Munich and East
- Thread starter Tony
- Start date
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Domestique
Über Member
Looking forward to this, have some good memories of my time in and around Munchen.
Short version is that I flew to Munich and rode the Isar radweg to the Danube, then down that river through Passau, Vienna and Bratislava to Budapest; across to Lake Balaton, train to Szolnok and then toured around the Tisza and Puszta. One rip-off, one faery visit, one broken spoke.
HJ
Cycling in Scotland
- Location
- Auld Reekie
Looking forward to reading the write up...
I arrived at Munich airport from T5 in the early evening. Of course, I was short some luggage--two panniers, to be precise. They turned up on the next flight, 90 minutes later. I set off in the dark for a camp site. Hit a motorway. Tried the other direction. Ditto. After asking some very unhelpful cops I was taken into a rather upmarket hotel by a businessman, where they suggested the S-Bahn, but also offered to take me to the normal roads in the hotel luggage van, the first of several acts of generosity I would experience. I took the S-Bahn to Neufahrn, saw it was now 2230, the next train would be in 34 minutes, and there was a Gasthaus with weisswurst and beer thirty yards away....
Over the next two and a half days I rode up the Isar, which was in spate with lots of flood debris, on a variety of surfaces that were mostly some form of "kies" (gravel). I had a few problems near Landshut with teenagers riding deliberately at me; they were all drunk at the end of the chool year.
Ferry over the Danube at Thundorf, into a small village with, of all things, a museum to the F104 Starfighter ("G for Germany Herr Minister"; "Hmmm, also 'G for Gott strafe England'. Where do I sign?"), holding a couple of them with a MiG21.
The Danube was very high, with lots of sheep penned against the dykes by flood waters, and the Radweg went from dyke to back road to village street, passing shedloads of facilities purely for two-wheelers. Wonderful!
Through Passau, where I nearly got taken out by a blind ped. We had a shouted conversation as she stepped off the footpath in front of me, that culminated in me shouting, in German, "Oy! You! The blonde! Look out!"
She suggested I should have rung my bell, and I asked her what good that would have done when she was clearly deaf as well as blind. And ugly.
Passau had started with a cherry picker crane parked squarely across the cycleway, its crew having sodded off for the weekend, and was my first introduction to bloody cruise ship passengers. It was soon past, and the route became a nice spin along good surfaces past Nixy statues and massive barges. Austria....
Over the next two and a half days I rode up the Isar, which was in spate with lots of flood debris, on a variety of surfaces that were mostly some form of "kies" (gravel). I had a few problems near Landshut with teenagers riding deliberately at me; they were all drunk at the end of the chool year.
Ferry over the Danube at Thundorf, into a small village with, of all things, a museum to the F104 Starfighter ("G for Germany Herr Minister"; "Hmmm, also 'G for Gott strafe England'. Where do I sign?"), holding a couple of them with a MiG21.
The Danube was very high, with lots of sheep penned against the dykes by flood waters, and the Radweg went from dyke to back road to village street, passing shedloads of facilities purely for two-wheelers. Wonderful!
Through Passau, where I nearly got taken out by a blind ped. We had a shouted conversation as she stepped off the footpath in front of me, that culminated in me shouting, in German, "Oy! You! The blonde! Look out!"
She suggested I should have rung my bell, and I asked her what good that would have done when she was clearly deaf as well as blind. And ugly.
Passau had started with a cherry picker crane parked squarely across the cycleway, its crew having sodded off for the weekend, and was my first introduction to bloody cruise ship passengers. It was soon past, and the route became a nice spin along good surfaces past Nixy statues and massive barges. Austria....
Lone Rider
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Costa Daurada
Tony said:
Do you think she deliberately stepped in front of you? Perhaps a failed suicide attempt? Your aggressive reaction won't help the next cyclist that she meets.
HJ
Cycling in Scotland
- Location
- Auld Reekie
Evidently this was a diplomatic tour to spread peace and harmony.... 
[sigh]Lone Rider said:
I'm riding slowly along a marked cycle path in Passau. There are other cyclists behind me. She is stepping off the footpath whilst looking right. I call out "Hello!" politely and calmly, repeating and getting louder as she pays no attention. I shout out "Look out!" a couple of times, finally, as she decides to stop dead right in front of me, shouting "Oy you, the blonde! Look out!" in German.
This last was from about three feet from hitting her. I was already braking, but there were other bikes behind me as previously described. At this point, she turned and looked at me, and made it very clear that she was totally unsurprised by my presence. She said "You should have rung your bell"
"I don't have one. Anyway, would you have heard it when you didn't hear my voice?"
"Real cyclists have bells. But you're too fat to be a real cyclist"
"So what good would a bell do when you are clearly deaf as well as blind. And ugly too, but I can always diet"
HJ
Cycling in Scotland
- Location
- Auld Reekie
snorri
Legendary Member
- Location
- East coast, up a bit.
This is not uncommon behaviour amongst passengers and amateur sailors who come off boats or ships, it's as if a few hours afloat has erased a lifetime of road safety learning and experience.Tony said:
Austria was a delight. I crossed the border just after the punningly-named Haus an der Strohm, where there was a Rad station. Free tools (on security wires), pump, cafe, free maps, advice....why can't we do that?
Lots and lots of flood damage, where heavy rain had flooded the side streams, which were running so fast in some places that they were tearing up the tarmac and pushing it downhill in great folds.
One of the features of this section is ferries. There is a great S-bend at Schlogen, where I took a tiny wooden ferry specifically built for bikes across the Danube, and then back to the left bank. Clouds were lifting through the trees as I stopped at Obermuhl, and it was a gorgeous view.
It was more of the same to the edge of Linz, crossing the river on great hydroelectricity dams, but the approach to Linz itself can only be described as a Bit Crap, with a farcility that ran beside a very busy road and then began stopping for all the junctions. Just like home.
Linz was bypassed through a riverside park in the rain, past a swimming lake with families under trees as damp barbeques steamed, and I stopped at a sort-of-hostel in Steyregg, spending the evening talking about all sorts with a great German lad called Lars (as well as drinking beer...)
Back on the road, and into chocolate box Austria. The only exception to this was a charming little town called Mauthausen, with prosperous houses, a pretty flower shop (called 'BlumenEck'...) and a concentration camp out the back. Riding was through woodlands, and orchards, steadily changing views across the river interspersed with loops 'inland' on quet roads. The scenery changed from a narrow gorge to an immens plain, and back to a gorge, and then opened again. I was doing my usual chatting with the locals, and seeing a small selection of cyclists that I would pass, and then see again as I took a coffee. At Grein I said goodbye to one pair I had ridden with for about ten miles as they headed back to their hotel, and the rain came down in torrents.
It rained all thw way to Ybbs....but the next day was fine, and I was coming into the officially most scenic section. Lots of vineyards, lots of little castles and churches, and the vast orange abbey at Melk, which meant more cruise crowds.
Schonbuhel came as a surprise, with an actual HILL that was a little bit of a grind, but gave my first chance of a decent descent , always fun fully loaded. The floods were worse along here, and near Durnstein I had to ride across folded tarmac through running water. The ferry to Durnstein gives views of the castle where Richard I was held hostage as well as a truly pretty blue and white church.
And more cruise crowds.
Then Krems, which oddly seemed to have two "old towns" and which I left following a filthy and smelly canal, no hotels, no camp sites, no food along there till I spotted a garage and grabbed some sarnies. Middle of nowhere, it seemed, then I spotted a church and yes,the village had a Gasthaus. With food, a room, and beer, but not in that order.
Lots and lots of flood damage, where heavy rain had flooded the side streams, which were running so fast in some places that they were tearing up the tarmac and pushing it downhill in great folds.
One of the features of this section is ferries. There is a great S-bend at Schlogen, where I took a tiny wooden ferry specifically built for bikes across the Danube, and then back to the left bank. Clouds were lifting through the trees as I stopped at Obermuhl, and it was a gorgeous view.
It was more of the same to the edge of Linz, crossing the river on great hydroelectricity dams, but the approach to Linz itself can only be described as a Bit Crap, with a farcility that ran beside a very busy road and then began stopping for all the junctions. Just like home.
Linz was bypassed through a riverside park in the rain, past a swimming lake with families under trees as damp barbeques steamed, and I stopped at a sort-of-hostel in Steyregg, spending the evening talking about all sorts with a great German lad called Lars (as well as drinking beer...)
Back on the road, and into chocolate box Austria. The only exception to this was a charming little town called Mauthausen, with prosperous houses, a pretty flower shop (called 'BlumenEck'...) and a concentration camp out the back. Riding was through woodlands, and orchards, steadily changing views across the river interspersed with loops 'inland' on quet roads. The scenery changed from a narrow gorge to an immens plain, and back to a gorge, and then opened again. I was doing my usual chatting with the locals, and seeing a small selection of cyclists that I would pass, and then see again as I took a coffee. At Grein I said goodbye to one pair I had ridden with for about ten miles as they headed back to their hotel, and the rain came down in torrents.
It rained all thw way to Ybbs....but the next day was fine, and I was coming into the officially most scenic section. Lots of vineyards, lots of little castles and churches, and the vast orange abbey at Melk, which meant more cruise crowds.
Schonbuhel came as a surprise, with an actual HILL that was a little bit of a grind, but gave my first chance of a decent descent , always fun fully loaded. The floods were worse along here, and near Durnstein I had to ride across folded tarmac through running water. The ferry to Durnstein gives views of the castle where Richard I was held hostage as well as a truly pretty blue and white church.
And more cruise crowds.
Then Krems, which oddly seemed to have two "old towns" and which I left following a filthy and smelly canal, no hotels, no camp sites, no food along there till I spotted a garage and grabbed some sarnies. Middle of nowhere, it seemed, then I spotted a church and yes,the village had a Gasthaus. With food, a room, and beer, but not in that order.
