As we “Cycled home from Prague”, we would only spend one night in Austria – and on the next day almost immediately climb to the German border. A long descent brought us to the river Danube which we followed; cycling northwest to Hofkirchen in Bavaria…
Cycling up the blue Danube:
There were no strenuous climbs planned for today, but we could see from the route profile that there would be a significant drop to the Danube and then a pan-flat ride after that. I felt we’d earned some easy riding.
Keeping away from main roads, we headed directly south on empty country lanes, climbing gently away from the campsite and watching the dark rain clouds roll over the mountains to the north of us. We have a friend, Anne Young, who was doing some more vigorous cycling further south in Austria, and she’d been sharing photographs of her adventures in the pouring rain. So, with rain to the north and rain to the south, we felt somewhat blessed to be caught in the middle with warmth.
The border between Germany and Austria runs along a small stream, and the checkpoint – in the middle of nowhere – was a wooden hut, no bigger than a posh British bus stop. We were beginning our descent in the twisting gorge that the Danube flows along, and we were always within a few hundred meters of the border as we cycled south.
I have to say I love European descents… they go on for ages. Eventually the Danube came into view, snaking away into Austria to the east. Compared with the Vltava river, the Danube was so much bigger, and carrying much larger boats. We refreshed ourselves with coffee and pastries in Obernzell.
In Austria and Czechia we’d been riding on roads that were very quiet or empty, but now that we were in Germany and following a river, we found that our route was mainly on segregated cycle paths, and probably Eurovelo 6 – but we hadn’t checked beforehand. We continued using cycle.travel as the planning tool to head towards our next campsite. There were more cyclists around now, our Czechia experience had involved no other cyclists, our Austria experience had bumped us into one or two, but now that we were on a popular cycle route we began to see many more cycle tourists and day-trippers.
After a few miles of easy pedalling, we reached Passau and cycled through a tunnel, then over a bridge to reach the town, which sits at the point where the fast flowing river Inn joins the river Danube. The colourful painted houses reminded me of the harbour at Bergen in Norway, but there were a lot more historic buildings surrounding them. We followed the cobbled riverside path to reach the tip of the land where the rivers join.
Dean and I chat while riding side by side, and he has often done way more research into the places we’re visiting. So this day I discovered that the river Danube turns blue in Passau, where the river Inn brings mineral rich and fast flowing water down from the Swiss Alps. There is even a poster at the merging, and a lot of tourists gathered round to have their photograph taken – I knew none of these people.
After the noise and chaos of crowded Passau, and Dean seeing that I was longing for the lonely road again, we twisted and turned our way out of the overflowing roads and pavements. I also forgot which side of the road to cycle on and stranded myself on the wrong side of a busy junction – eventually running and pushing my bike across while lights were red. It was a relief to be onto back country lanes again.
Despite the quiet roads between towns, there was much more to see in this part of Bravaria than the dozens of empty kilometres we’d cycled through Czechia. On the far bank we saw Vilshofen an der Donau and toyed with getting food, but a bit of google-fu showed us that our campsite was just the far side of Hofkirchen and we’d be able to get everything we needed there.
Sometimes campsites are gorgeous little idyllic gardens, secluded away in a remote village, and sometimes we are on a caravan park with a late night post-football party going on next door. If you can’t beat them join them: I walked over to the clubhouse and persuaded the revellers that selling me some of their beers was a good idea, and that no I didn’t have anything smaller than a 20, so perhaps 8 beers would be the right number. Never have I felt happier with my negotiating skills.
As we sat and ate our dinner, and drank our beers, I began to notice I was being eaten alive by midges. Thankfully I was carrying midge-repellent… in the form of all the cold weather clothing I could find.
Stage five: from Ulrichsberg in Austria to Hofkirchen in Germany, along the river Danube and via Passau.
