Day 52: Melk to Linz - 115 km

Ever go toe-to-hoof with a wild boar? This was the unwelcome situation that presented itself outside our tent at 2am as we attempted to wild camp just outside Linz, Austria. After our recent encounter with an unidentified creature in Hungary, we were wary of wild camping again. Though after cycling over 100k, the campsite at we encountered was impossible. A dozen college kids had erected an enormous army-style tent in the middle of a tiny campground which was littered with remnants of liquor bottles, beer bongs, wizard sticks etc. The other campers, all of whom were cyclists, had set up along the fence and were packed in like sardines only 15 feet from the party tent, which was already going strong at 9pm. It was clear there was no sleep to be had here.

Only a few km from the party kids lay a series of bike trails and national park used by Linz city folk. It almost seemed too perfect as we stumbled on an isolated clearing, blocked on each side by felled trees. The bad omens soon began, as I was stung by nettles while setting up the tent and objects (acorns?) kept falling from the forest canopy above. The weirdness continued as we tucked in for the night, we saw what looked like a small light moving around not 20 meters from where we were. After some speculation, we sleepily agreed that it had to be a lightning bug.

Soon after we lay down, we noticed a moving overhead light that was so bright, it cast rays into the tent! Just as we decided it could only be the moon, we heard the boar call. It was a loud bark accompanied by sickly snort or growl. I pulled out the light and pocketknife and listened as the noise got closer, crashing through the brush maybe ten meters away. E and I looked at each other, scared as hell and I let out my most ferocious primal scream directed at the animal. The boar noise moved away. I blasted it a few more times from the top of my vocal chords and the noise continued to move away.

I looked at E and it was pretty apparent we could no longer sleep there. We hastily rolled everything up, strapped it to the bike and cycled over to squeeze into one of the camping spots, waking up some already disgruntled cyclists who had obviously lost sleep to the party kids. Moral of the story: you never know what's hiding out in the forest, even just a mile from a major city.

Day 51: Vienna to Melk 128 km

Hoping to do the over 200km from Vienna to Linz in only two days despite the sweltering heat extending late into the evenings, we were up at sunrise and on the road by 7am. This gave us the opportunity to observe the morning commute, a really fun way to get a feel for a city and its locals. And again, we were incredibly impressed by the bike paths, which we followed easily and at a very high average speed (usually the cities kill our stats with all the stopping for lights, traffic, pedestrians, etc.) for the entire 10km it took to get it of the city. This was our longest day yet both in distance covered and hours on the bike and we absolutely killed it, putting 70km behind us by noon! 

Days 49-50: Vienna

Our stay in Vienna was packed with museums. There were so many and they were all tempting, only the high ticket prices stopped us from packing more in. We chose wisely by starting with the Albertina - a museum housed in an old Hapsburg fortification in which we saw the well-known Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein, got our first taste of Egon Schiele, and explored Hapsburg estate rooms kept in their original style. That evening we attended a Mozart concert for which the entire orchestra and the concert was held in singers were dressed in period costumes. It sounds very cheesy but the effect was great when combined with the beautiful concerts hall we were in. I, however, was not a fan of the way in which the orchestra kept up historical appearances by dressing the women musicians as men!

We headed to the Schöll Schönbrun Palace early in order to avoid the crowds but weren't entirely successful. Just battling lines of tourists to get our tickets was an adventure in itself and then we had an hour to kill before our timed entry. The wait was well worth it though because despite the relatively uninspiring exterior of this home to the Hapsburg royal family, the interior rooms were absolutely lush and several were downright extravagant. The well-done audio guide even made the portraits interesting (something I usually yawn over) and we are gradually getting a better gasp on the history of the Hapsburg empire and its key figures. 

We fit in a quick trip to Stephankirche and our aching quads were pleasantly surprised by elevator access up the tower from where we took in a great 360 view of the city. Then we chose one more museum to finish the trip, the Leopold Museum, which housed an extensive collection of Schiele who we enjoyed very much, as well as an exhibit of Klimt and his contemporaries some of whom we recognized from the Blue Rider exhibit in Munich.

Day 48: Bratislava to Vienna: 80k

"I thought you said it was around 70km?" I asked Miles while looking at a sign listing Vienna at a distance of 38km. We had reached the outskirts of the Bratislava after a deliciously fancy breakfast at the hotel where we classily stuffed our pockets with Nutella and honey packets as well as the complimentary soaps and shampoos on our way out. Now it looked like our journey was being cut in half until a closer inspection of the sign showed an indignant cyclist's sarcastic comment and the accurate distance of 68km penned in with a sharpie.

Good that we learned early on the day to distrust the signs. We ended up ignoring most of them and sticking to the road once we realized the marked path was taking us on unnecessary side trips through "scenic" fields and villages. Then we hit what I fully believe to be the most boring and awful, terrible, no-good section of biking we have done this entire trip. The path went up on a berm with trees on either side, too low and a bit to far from the berm to provide any shade whatsoever, while also managing to block any sort of view that might have existed. Nothing but trees for miles and miles, with the path extending straight ahead into nothingness. It was mind numbingly boring and that's not the only thing that was going numb. The "paved" road, required for the Eurovelo status this awful path possesses, only barely qualified as such due to the fact that the rocky gravel was stuck down rather than loose. The effect was rather like riding a jackhammer for hours on end. 

All this probably influenced our excitement at arriving in Vienna, although the city doesn't need much help. As we neared the outskirts the area around the path opened up and it ran along the Danube again. The path itself filled with joggers, cyclists, and rollerbladers enjoying the evening sun, and the banks of the river filled with people sunning, swimming, and fishing. As we got closer to the city there were even waterski courses and lots of other water and land sports. The expansive access to and use of public riverside land and the energy that accompanied it warmed us to Vienna from the start. We were further impressed as we entered the heart of the city and joined commuting cyclists on the most amazing cosmopolitan bike infrastructure we have seen yet, superior even to Amsterdam. Major points earned on the bike-able city front and very inspiring to imagine the possibilities if other cities, ahem-New York, followed Vienna's example.

Day 48: Bratislava to Vienna: 80k

"I thought you said it was around 70km?" I asked Miles while looking at a sign listing Vienna at a distance of 38km. We had reached the outskirts of the Bratislava after a deliciously fancy breakfast at the hotel where we classily stuffed our pockets with Nutella and honey packets as well as the complimentary soaps and shampoos on our way out. Now it looked like our journey was being cut in half until a closer inspection of the sign showed an indignant cyclist's sarcastic comment and the accurate distance of 68km penned in with a sharpie.

Good that we learned early on the day to distrust the signs. We ended up ignoring most of them and sticking to the road once we realized the marked path was taking us on unnecessary side trips through "scenic" fields and villages. Then we hit what I fully believe to be the most boring and awful, terrible, no-good section of biking we have done this entire trip. The path went up on a berm with trees on either side, too low and a bit to far from the berm to provide any shade whatsoever, while also managing to block any sort of view that might have existed. Nothing but trees for miles and miles, with the path extending straight ahead into nothingness. It was mind numbingly boring and that's not the only thing that was going numb. The "paved" road, required for the Eurovelo status this awful path possesses, only barely qualified as such due to the fact that the rocky gravel was stuck down rather than loose. The effect was rather like riding a jackhammer for hours on end. 

All this probably influenced our excitement at arriving in Vienna, although the city doesn't need much help. As we neared the outskirts the area around the path opened up and it ran along the Danube again. The path itself filled with joggers, cyclists, and rollerbladers enjoying the evening sun, and the banks of the river filled with people sunning, swimming, and fishing. As we got closer to the city there were even waterski courses and lots of other water and land sports. The expansive access to and use of public riverside land and the energy that accompanied it warmed us to Vienna from the start. We were further impressed as we entered the heart of the city and joined commuting cyclists on the most amazing cosmopolitan bike infrastructure we have seen yet, superior even to Amsterdam. Major points earned on the bike-able city front and very inspiring to imagine the possibilities if other cities, ahem-New York, followed Vienna's example.

Day 47: Kliska Nema (Komarno) to Bratislava - 93km

We awoke to an annoying Pitbull song (the one with the whiny chorus) being blasted over a loudspeaker in the tiny village where we camped. We later noticed that every town we rode through possessed what had to be communist-era loudspeakers blaring dated Top 40 music between announcements on the hour something like: "ladies and gentlemen, the Koska bridge will be closed until 10am this morning, in the meantime, please enjoy some J.Lo from 2006."

Our late starting times have finally caught up to us. When we left it was already quite warm. After a couple hours, the bike path ran alongside a dam as the temperature soared to 38 Celsius (100F). I scanned in vain for a cafe or escape from the  brutal sun as  it cooked us up on the burm.  We covered ourselves with more clothing and hydrated profusely with sport mixes that we had purchased. I thought Betty was seeing a mirage when she started talking about an ice cream stand, which actually turned out to be a small cafe at a ferry station. We had a nice lunch with Radlers and plopped down to nap in the grass in an attempt to wait out the heat. 

At 5pm it was still scorching hot, but we opted to head towards Bratislava as I thought of the desert death march scences from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Bratislava retained the heat of the day and added an unwelcome portion of humidity as we sought out a place to stay. After looking at some overpriced hostels, we decided on a hotel room that was big enough to put our bikes into. We ate at Slovak Pub, where we had some traditional fare: Bryndzové halušky, sour cream and bacon dumplings and an excellent cabbage soup.

Day 46: Esztergom, Hungary to Kliska Nema, Slovakia - 84km

When cycle route signage is good, it's a lot of fun; kind of like a scavenger hunt. When it's bad, it's just painful. You end up on random roads or backtracking, which has often been our case in Hungary. We started off the morning cycling by Esztergom's enormous basilica, which is the largest building in Hungary. 

Poor signage of the Eurovelo 6 route soon put us on a corner, decidedly lost. Fortunately, Hungarian helpfulness came to our aid as three different people tried to put us back on track. One even regaled us with a Hungarian history lesson: "Hungary used to have an empire and access to two oceans, now we just have a third of that territory and Lake Balaton is our ocean!" Amusing but kind of depressing.

Turned out we had to ride on a fast road with no shoulder and bad pavement to get to the next section of the path. By the time we had the chance to cross into Slovakia we took it, we were fed up with Hungarian bike paths. Slovakia also lacked proper route signage but made up for it with big, freshly painted cycle paths on smooth asphalt. We ended up covering about twice as much distance per hour in Slovakia than in Hungary. Just as our bottoms were getting sore, we spotted a "Zimmer frei" sign in an elderly couples yard. They fixed us our first Slovak cuisine and even gave us a try of their homemade "schnapps" which burned  like firewater.