spun very quickly!

An observation tower along the Danube

Great view of the fish ladders

We also stopped at an open-air museum called Keltendorf Mitterkirchen. They found some Celtic relics, dating from around 700 BC, and recreated a village from that area based on their finds. It was fine, but would have been more interesting if Peter had been part of a school group, because they got to do all kinds of era-appropriate crafts (weaving, pottery, making jewelry). But Peter had lots of fun feeding the goat!

The goat loved tree bark

These tiny plums were plentiful

The top of an elevated flood protection mound

An old-style ladder

We got to the hotel around 1 or so, and hung out in the room a bit before going out for a sandwich, and touring the town. It was a little smaller than I thought, and VERY much bike tourist focused. There's a castle in town, which is supposed to be great, but we've seen a few castles already, so we skipped it.

An ear of corn

This biker is doing it the hard way - camping

A sandwich along the bike trail

We're starting to have regular "Cafe und Kuchen" breaks

This lady was cleaning spiderwebs off her storefront

A beautiful view of the castle in Grein, along with the harbor

We're getting tired of the standards, so for dinner we bought some packaged salads from the grocery store

Yes, there's definitely lots of things that we're NOT seeing, along with the many things we are. The Brits that I spoke with this morning had the detailed guidebook for this bike trail, with all kinds of highlights and history, but I'm okay with just taking things as they come, and only seeing whatever is very close to the bike trail. It feels like every day is packed, anyway.

The weather is perfect - not too hot, high around 81, mostly not a cloud in the sky. My Achilles tendon has been bugging me a bit - all the bike riding is not good for it - but so far it's not too bad. My left wrist is a little sore from holding the bike handlebar for so long, I try to hold the handlebar in different positions, to give it a break. I wonder how things would be if we were biking 80 kilometers a day?