James: Breakfast in the lobby. Overnight oats with nuts and fruit, and a fruit pastry, plenty of black, black coffee. After our breakfast, Susan and I decided to take a look around the immediate neighborhood. Right across the street is a university building and right across from that is the prison. Irony? We finally pushed off about 9 am in a steady rain.
Susan: It was tough to bike through the towns. Riding on cobblestone seemed treacherous with the rain. Drivers are actually patient with the long string of bikes. Joaan was our leader today. He stops more than Franz, and he tries to explain and provide historical facts, etc. Riding through the Wachau Valley was quite beautiful. Rows and rows of wine vineyards that are terraced as well. Also lots of apricots trees.
James: Rode for about an hour through picturesque vineyards and apricot orchards. We were now seeing small shrines along the road, similar to the ones that we had seen in Greece. Our first stop was the town of Dürnstein. Cute, old town with narrow, winding streets, lots of tourists shops and wine stores and a famous, iconic ruined castle atop a steep hill overlooking the town. A handful of us decided to head to the top to get a look and the rest of the riders shopped and looked around. It was a very steep hike up a series of granite steps about a half mile to the top.
Fantastic views of the Danube and the Wachau Valley. Met several talkative tourists from England and Australia among other countries.
Susan: Dürnstein is a quaint village with lots of shops that have apricots wares….marmalade, schnapps, gummies, everything apricot. While Jim and some others hiked, Jean, Clay and I stopped for a coffee in a small shop. Jean and I sat with a local woman who was lovely. She told us that only 90 people actually live in Dürnstein and she lives in the next village. She has a 10 year old son who she lets take the train to the next village all by himself … she says it is very safe in this area but she thinks Vienna is not so safe. After our coffee stop, Jean, Clay and I walked to the end of the small town and looked at the Danube from there. It was quite stunning.
James: The entire group met back at the bikes. Because of its windy and congested streets, Dürnstein doesn’t allow bikes to ride the city streets. So our little army marched through the crowded streets until we were on the other side of town — it was a bit of a mess. So many tourists, mainly old people who are oblivious of others and stop in the middle of the road so you can’t get through. But we managed. We remounted our bikes and headed out again.
Our next stop was in Wosendorf. This time it was to see and photograph a prominent maypole and the community well. I had been seeing the remains of maypoles for a couple of days not knowing what they were. We also poked our heads into an old church in the town square.
Riding on, we next stopped at another historic church in Filialkirche St. Michael in der Wachau that built in the Middle Ages. It was a “church fort”, solidly built and all but impenetrable. On the opposite side of the church was another small church (an Ossuary, or charnel house) that was locked but, looking through two small windows, we could see a pile of skulls on the altar. We were not sure what that was all about but it made for an interesting picture.
Susan: The grounds and the cemetery looked gorgeous Ascension Day was just the day before we were there so the guide said everything probably looks great because they were cleaned up for Ascension Day.
James: Another hour down the road, we stopped for lunch in Spitz. We were told that lunch was on our own and our guides didn’t offer any suggestions so we were kind of left to wander and wonder. Susan and i eventually ended up in a combination head shop/gift shop/cafe. It was full of dusty, old pop posters and sad puppets. It looked like nobody had shopped there in weeks. We got a couple of sandwiches made of leberkase, a mix of liver and cheese on a nice deli roll. It was a slab of meat, like meatloaf only pure pink and softer. Like liverwurst? It was pretty tasty. So then I had to have an apricot pastry and a cup of coffee to complete the meal.
Susan: Back on the bikes after lunch we had to go across the Danube a couple of times…on high bridges that required us to go through round a-bouts, and take some sharper turns. One woman couldn’t make the cut of the turn and fell into some bushes on the side of the path. She said some locals helped her up and out.
Once we got close to Melk, Johan stopped a couple of times so we could get a good view and we stopped at 3 pm when the bells were tolling. Truly a magnificent building.
James: There is some kind of vintage auto race or rally going on in Melk. The cars are classics. I would love to see them race in the cobblestone streets of Melk. Unfortunately we are on our way to Passau tomorrow afternoon. Still, really fun to see these cars all over town.
Went for a wine tasting at a wine bar in the downtown area. All of us filled a back room at the bar and got to taste three different white wines from the local vineyards in Wachau Valley. Pretty interesting and very drinkable.
Then the Harmons and us did a lap around downtown and headed back to our hotel for our dinner. The dinner was okay, fried pork chops, green beans and some preformed potato logs. But Frantz joined us for dinner and he was great. A fun, interesting, smart guy. We talked about travel, kids, politics, global warming and a lot more. We polished off the dinner with shots of apricot liqueur, the perfect finale for a long day.
