i talked to chistine this week (that was quite a feat, since we haven’t talked in about…oh, a million years or so. no particular reason, we just haven’t), and she said PUT UP SOME MORE PICTURES OF AUSTRIA.
i really just want to nap right now. could it possibly still be jet lag? no way jose, is what i’m thinking. because we got back a WEEK ago. but last night i was happy to go to bed at 10, then up at seven, it’s not like i’m not getting enough sleep! we took a one-hour bike ride which seemed like nothing, and then i fenced a little. kevin didn’t fence because he has a BIG BITE OUT OF HIS EAR. i need to take a picture so you can see what it looks like. not nearly as bad as the day he got it operated on.
anyway, before i nap (YOU DON’T NEED A NAP, MRS. HUGHES!), here are a few more photos. this is still just our first day. our first day before lunch, as a matter of fact.
as i said, we started in passau, germany, which is on the border with austria. we hadn’t gotten far when we saw this sign.
the first time we stopped for a little longer, i think we’d been going for a whole hour, kevin photographed this statue as i took a video of it. the road you see is the road behind us. we biked next to the road for the first hour or so, but there wasn’t a lot of traffic. the path wasn’t actually on the road, but next to it. but now that i think about it, i think this might have been the most traffic we saw for most of the trip, except outside of Linz and Vienna.
not that we’ll get to linz or vienna photos for months and months. it’ll probably be xmas by the time we get to vienna. linz was just the second day…or was it the third…so you’ll probably see those photos soon.
this is the view across the river from the statue.
hmm, maybe after a while you’ll say “yeah yeah yeah another picture of the river and the quaint houses, YAWN.” but i love to look at the photos because it makes me remember just how beautiful and fun it all was.
maybe i already mentioned this, but we got a detailed book that was a map of both sides of the river. we also got a one-page description of the route, which the bike company in austria gave us. it listed the places where they thought we should cross the river, because one side can be more scenic than the other. i’m pretty sure it said to take a ferry over the river at the first crossing-point, but we decided to cross at a power plant with a bridge. it warned that there were LOTS OF STAIRS we’d have to climb.
we got to the bridge and even though there were lots of elderly german-speaking tourists there on a tour, kevin didn’t want to ask anybody to take our picture, so he propped the camera up on the wall. it came out pretty good, consideringt.
after we crossed the bridge there were, indeed MANY MANY STAIRS. actually, i guess there were stairs at both ends, so even though we’re smiling in the photo i must have already been VERY VERY TIRED. on the stairs almost everywhere, they have little tracks that run up them on the edges so you can push your bike up the path as you’re walking up the stairs.
THIS IS EXTREMELY TAXING, but better than no path at all.
going down the stairs on the other side was pretty bad too, but of course not AS bad.
when we got to the other side we decided to eat lunch in the little cafe that was there. the lone waiter spoke no english, and couldn’t tell us what any of the stuff was on the menu. we found that none of the words on the menus seemed to be in the two german phrasebooks we’d bought. because i guess it’s diferent in AUSTRIA than in germany, except they don’t sell AUSTRIAN language books.
i ordered something that potentially looked delicious, but it turned out to be a big piece of toast with chees, onions, and very undercooked bacon. i tried to scrape off the bacon and it was the only yucky meal i had in austria. kevin got a pizza, which of course he liked because pizza is his #1 favorite food.
the night before, in passau, we’d eaten at a very nice restaurant on the river and the food was quite good. big piles of austrian meat and noodles and stuff, and somehow we had a better sense of what things were there. sometimes we’d find places that had “english” versions of the menu, except there were always a few things that they just weren’t able to translate.
can i nap now? it’s a beautiful sunny day today and i should be outside washing the car or at least watering the flowers, but it’s actually kind of hot. in the 80’s. we just might have summer all year this year.
ok ok ok,
saturday grace.