Day 30 - 17 October 2012 - Krems to Vienna - 90k

It was a great night's sleep at the 'Fahrad' Youth Hostel in Krems. Krems is a 'thousand year old' University town. It is not as immediately attractive as other towns of its age and history, but has no end of historical and architecturally fascinating buildings. The Hostel was just outside the city gate, so before leaving Krems, we decided to make our 'exit' by first entering the old city and doing some brief exploring before hitting the Danube path to Vienna.

We enjoyed the breakfast at the Youth Hostel. Just as we sat down, another cyclist walked in. We immediately knew him - he too had sought refuge in the warm cafe with us at Melk the previous day. His name was Bernard. He is German, and cycling the Danube through to Budapest on his own. He seemed to warm to us immediately, even asking if he could cycle to Vienna with us. We were happy to oblige, getting to also chat with him over breakfast.

Before passing through the 15th century Steiner Gate into the old city of Krems, we posed for the official photo, and again just inside the old city, with the very long, cobbled and traffic free main street stretching out behind us. Krems is a very historical place. However, for us it was busy with early morning traffic. Cars and trucks were making it difficult for us to negotiate our way trough the town and enjoy the ancient buildings and other sights. We had a big day ahead so we decided to 'hit the road' out of town, finding our way to the Danube where we would turn east.

It took some negotiating of roads, footpaths and bike path with lots of twists and turns before we finally found our way over the bridge spanning the Danube. The day was a remarkably better day than the day before. Gone was the intense cold and the rain. The sky was blue, and although the morning air was cool and crispy, we knew we were looking forward to a reasonably warm day ahead. 

 The dominant historical feature of Krems by far is the Gottweig Abbey. It sits on a hilltop some 6-10 kilometres from Krems across the Danube, but is by far the most striking landmark for miles around. We knew that once we crossed the Danube, we would be able to look up the valley and see the Abbey on its hilltop perch still some 5k to the south in the distance. However, at that time in the morning, the entire hilltop was covered in the morning mist. The huge Abbey was hidden from sight. We certainly did not want to cycle the extra distance, especially the several kilometres of very steep climb, just for a view into the mist!

However, as we put some distance in along the river, I just happened to glance back and could not miss the amazing sight of this magnificent 900 year old building that started life as an Augustinian Monastery but which was not long after handed over to the Benedictines, by 1100AD.

Today was an almost perfect day for cycling. The path surface was excellent most of the way. The sun was shining most of the day. While it was still cool, it was very comfortable cycling conditions. Having four of us now in the group, it altered our group dynamics a little. However, our German friend Bernard was good company, who was able to help us with some understanding of language and especially cultural understanding. He was a capable cyclist, although not carrying the weight that we were carrying. We started to see numerous 'marinas' along this segment of the Danube with hundreds of speed/power boats. We found this curious because we had never seen one of these actually in use on the Danube.

 We never lost our fascination for the large boats and barges that frequently cruised up and down the Danube. We were making excellent time. Today was probably working out as our longest day, but we were cruising along at a good 'clip' given the weeks of 'training' in our legs and also the youthful exuberance of SJ. As morning developed, we could sense that there was a headwind developing that actually grew in intensity as the afternoon progressed.

Although we spent a lot of time on the edge of the Danube, the path also took us off through farmer's fields, some small, pretty villages and also through beautiful forest. The forests in particular were beautiful, with the changing colours of autumn glowing with their radiance of yellows, browns and particularly reds. The forests were typically a kaleidoscope of colour. 

Our lunchtime objective was the historic village of Tulln, where our original schedule said we would be camping the night. We decided however to put in a full day and go straight to Vienna, enabling us to spend more useful time in Austraia's magnificent capital. In Tulln, we sat in the market square in the lovely sunshine (and the increasing wind) for lunch. We would have been happy staying longer just enjoying the sunny delight of the central square, but we decided to keep up our good time and start the final leg of 30k to Vienna just down the river.

The early Roman history of this part of Austria came to us as somewhat of a surprise. The statue here is of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor. Austria was part of the Roman Empire from the 1st to the 4th centuries, with towns like Tulln and especially Vienna being Roman Garrisons with forts in order to protect the Empire from the marauding Germans north of the Danube.

 As we were getting closer to the outskirts of Vienna, this magnificent castle filled the vision ahead. We were on the southern bank, but this castle was definitely across the Danube and perched high aloft some distance to the north of the Danube. From our map we could only conclude that it was the Schloss Bisamburg which could easily have been 12-15k away. We made our way carefully through the large village of Klosterburg which was really an 'outer suburb' these days of Vienna. We enjoyed the sights of the stunning Klosterburg Stift while keeping our senses tuned to the track which was now busy with traffic, trains and speeding cyclists sharing our track. We were now in the outskirts of Vienna!

 Within a few kilometres we had to say our goodbyes to Bernard who had to stay on the edge of the Danube to get to his accommodation. We however, had to negotiate the Danube Kanal which ran further south of the Danube, but which was our path into the inner heart of the old city of Vienna where our accommodation at the Vienna Post Hotel was waiting for us. Fortunately, the Kanal had a reasonable bike path, but we were quite intimidated by the speed of the regular commuting cyclists that sped both ways by us. We stuck to our plan to hug the Kanal until well into the city. We took a hunch when to 'surface' (the Kanal path was a level below the city street level) and after a bit of confusion and trial and error, we suddenly found ourselves outside the 'Hotel Post Wein', situated right on the edge of the old historic village area of Vienna.

The Hotel is one of those charming, old world hotels. We were blessed by the offer of an old fashioned luggage rack for a cycle bags. We were asked to bring our bikes in to the lobby to offload - nothing was a problem. The 'bell-hop' even delivered our bags to our room (for a tip!).

We feel very blessed and very much at home. The room is great, a home away from home. Being 'budget' it doesn't have its own shower and toilet, but we must be the only 'budget' people because we seem to have the hallway facilities all to ourselves.

It was a great day of cycling and discovery. The toll for the day was 90k, the second longest distance we have cycled since leaving Frankfurt. Today though, we seemed to cruise at a neat 16-20kph even despite the ever growing headwind.

Reflecting on the day, I couldn't stop thinking about the beautiful Abbeys and the numerous 'Schloss' that stood out for miles and miles before we reached them. Up close they were as large as small towns, all contained in one single magnificent building. The common feature of these magnificent centuries old buildings, apart from being built on the top of the highest mountains in their regions, is that they all seem to be built on rock, even being built around the rock formation such as the beautiful castle in Cesky Krumlov. Having foundations built on solid rock, these magnificent edifices have endured the centuries, the Gottweig Abbey almost one thousand years and still standing.

In His famous 'Sermon on the Mount', Jesus compared the building of our lives with those who build their houses on rock. He said "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock" (Matthew 7:24-25).

At the end of a great day, as we go to sleep in the great city of the classical composers, may it be that we consider the foundations on which we are building our lives.

With our love, Kelvin and Julie, and Sarah-Jane