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I can't take credit for this myself as it was written by the wonderful Chris Bish for VeloBalls but I thought you might enjoy it. The full article (with photos) is here - http://veloballs.com/cycle-touring-danube/
Let the ship take the strain – cycle touring the (very) easy way.
Cycle-cruising the Danube.
When I first set off for the “continent” on two self-propelled wheels, it was on a single-speed bike laden with camping gear and with a minimal amount of money. Nearly 50 years on, I, like many have discovered the joys of load-free cycling as companies take your gear from place to place ahead of you and leave the rider unencumbered. The ultimate has to be what we have just done, which is to tour in Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary accompanied by a river-cruise ship voyaging down the mighty Danube - Europe’s longest river.
The benefits are obvious: your hotel accompanies you, so no packing and unpacking. Food and drink is supplied; you get to go to great places and can miss out the dull bits by sitting on the ship as it does the work for you. And you sleep in the same (reasonably) comfortable cabin every night.
The Danube Cycle Path is, between Passau in Germany and Vienna anyway, Europe’s most popular cycle route with over half a million riders using it each year. It is neither particularly busy nor crowded. Nor is it always just a cycle path. There are places where cars use it too and there are sections where it leaves the river and ventures through villages and farmland. The great cities of Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava are on the river, and we visited all three as part of our trip. The trip includes the well-known tourist areas of the Loop and the Wachau region as well as those cities.
Isn’t it a bit dull? You know, riding a cycle path along the same river for a week? Not much in the way of hills. Isn’t it all a bit samey? Not at all, would be my answer. Admittedly, we only cycled on four of the six days –there are two “city” days- and only a total of around 200km, but the nature of our tour gave us plenty of variety both in our cycling and in what we saw along the way.
If you are still reading, then you haven’t dismissed the whole thing as too soft and “not really cycling” so here goes with some itemised detail:
The Tour: The tour we booked was through Austrian company Rad + Reisen. Transport to where the trip begins – Passau in Germany - is not included so flights to Munich or Vienna (both rail linked to Passau) will have to be added. We were the only English party, but there was about a 50/50 split between English and German speaking travellers at the separate briefings. Fourteen nationalities were represented. The youngest rider was 7: the oldest 80 with the majority being, ahem, “mature”. The organisation and support was excellent with the genial Tour Director always on hand to give briefings, advice and to solve problems. The ship, and at 120 metres length with 200 on board, a ship it truly is, was a bit old, but did the job. Certainly not the height of luxury, but superb value, with an enthusiastic and hard-working young crew.
The Danube: is wide and deep and tracks its way through every phase of humankind’s history. We visited the site and replica of the Palaeolithic “Venus of Willendorf”, which at the time of its discovery was the oldest representation of a human figure known. Nearby is the spectacular castle where Richard the Lionheart was held prisoner. More recent history is represented by Cold War bunkers on the way into Bratislava – indeed, we cycled along the line of the Iron Curtain and admired the nesting storks in what is now a tranquil scene. Much of the river is wooded and feels remote from civilisation. Sometimes the ship travels all night but its engines are quiet and sleeping is not an issue. Some of the places the ship is berthed are spectacular. A few hundred meters from the old centre of Bratislava with its quirky statues, and the sense of a new country proudly creating itself; in the centre of Budapest as the lights come up on the magnificent parliament building and the bridges sparkle; a short tram-ride from the heart of Vienna with its grand buildings and music, and for variety, the rural tranquillity of the towns and villages of this beautiful part of Europe.
Read on! - http://veloballs.com/cycle-touring-danube/
Let the ship take the strain – cycle touring the (very) easy way.
Cycle-cruising the Danube.
When I first set off for the “continent” on two self-propelled wheels, it was on a single-speed bike laden with camping gear and with a minimal amount of money. Nearly 50 years on, I, like many have discovered the joys of load-free cycling as companies take your gear from place to place ahead of you and leave the rider unencumbered. The ultimate has to be what we have just done, which is to tour in Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary accompanied by a river-cruise ship voyaging down the mighty Danube - Europe’s longest river.
The benefits are obvious: your hotel accompanies you, so no packing and unpacking. Food and drink is supplied; you get to go to great places and can miss out the dull bits by sitting on the ship as it does the work for you. And you sleep in the same (reasonably) comfortable cabin every night.
The Danube Cycle Path is, between Passau in Germany and Vienna anyway, Europe’s most popular cycle route with over half a million riders using it each year. It is neither particularly busy nor crowded. Nor is it always just a cycle path. There are places where cars use it too and there are sections where it leaves the river and ventures through villages and farmland. The great cities of Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava are on the river, and we visited all three as part of our trip. The trip includes the well-known tourist areas of the Loop and the Wachau region as well as those cities.
Isn’t it a bit dull? You know, riding a cycle path along the same river for a week? Not much in the way of hills. Isn’t it all a bit samey? Not at all, would be my answer. Admittedly, we only cycled on four of the six days –there are two “city” days- and only a total of around 200km, but the nature of our tour gave us plenty of variety both in our cycling and in what we saw along the way.
If you are still reading, then you haven’t dismissed the whole thing as too soft and “not really cycling” so here goes with some itemised detail:
The Tour: The tour we booked was through Austrian company Rad + Reisen. Transport to where the trip begins – Passau in Germany - is not included so flights to Munich or Vienna (both rail linked to Passau) will have to be added. We were the only English party, but there was about a 50/50 split between English and German speaking travellers at the separate briefings. Fourteen nationalities were represented. The youngest rider was 7: the oldest 80 with the majority being, ahem, “mature”. The organisation and support was excellent with the genial Tour Director always on hand to give briefings, advice and to solve problems. The ship, and at 120 metres length with 200 on board, a ship it truly is, was a bit old, but did the job. Certainly not the height of luxury, but superb value, with an enthusiastic and hard-working young crew.
The Danube: is wide and deep and tracks its way through every phase of humankind’s history. We visited the site and replica of the Palaeolithic “Venus of Willendorf”, which at the time of its discovery was the oldest representation of a human figure known. Nearby is the spectacular castle where Richard the Lionheart was held prisoner. More recent history is represented by Cold War bunkers on the way into Bratislava – indeed, we cycled along the line of the Iron Curtain and admired the nesting storks in what is now a tranquil scene. Much of the river is wooded and feels remote from civilisation. Sometimes the ship travels all night but its engines are quiet and sleeping is not an issue. Some of the places the ship is berthed are spectacular. A few hundred meters from the old centre of Bratislava with its quirky statues, and the sense of a new country proudly creating itself; in the centre of Budapest as the lights come up on the magnificent parliament building and the bridges sparkle; a short tram-ride from the heart of Vienna with its grand buildings and music, and for variety, the rural tranquillity of the towns and villages of this beautiful part of Europe.
Read on! - http://veloballs.com/cycle-touring-danube/
