THE IDEA AROSE from our common lives as teachers and cyclists. As we finished our bike tour in 2009 from Anacortes, Washington, to Whitefish, Montana, I asked my Italian biking pal Piero Tassinari if we could plan a European tour in Austria along the river trails. My thought was, since both of us would be retired, we could ride in September instead of touring in the crowds and heat of August as we had in the past. He agreed and said he had already ridden some of them in previous years. We thought we could do it in 2011 but it wasn’t until 2013 that our plans became reality.

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Story and photos by Chet Rideout

TOURINGAUSTRIA’SGREATRIVERS

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I purchased maps of Austria and the bike trails and established a game plan. On this tour, my wife Lynn joined us, and years were passing; my 70th birthday lurked only a month away. She was glad there would be fewer hills than our previous tours, and we also decided to stay at gasthofs (inns) and bike 25- to 30-mile days.

All three of us had long ago con-verted to recumbents because of their ergonomics — we appreciated riding in comfort, no longer suffering sore muscles or numbness from long rides. I carefully packed our bikes in big Amtrak bike boxes for our long flight to Europe, and we boarded a huge 747 British Airways jet (British Air doesn’t charge extra for bicycles) bound for London and then on to Munich.

In Munich we stayed at a B&B where we could assemble our bikes and leave our boxes behind for the return trip. Then we took a train to Innsbruck. Piero was waiting for us on the Innsbruck train platform after his shorter trip from Forli, Italy. Soon we

were wheeling through cobblestones in the old part of this magnificent moun-tain town on our way to the Inn Bike Trail, or Innradweg.

Early the next day, we began what would be our morning ritual: eat break-fast, pack a sandwich for lunch, return to the room to pack the panniers, retrieve the bikes from the garage, and load the panniers onto the racks for travel. Although it had rained that

night, the trail was already drying out and we were delighted to see the sun.

Before long, we rode up the cobble-stoned main street of Schwaz, a mining town. These silver and copper mines were the source of the fabulous wealth of the Hapsburg emperors during the 15th and 16th centuries. The parish church, built in 1490, was spectacular with the original worn stone floors and wooden box pews. It was originally divided into two seating areas, one for the laborers and their families, and the other for the well-heeled gentry.

After touring the town, we contin-ued our journey. Outside Jennbach, a transportation hub for the railroad, we found the Esterhammer, a truly elegant inn. Piero’s family arrived from Italy in a camper, and it was a great reunion. We gathered beside a flower-draped ve-randa and caught up on the latest news over a beer. The hostess even offered to do our laundry, and we found the Esterhammer had an indoor pool.

The next day was Sunday, and there was a celebration at the church up the

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road to commemorate the successful grazing season of the cattle in high pastures. A three-man brass ensemble passed us on their way to regale the congregation. We coasted down to the trail, biking in fair weather past a number of small towns, pausing only for “refueling” at a bakery. Our goal was Kufstein, a charming medieval town near the German border. It has a castle dating to the 13th century, which was modified by Bavarian ruler Maximilian in the 1500s. We stayed in what must have been the honeymoon suite at an elegant hotel, and again Piero’s family joined us for a traditional Austrian sup-per in the old town.

We then headed north into Germany. Here the trail ran as a towpath along straight banks, and much of the way was made up of a sandy gravel. The trail signs on this side of the border changed from Innradweg to Inntal (Inn Valley). In May there had been huge floods on the Inn and Danube, and we saw another sign frequently: Umleitung — detour. Mud slides and erosion from

powerful May floods had required that the trail be rerouted. As we approached Rosenheim, we found the first inn full, but we soon settled in at the beautiful Hoppingerhof.

In the morning, we retrieved our bikes, and a truck pulled a huge trailer out of the garage with 30 bicycles on it labeled Eurobike. This trail supports an enormous number of riders, mostly

during the summer. The Danube Bike Trail from Passau to Vienna is ridden by 300,000 riders each year!

During the rest of the tour, we had rain almost every day, but we had de-cent weather as we rode to Wasserburg. After lunch, however, the trail left the river and became quite hilly and the rain returned. By the time we reached Gars, it was very wet, and after quite

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a strenuous day we stayed at a privat zimmer, or private room.

Lynn was feeling the effects of our last day and wanted to take a break from the hills and the rain so we rolled our bikes onto a train to Passau. Piero still wanted to ride these last two days along the Inn so he left in the rain from the station. After a relatively short trip, we disembarked and worked our way to the Rotel Inn, a pleasant place with a wonderful view of the Inn River from the breakfast area. We found, however, that it had the small-est bedrooms imaginable — 5 feet by 10!

My old camera had stopped working so I purchased another in town, and we walked around Passau. This was a super town that we enjoyed more than any others we visited on the tour. A highlight was St. Stephen’s Cathedral. The original church burned in 1662 and was rebuilt in spectacular fash-ion. Italian artists were brought in to contribute exciting sculptures and frescoes. We attended a mass and later went to an organ concert performed there on the largest organ in the world. It had 18,000 organ pipes in four caril-lons, all controlled with one keyboard — what a sound!

After our second night at the Rotel Inn, Piero arrived from his solo biking excursion as scheduled, somewhat the worse for wear. He had ridden through heavy rain both days on the sandy gravel trail. The sand had worn his brake shoes down to the metal and scored the sides of his rims. While he was getting settled at the inn, Lynn and I, armed with rags and a bucket of soapy water, washed the bikes and cleaned and lubed their chains.

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WHEN TO GO The Inn and Danube trails are extremely busy during the summer months, especial-ly in August. We rode in September and it was quite

wet, which I attributed to fall weather. In The Danube Cycle Way, John Higginson notes, however, that during a 40-day July-August ride on the Danube trail it rained at least a portion of all but five days. During the high season, reservations must be made in advance (at least two days), and you will not be lonesome; the trail will be packed with cyclists. Condi-tions can be quite cool, even in the summer; we found that winds were seldom strong, but usually flowed in our direction (west to east).

MAPS, GUIDEBOOKS The best maps are the Bikeline series (1-3) for the Danube Bike Trail. Bikeline #2 is the only one in English, and covers the Passau-

Vienna stretch. For the Inn trail I found the “Innrad-weg - Inn Bike Trail” map by Freytag and Berndt to be excellent. Maps of the cities (Munich, Linz, and Vienna)

are best purchased locally and are much cheaper in Europe.

ROUTEThe trail is well marked, and usually easy to follow. With the guidebooks there should be no problem. The guides also make suggestions as to which river bank you should follow at which stage of the ride. 

EQUIPMENTSince we wanted to use our recumbents we boxed and took our bikes, a process I have found to be the toughest part of any European bike trip. We flew British Air be-cause the boxed bikes travel free. We decided not to camp this time because locating camp sites and shopping at grocery stores is difficult,

very little money is saved, and it rains often enough (especially at night) to make camping unpleasant. B&B accommodations also stored our bikes in a garage, whereas they would be in the rain while camping. We used rear panniers; rental bikes that I saw were provided with rear racks, so panniers would work well if you decide to rent a bicycle. It would be best, however, to make sure they are waterproof. Bike shops are common, and are listed in the guidebooks.

FOODWe stayed at privat zimmers and gasthaus accommoda-tions; both provide breakfast, and we made a lunch from rolls and lunch meats. Most of these, except the zimmers, also serve dinner. Bakeries are also common along the route. Water was plentiful throughout the trip.  

COMMUNICATIONOne of the biggest problems we faced was communication by phone. Finding a SIM card for a cell phone that works in both Austria and Germany is difficult. A SIM card I bought online in the U.S. did not work at all, and it couldn’t be tested until I arrived at the airport in Munich. When I purchased another in Germa-ny, I had to figure out how to buy minutes over a computer with instructions in German!

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At breakfast the next morning we met Stephan and his wife Simone from eastern Germany. He told me about the Bikeline map of the Danauradweg or Danube Bike Trail. I wanted to get one but, not finding one in English in Passau, I had to wait until Linz. After visiting a bike shop to fix Piero’s brakes, we crossed the Danube and were thrilled to again be touring on a paved trail. From here downstream, the Danube was huge because Passau was at the confluence where the German Danube and the much larger Inn River combine.

During this first of two days riding to Linz, we noticed that the river takes a sharp S-shaped bend, and the trail ex-ists only on the south side. We crossed on a small ferry designed to haul bicy-cles. At Inzell we stayed at a gasthaus and visited the quaint St. Nicholas Church. In the year 1155, a nobleman who was rescued from drowning by local citizens had shown his appreci-ation by building this church for the community. Our evening meal featured stewed venison with spetzle and dark beer — delicious!

We had read that the upcoming trail traversed a very natural stretch of river, and we enjoyed watching the Mute Swans. At Ottensheim we crossed the river again, this time on a ferry suspended from a cable. It crossed the river entirely by water power. The rud-der on the raft made use of the rapidly flowing river water to push it across in either direction. Before long, we reached Linz where we visited the New Cathedral with seating for 20,000 and rode trams about town, and I bought the Bikeline guide at a bookstore. In the afternoon, we loaded up and rode in the rain to Langenstein.

The next day, we endured a very cold and wet ride to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial, mak-ing our visit very grim indeed. Here, 200,000 prisoners came from 40 coun-tries — the majority were, surprisingly, Spanish Catholics opposed to fascism. Everyone should visit one of these camps, but it is a sobering experience. We left this sad memorial and again ferried across the river. The weather lifted and we pedaled on to Ardagger Markt.

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This town, which had been ravaged by numerous floods in addition to this year’s flood, had a beautiful gasthaus called the Schiffsmeister Haus. This building was always just above the floodwaters and dated back to the 15th century. The next morning, there was driving rain, and we purchased some ponchos to help keep us dry. For our next overnight stop we picked the town of Ybbs and toured the Fahrradmuseum (bicycle museum). They had a compre-hensive collection of European bicycles all the way back to the velocipedes.

We were delighted the next morning to see blue sky from our room! Joyfully we biked down the trail, and before long the skyline was dominated by the sight of the spectacular Benedictine Abbey on top of a high plateau in Melk. We visited the abbey, which was built in the early 1700s. Inside is a high baroque church with a dome reaching almost 200 feet above the floor with frescoes and gilded statuary in every direction. The abbey also houses one of the most comprehensive church libraries in Europe, as well as quite a collection of

religious art.Again mounting our loaded bikes,

we crossed a high bridge and on the north side of the river rode east into the Wachau Valley, famous for its extensive vineyards and sunflower fields. This region has supported an agricultural community for 30,000 years and has a Mediterranean climate. In Spitz we vis-ited a 14th century church and stayed at a fine inn.

At Krems we stopped at one of the local wineries and enjoyed their red

wine during lunch in the city park. Downstream in Traismauer the Infos-tation directed us to a privat zimmer called Familie Schopper, and the lady of the house waved us into their driveway when we approached.

We rode east to Tulln where we talk-ed with two road bikers from Vienna, and miles later we stayed at the Gasthof Bar in Greifenstein. Checking our maps that evening we found that it was only about 15 miles to Vienna.

The next day, we hit the trail at 8:30

Passau, Germany, sits at the junction of the Ilz, Inn, and Danube rivers.

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AM, eventually turned off the Danube River Trail onto the Danube Canal Trail, which led to the town of Wien (Vienna). This is a big city with a population of 1.6 million so even with our maps we found navigation a little difficult. We eventually found the Ring Roads that circle the old town, and with considerable difficulty we found our way to our two-night stop, an apart-ment we had rented through AirBnB. After settling Lynn in bed with a cold, Piero found on his iPhone that there was a bicycle tour of Vienna available through a company called Pedal Power (pedalpower.at). He signed us up on an English-speaking tour for the next day.

The following morning Lynn stayed back while Piero and I rode our unload-ed bikes toward the historic town cen-ter. The group gathering for the Pedal Power tour hailed from Australia, New Zealand, England, and Canada, and we got in some lively conversations. Our host, Horst Harrer, had a great sense of humor. He told us scandalous stories about Vienna’s past and present. On the tour, we saw the Jesuit Church of St. Michael with its flat ceiling painted with the trompe l’oeil effect, making it look like a dome. We viewed spectacu-lar statuary in copper and marble and the Mozart Memorial. I was particularly struck by Mozart’s enormous musi-cal legacy and the fact that he died (a victim of too much gambling and too many parties, according to Horst) at age 34!

The next day we discussed our wonderful trip over coffee and said our goodbyes at the train station. Piero was heading to Innsbruck then back to Italy, and we were on our way to Munich. We arrived during Oktoberfest and had to weave our way through crowds of revelers on the way to our rented room. After boxing our bikes, we again traveled by cab to the airport to embark upon our 14-hour return to Seattle.

Chet Rideout has been an avid photographer and cyclist since 1980, and has written articles about his recumbent touring trips in the U.S., Canada, France, and Italy. He and his wife, Lynn, live in Port Townsend, Washington, where they like to explore the regional waters by sea kayak.