Better to be Lucky Than Good: Day 66 - Salzburg to Frasdorf - Get It While It Lasts... A Big Loop Through Europe 2017

October 12, 2017

Better to be Lucky Than Good: Day 66 - Salzburg to Frasdorf

Serendipity - the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way:
"a fortunate stroke of serendipity"

Today we were heading west. General plan, Munich in two days then north on "The Romantic Road" bike trail towards Frankfurt ... details to be filled in day by day.

Today's first detail was 'where ae we going to sleep tonight'. Munich was roughly 150 km from Salzburg, so we went searching for something about halfway in between. Thanks to modern technology that K has now mastered, we found a reasonably priced Gasthaus a the 80 km mark in Frasdorf.

Book it Dano (I've always loved that line from Hawaii 5-O). That done, we set off from our hotel in Salzburg at a (for us) good time of 8:30.

Our first hit of serendipity today was breakfast. A quick Google search showed the nearest breakfast Café, 500 m away, was the 'Ode to Joy' ... (you'd think the Salzburgers would burn the place out ... that's that nasty Ludwig boy from Bonn, not their home boy Amadeus).

What a treat. It was more or less as vegetarian /vegan place, with mellow yoga type music playing soft in the background. It felt like we were back in Canmore!! Lovely veggie omlett, great coffee, and very relaxing. Great way to start the morning.

And what a morning, at least for the first hour. Today's ride was basically west from Salzburg bouncing along the north side of the Alps through Bavaria. Although not as dramatic as the last few days it was still beautiful, and sunny, and crisp. All great until about 10 am when the wind came up. And then up some more, right in our face. At least it wasn't raining and we could just pretend that it was another all day uphill over a pass.

So, although not a big day for km's, it was a good honest day of biking given the wind. Since we were in Germany after about 10 km, we also had the choice between at least five different bike routes to get us to where we were going. We pieced together pieces of the Mozart Trail, the Julian Trail, the Bodensee Trail and our favoutite, the Milchstrassen Radweg ... the Milk Street Bike Trail (that one is for real!). All of these are long distance cycle trails that are mostly on dedicated bike paths ... the difficulty cycling here comes from finding your way through the bike paths ... nice problem to have!

We finally made it to Frasdorf (a nice small resort town at the edge of the Alps) and found our hotel ... Landgasthof Karner ... what a gem.

Very friendly and accommodating staff, great rooms, lovely old building ... and a fantastic restaurant! Unbeknownst to us when we booked it, this place is recommended by M, Michelin. Serendipity in spades.

So after another good day of biking and thinking dinner was going to be another POP (plate of pasta) or POAP (pig on a plate), we had an exceptional 3 course dinner with another great bottle of Austrain GV. The only downside, which turned out to be a great ice breaker, was the background music. It was an '70's & 80's 'best of' thing (Abba, Doors, Queen ....). There were a few other couples (all German) having dinner too, all about the same age as us, and you could see that some of the conversation was about the music ... it sort of turned into a 'name that tune' game.

Well, that got some conversation going between some of the tables and we ended up having a great chat with Peter and Asta who were here for the weekend from Leipzig.

A great way to end the day, and not at all what we thought we would happen when we woke up this morning.

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And that leads us to ...

Song of the Day

Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas

What??? This is a double cheese song from high school days ... break out the fog machines and the big hair ... but it was the 'ice breaker song' that got everybody talking ... it's 'so bad it's good'

Beautiful morning riding west from Salzburg ... about 1 km west from this spot we crossed the river and were back in Germany again ... this time it will be our last country!

We were riding in the German 'Alp Foothills', skirting along the northen edge of the Alps

Lots of cows again, but quite a few goats and these guys who just had fresh buzz cuts!

Most of our ride today was on paved bike paths but we did have a few sections of gravel forest roads. These sections were great as the trees gave us some relief from the strong headwinds

Bavarian totem pole in Traunstein ... we had a great lunch in the town square where this pole was

More of the ride west of Traunstein ... this is a BIKE path!

The afternoon weather pattern was playing out as usual ... gathering clouds and the threat, but no delivery, of rain. The wind abated a little as we rode into Frasdorf

K checking into Landgasthof Karner ... a real gem in this relatively small town

Very nice room, there was a siting room with a couch and desk off of this room

It was not hell at all ... our post ride cleansing ale!

... and our great GV at dinner ... we are closer to the Austrain Vinyards than the Rhine so we went Austrian!

... an amazing amuse bouche ... a pork dumpling with horseradish cream and a sauerkraut foam ... very haute German cuisine ... this isn't your mama's wurst and sauerkraut!

... waiting for a refill ... I shouldn't be allowed to bring a camera to the table ... but I like making cool (to me) images with wine glasses

... our main ... Plaice roulades with smoked prawn dumplings ... subtle but amazingly delicious smoke flavor

our 'name that tune partners .. Peter and Asta

Today's ride: 83 km (52 miles)
Total: 4,708 km (2,924 miles)

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