Our Private Austrian Train
By Lothar. Filed in Austria |
Yesterday was another day with sunshine and heat. In the morning, we drove our bikes for only 2 miles from the B+B Haus Prinz in Grein down the mountain to the next train station. Some people in our party felt that it was too hot for another 30 mile bike ride !
We took the local ÖBB ( Austrian Railroad) train to Mauthausen near Enns. The train consisted of only one coach. The driver helped us to load our bikes on the train, plus sold us our tickets on board the train before he proceded to drive us to our destination. We were the only passengers on the train, and I was standing at the open window, inhaling the smell of fresh hay and watching the beautiful scenery of the Danube river valley pass by. I felt like the Bavarian King Ludwig, who used to enjoy riding in his private train around Bavaria.
We biked for another 5 miles to Enns, the oldest town in Austria, and after climbing a steep, long hill ( all these old towns have their castle and town center on a hill ) , stopped at a hotel for refreshments.Incidentally, in the lobby were pictures of Pope John Paul II, showing him during his visit here in 1988.
We took another 20-minute train to Linz and had lunch at the modern Linz train station, which feels more like an airport than a train station. The last train of the day took us, plus our bikes, for another 2 hour ride from Linz to Passau. Passau is on the German- Austrian border, at the confluence of the three rivers Danube, Inn and Ilz. It is a picture-perfect postcard-town with all the trimmings : mountain-top castle, big baroque cathedral, lots of churches, old renaissance-period merchant houses and so on. We biked along the Danube for another 6 miles to the hotel ” Kernmühle” , where we had left our rental car 6 days ago.
A little tired and very hot, we finished the bike tour with a big, refreshing ” Radler” ( half beer, half lemon soda).
Monday, May 30th 2005 at 11:52 pm |
Very nostalgic for me — brings back lots of nice memories. Not that I ever enjoyed long bike trips, but just being in Austria on Term Abroad…
And Passau is a very nice town as well!