and we haven’t gotten any farther than we were the last time i posted some photos. this continues to be this same pretty spot, where we went crazy taking photos and video.
i’d just shot some video, but then i saw a cruise boat coming, so i told kevin we had to STAY THERE SO HE COULD TAKE A PICTURE.
there weren’t a lot of people on the boat, and they were all looking over at the other side of the river, the place where we, too, had been taking many photos. there were maybe four people up on the deck.
and here, i decided that i finally needed to tear myself away from taking the video and get back on my bike.
we didn’t get very far, though. after the bend in the river, we came upon a restaurant/guesthouse/campground that was BEAUTIFUL. i wrote about it before, the place that was so idyllic but i didn’t even realize it until i thought about it later. it’s called the gasthaus kaiserhof, and i just spent a long time looking it up online but i just can’t find it. i sort of found a link to the camping part of the place, and i did find a gasthaus kaiserhof in austria, but it was a different one.
anyway, it was lovely. across the river was the Neuhaus castle. according to our guide map, this castle is one of the largest in the upper Austrian Danube valley, and includes handsome Renaissance structures that are occupied to this day. hmm, the place didn’t look occupied at all.
we finally left, except i wish we could have stayed there til this day. instead we kept riding and the scenery wasn’t quite as spectacular. but not bad, really.
we were headed for a ferry to get to the other side, and this is the entrance to it.
while we waited for the ferry, there was a little house that looked like an ATM, except it had a sign that there was FREE INTERNET ACCESS right there, and i played with it till the ferry came, but couldn’t ever get it to go where i wanted it to. if i had, of course, i’d have written on here, but there was just too much instruction in german.
we crossed to the left bank to a town called Ottensheim, and there were a bunch of things listed in our book about the town. it’s funny; there were always little listings for the places we went past, but we rarely had any interest in seeing the stuff. in Ottensheim, for example, there was a church (there was always a church), and a castle (usually a castle, too). didn’t see the church. didn’t care, we just wanted to bike.
hmm, i’m reading the guide map now and it says there was a “fish study trail,” on the shore trail, with 84 signs which describe native fish species and habitat. we did actually see that, because there were, indeed, pictures of fish on signs all along the trail. so at least we saw SOMETHING in the book. besides all the nature everywhere.
this is what the trail looked like as we headed out of Ottensheim.
things started out very pretty, but as we got closer to the city of Linz, it started to get crowded. not ugly, really, but we were suddenly right next to a main road with lots and lots of cars on it. we were completely safe, up on the bike trail, but right next to the road. this was one of the most unpleasant rides. it didn’t last very long; the road from Ottensheim to Linz was only 9.5 kilometers, which is a mere 5.9 miles, and it didn’t get bad till the last few miles.
there weren’t a lot of other bikes, per usual, but i was in front and i passed a woman. quite a bit ahead of her was a little kid, maybe eight years old, furiously pedalling his little bike. as i passed him, he valiantly tried to keep up with me, which i thought was funny. but at the same time i couldn’t believe that his mom let this kid ride way ahead of her on this busy stretch, and he wore no helmet.
then, though, kevin shouted out at me KEEP GOING! because after i passed the kid, kevin tried to pass him, but the kid tried even harder to keep up…and there was a bike coming from the other direction toward us.
crazy little austrian kid.
we managed to get into Linz ok, but it wasn’t fun. we crossed the bridge, which was unnerving because it’s a major bridge and there we were, right alongside the cars.
i read that linz is an “overlooked gem,” but we weren’t crazy about it. first of all, once we got into the city, there were tons of people everywhere; it was so crowded with people that we had to get off our bikes and walk. i had what i thought was a pretty good map of the hotel, but it took a while to find it.
and when we did…well, it looked ok from the outside. but inside, our room was the tiniest room we had on the trip. there was barely room to set our two suitcases on the floor. it was dark, with a view of the air shaft in the middle of the place, and the room across from us was about three feet away. for some reason, on the website this hotel was called an “adventure hotel.” it claimed to have different, recently-renovated “theme” rooms. i feel that our room had no theme except for the excitement of trying to have space to turn around in.
we showered and quickly left the room in order to overcome the claustrophobia. i’d read about the Postlingberg, a mountain on the edge of town, and wanted to go to the top.
and more about that later…
ok then, i hope your monday morning is going well.
grace