Very sadly our last ride today on this part of the trip - and they left the best till last!
A 42K ride today through the apparently famous Wachau Valley and it certainly lived up to the hype. Started on a foggy morning at about 9.30 and took the longer option for the day heading for Krems across a brige constructed partly by the Americans during 1945 as half had been bombed by the retreating Germans. Beautiful city.
5K into the historic village of Durstein where we climbed (on foot) the huge hill to the RuineDurstein which was the castle where they held Richard the Lionheart for three years for ransome on his return from the crusades. Very difficult climb but Elizabeth managed most of it apart from the final vertical bit to the castle itself.
Needed coffee and apple strudel after that - and then continued with the river on one side, vinyards on the other and the mountains further on - magical touring on bikeways again. Weissenkirken (White Church) was the next village where we had wine-tasting (great whites but only OK reds) - picture postcard scenery along the way, riding in 25 degrees, part cloud cover and on flat bikeways - it doesn't get much better that that!
The rest of the journey to Melk was along the side of the Danube through village after village with beautiful churches, town squares and great little spots to stop for ice-cream or coffee (tough)
Arrived here at 4.00 exactly on required schedule after what was probably the best day's riding we've done on one of these trips. Amazingly, we have not had one bad weather day (last week's trip lost two days to rain apparently) and each day has been just great in both scenery and riding conditions. Can we recommend this trip?? ABSOLUTELY!!!
Travelling day tomorrow - we arrive back in Passau at about 10.30 and then head for the station where we get the train to Brussells (about 7.5 hours) for the "battlefields" part of the trip - will be a pretty brief blog tomorrow night!
Elizabeth's cold is a little better and she managed the whole day's ride well - a couple of easier days ahead as reward!
Trivia: The monastry here in Melk was founded in 1068 - that's a while ago!
Cap report: It stayed on the boat all day so it was quite safe!
cheers all
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