The Austrailan bike plan to Vienna

September 9th, 2012 Sunday

We woke up feeling excellent thanks to plenty of water the night before and the extra hour of sleep we let ourselves have. We got in another shower, packed up our tent and stopped at probably the only open coffee shop for some stale bread and expensive orange juice served by a girl who seemed peeved to be at work (I guess I would be too if the whole town was partying the night before into the morning and I had to be at work to serve them all). 

lake and walking area behind our camping place

And then we were off again! Taking the last bit of map trail to the outskirts of Vienna. Less than an hour into our travels we bumped into an Australian couple, Maia and Jeff, who were also taking the trail into Vienna. Turns out Jeff is a professor on sabatical in Vienna, and he and Maia were in the midst of many travels all over (including to Los Angeles some months before). We decided to tag along with them the rest of the way and had excellent conversation as we went. They had minimal baggage compared to us, so we put our rears in gear to keep up with their excellent pace (as well as minimal stops).
For lunch we went a km off the cycle path to a small town that was having their own traditional wine festival, complete with attire, traditional music, and food. Unfortunately for us, we got there just as it was ending and missed out on most of the food options. We still were well fed, and ready to hit the trail. The map indicated that this day of travel wouldn't have too great of variations in the elevation levels, but we were fooled into thinking we would not hit any hills at all. We kept at it (me, sometimes walking) and eased our travels in some rolling hills into an eventual flat path on the way in.

fields of flowers

At last- Vienna! We made it in great time thanks to Maia and Jeff, and even had enough time before meeting up with our hosts to grab a bite to eat and a drink- a traditional Austrian soda called Almdudler (light, refreshing lemon bubbly tea taste).

We made it! No honking please.

Thanks Jeff and Maia!!!!

With that, we said our goodbyes to Jeff and Maia, and began our seemingly more difficult trek into the central part of Vienna. Lucky for us we stand out, because we caught the eye of a roadie passing us. He asked us where we were from and where we were headed and told us to follow him through the city to get to our destination. The roadie, Max, turned out to be a bike tour guide of the city of Vienna (what are the chances?) He sped us through the city with ease, only to get a flat just 500 meters from our destination. He pointed us in the right direction and bid us goodnight as he headed home just down the way to patch his flat.

In front of the mayors house. yes seriously, the mayors house.

We then waited near a subway station in the center of Vienna to meet up with our host, Erwin. He met us by bike and gave us a quick tour of some of the more prominent buildings in the center. We headed back to his flat that he shares with his girlfriend, Gerti. She made us some pasta and salad, and we talked about bikes until we started to get sleepy then headed to bed.

All lost in the Czech Republic or pass the sturm in Poysdorf

September 8th, 2012 Saturday

The next day we awoke to gobbles and strange thumping noises which both came from our turkey neighbors. We loaded up and decided to get some food from a grocery store in the next town over. After the staples of bread and cheese, we got going on our trail. This would be our last day of biking in Czech, as we would soon cross the Austrian border. The biking was mostly flat and enjoyable, and with less km to cover that day, we stopped for a leisurely lunch of an amazing appetizer of warm goat cheese with honey, balsamic, and tomatoes, and pizza for our main meal.

The lovely bikeways of Czech, until next time!

Alex almost gets eaten

our lunch destination

We set off to the last few km in Czech with some lovely rolling hills only to come to a crossroads where the numbered trail we were on went both ways. Huh? Another cyclist stopped and told us that we had gone way out of our way in the wrong direction. We could either continue on the path to our right to cross the Austrian border and figure out how to get to the town near out camping place, or backtrack. Seeing as how we didn't have ANY maps of Austria except for what was shown on the trail map (we weren't even on the trail map anymore) we decided to backtrack. I refrained from reminding Alex how the town we went through was in a valley, and the downhill we coasted down before would soon be our uphill.

The rolling hills of... wait, we went the wrong way didn't we?

Helloooo Austria!!!!!

FINALLY we reached the Austrian border, took pictures, and cursed the signage and map way that led us astray.

good bye, Czech you later!

We were tired and frustrated an still needed to put in a few more km before we reached our campsite in Poysdorf (the same one that Beth had recommended to us a few nights before). We raised our heads in appreciation for the wonderful sky veiws and made it into town just as it was getting dark.

We were welcomed warmly by the campsite owner who gave us a key to the restrooms and told us where to set up. We knew we were in a different country because the showers weren't timed! Yay! After a good long shower to decompress we headed into the main part of town. Before we ended up anywhere to eat, we were distracted by the tons of people in traditional Austrian garb, old AND young people, headed in the same direction. We worked up some of our German which was getting rusty (if it was ever there in the first place) and asked if anyone spoke English. They did and told us they were headed into the towns major festival for the wine season. The town is normally around 700 people, but everyone from the neighboring cities and towns come out for the food, the people, the traditonal music, and the Sturm. What is Sturm you ask? Well it is a drink that is in the middle of its fermentation process, inbetween being juice and wine, which means sweet and delicious, which means it will get you drunk quick. Everyone who told us about it told us to be careful, and we were, drinking tons of water at the same time. Everyone around us... not so much.

Our new friends in traditional dress

2l of strum for 15€

We had excellent conversations about American and California life vs life in Austria. Differences in healthcare (ie the reason ciggarette packs have those smoking kills messages is because healthcare is free in Austria aka it is taken out of taxes aka if you get lung cancer from choosing to smoke, everyone is paying for it) smilarities in "democracy" (corruption is getting to everyone everywhere), and even ID cards. We all talked for a while until the Sturm started to hit everyone else pretty hard and conversation dwindled to unintelligble jabber and German. We walked around, tasting the different foods and treats, then headed to a big tent party close by. We joined a party train through the tent for a few rounds, watched people on the carnival rides (which seemed like a bad idea to get on after drinking), then headed back to the campsite for a good sleep.

Morning climb or We didn`t sign up for a nature walk!

September 7th, 2012 Friday

Woop Woop so after Jan convinced me to embark on this tree top adventure (after the bottele of vodka) we woke up around 8 and started around 9. Since Katbear told us to climb everything, we did! It was the most fun, we had a blast and got to work on our upper body strength GerrRRrr! Pictures are self explanitory.   After that I had a most excellent lunch complete with potato pancakes with chicken inside. Hanako got the chicken schnitzle and we both got the most amazing garlic soup in all the Czech republic! It had fresh pieces of fried bread and cheese on top. MMMMmmmm! So with a vigourous work out to jump start are morning we were off in the early afternoon.  Little  did we kown that the great nature walk of 2012 awaited us!

Jan gets me strapped

Ya'll ready for this??!!?

My cutie gets strapped in too!

This rope net was probably the hardest part

Go, Hanako, Go!

A regular Tarzan over here

sliding tree to tree!

Here she comes! Right into my arms!!!

Getting unclipped

The whole course, starting from 15 up to 20 or so feet in the air

The best soup ever!

We started biking and remembered that we were on trails around a mountain, so it was already a bit hard to begin with. We saw some signs with a lovely flower on it marking our trail and we thought it was going to be an easy breezy beautiful covered trail for the day. But it wasn't. Crazy steep ups and downs awaited us, on dirt and gravel paths. Incline after incline we walked our bikes up the trail. We passed some small ponds along the way, but it was pretty shitty in terms of bikeability with our loaded up bikes. But then again it was pretty amazing to be surrounded by so much beautiful nature, lush trees, and sunshine peeking through. We eventually came to a clearing which gave us one of the most amazing views in the world. In my life I've seen a lot of great views, and this topped a lot of them. It was quite amazing, we were pretty high up.

Nailed it!

Boner!!! Times 5!!!!

The trail down had a sign with an exclamation point and a walk your bike sign, so naturally I hopped onto my bike and sped down it as fast as I could. Not the best trail... but an amazing downhill, almost a straight shot with a few curves. We made it to a clearing of several vineyards as well as some tourist information about the area. We stopped to take a photo and to assess the next leg of travel. Yes thats right, the worst road in Czech Republic. Large bumpy road half cobblestone half dirt. Luckily it was only half of a kilometer.

Me and my honey with some helmet hair

Worst Road. EVER.

We treked on and finally made it out of our nature walk. The rest of the way was well paved and flat.

To all my fallen Czech companions (old bunker)

We finally got into town with less than an hour of sunlight left. We camped in what seemed like some ladys yard, and the rest of the residents seemed to be part of a hunting club. We caught an amazing sky before we headed out into town to the local pizzeria... which ended up being a shitty dive bar for the local folk and young drinkers. I was super pissed cuz the sign above the bar said Pizzeria and the bar wenches shirt was in English but she didn't speak any. Some drunk dude walked us down the street to the only restaurant open, which was part of a hotel in town. He asked me for some crowns for his efforts so I gave him a few, and went to eat. Unfortunately it wasn't pizza or anything I wanted for that matter. Still hungry but exhausted we headed back to our tent and bid goodnight to our neighbors, the turkeys.

I heard you like amazing sunsets, Czech it.

Our neighbors for a night

A castle and lakeside resort just for us? You shouldn't have

September 6th, 2012 Thursday

In the morning we awoke to a light rain, so we stayed in longer than usual. It cleared up by about 9 am, so we packed our things and hit the road, jack. The pathways were pretty beautiful, and the terrain pretty flat, so the morning went smoothly.

The road we hit

We stopped for lunch in a quaint little town. Everything in the square was old school stone, castle-like. I thought a dragon was going to come out and eat me at any moment. We sat outside for lunch to appreciate the square, had a delicous lunch and drank 5 Radlers (lemonade beer drink) between the two of us.

Chicken schnizel and potatoes

After lunch we treked on and it was a bit rough after that. We went through a nice trail, but it was forever and a half of uphill.

At a high point, still smiling

The hills shot up and down for a bit, and it was interesting to think that we were about a km away from the Austrian border, biking along side it. We eventually hit a major downhill with lots of twists and turns. I hit more than 30 mph, and had to slow to about 20mph for a sharp turn that almost carried Hanako off the cliff (she was ok, it was exhilirating). It was all worth it because we then saw this magnificent castle:

Oh hey I heard you like exquisite palaces, so I got you one

In our return uphill; we decided to stop and take a few more pictures of the castle. I mused that being a pesant and having the black plauge run through my town as the king sat loftily in his castle eating a fat hog for breakfast would have sucked. On a lighter note, does this castle look familiar? Well all you Vin Diesel fans, it should! Its the castle used in the film XXX we later found out.

After more uphill, two bridges and a dam, we got to this:

A beautiful lake side resort, complete with sunset, and nice Czech people. We got to the camp and looked for someone to hand money to, but no such luck. The camp was in its off season, so I asked some people standing around what we should do and how the showers worked. They in turn gave me two Czech shots and a microphone! Ok, so no mic, but two shots of that Czech moonshine that we tried in Prague and one for Hanako too. They also helped me make change for the showers which were 20kc (a little over a dollar) for 4 minutes of shower time. The peole who gave us the shots turned out to be college professors chaperoning a group of college students doing cycling tours through Czech.
We set up camp on the same lawn as the college students, and rushed to the showers before they closed at 8pm. Afterwards we went to one of the only restaurants still open and got some delicous Czech food. Mmmmm MMMmmmm Czrch us out. We met a strapping young lad named Jan (the John equivalent) who helped us translate to the cook what we wanted since our menu was in English. We ordered food and invited Jan to come and chill with us and drink. We drank there until the place closed, then moved to the fire pits close by (but without fire in them). Jan brought a bottle of Czech vodka and a few international beers that he had aquired along his travels. He also gave us blankets as we were close to the lake and it was a bit too cold for our California blood. We shared travel stories and passed the time drinking. Eventually some of the college kids came by to make a fire. One of them wanted to get it started with the plastic wrapping from the wood bundles but I said eff that! Not trying to breathe in melting plastic. Jan was kind enough to get newspaper to get the fire started. We hung out by the fire for a bit longer, and after Hanako retired to our tent, Jan conviced me to do the tree climb activity at the campsite that is his normal job in the busy season.
Czech out the next post for details and pictures...