June 10, 2017
Day 7 - Tulln to Vienna
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
I never understand why the last day of a bike tour makes me just want to finish the thing. We do this for pleasure! Why am I ready to quit already? The human mind (well, mine anyway) is a strange thing.
So we were up and ready to go on a cloudy-bright Saturday morning. The town square in Tulln was buzzing with the setup of what looked like a craft fair.
We walked through the fair, avoiding the harried vendors as they moved boxes around, and were quickly out of town on the usual fantastic bike paths.
We had plenty of time today. Our shuttle bus was due to pick us up at 2PM in Vienna, and we had only 40k or so to ride. So we dawdled down the bike path, taking breaks at will. We stopped for coffee in Klosterneuburg. Robin likes how coffee or hot chocolate always comes with a glass of water in Austria. Very civilized.
And then, before we were really ready, there was the Vienna city limits sign. We traded picture-taking with another biking couple.
From the city limits to our hotel rendezvous point was still a bit of riding. Luckily, the bike infrastructure in Vienna is so well-done that we rode right into the center of the city without having to share the road at all with cars.
We navigated our way onto a long island in the middle of the Danube. We stopped to take pictures and generally waste time. Which we had a lot of - it was only about 11AM.
We found a cafe and had lunch - a little on the early side, but we were celebrating.
Finally, about an hour too early, we rode to our hotel rendezvous point and camped out in the lobby - waiting for the shuttle.
The bike waited patiently outside - its work done for this trip.
The shuttle was a bit late and the surly driver was upset by the sight of a tandem. In my broken German, I tried to tell him that the bike would fold and eventually he got it. He strapped the bike flat onto the trailer and wrenched it down with straps. Way too hard, I thought at the time. What a jerk. In fact, he ended up doing some damage to the bike. But that's another story.
The ride back to Schärding was boring but only took a couple of hours. We were back in the hotel we started out from. We cleaned up and had dinner and drinks in the biergarten again. Then a good nights sleep.
Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 378 km (235 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 8 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |