Day 6: A detour to Austria

July 19, 2024

Buchs, CH to Egnach, CH (via LI+AT)

The day started as usual. Since it was a hotel night I ate the hotel fare breakfast - meat, cheese, and some kind of yogurt. A little bit of oats. This is a nice break from my camp breakfasts which are just bars or a banana if I have one. Meat or even cheese for breakfast is still weird to me though but I’m not complaining. Tasted pretty good.

I rolled off around 0845 on a quest to continue my detour. It turns out Austria is also right around the corner so I could make a stop in Feldkirch and Lustenau before following the Rhine (and Lake Kostanz) back westwards.

If I was a social media influencer I would title this entry something clickbaity like “I crossed a country in a single day on a bicycle” or “the day I biked through three countries”. But I’m just a normal person so instead let me tell you about the day I technically crossed one of Europe’s smallest country in a day and then popped into Austria about three hours before going back to Switzerland.

Now as I said I had to go back through Liechtenstein. That’s no problem, that’s old hat now I’m a very experienced Liechtensteinian traveler at this point and understand the local culture. I biked through some farms in the northern tippy top of the country for under 10km then I was in Austria. Crazy story right?

In Austria, the first stop was Feldkirch.

Now I’m not naive enough to think that simply because you cross an international border all of a sudden the local culture is going to be super different. It’s all still German speaking here but yet another dialect. This is anecdotal but all of their streets are not “strasse” but rather “straBe” using the more standard German character I expected to see. Also the architecture is minutely different.

I also think that eastern Austria will deserve its own trip perhaps with Hungary and Czechia. But that’s not time I have right now so I will continue sampling a little of everything this trip.

One thing that’s pretty neat is even though my cycling computer has been refusing to hold a charge lately is I don’t even really need a nav device. Even out here in these small towns all the cycle ways are clearly labeled. As long as I knew I was going to Lustenau, all I had to do was play I Spy the Sign.

I travelled another 30km up to Lustenau where I stopped at Hofer mart for lunch from my bag of grocery goodies. I also bought the Austrian national soda: an Almdudler. It’s herby with a hint of lime. It’s pretty good.

I hear they sell these in NYC too so… if you want to try one go for it

Finally I set off for my final very hot couple of hours to Egnach, in Switzerland along lake Kostanz. The lake was pretty. There are many beach towns along it where people were out suntanning or enjoying a nice day on the beach.

What the heck is this car like contraption? But it’s speed limited at 10kph so I guess it’s okay.

Lake Kostanz. On the other side there, that’s Deutschland

On one side the lake on the other was a train

The campground was very nice and I mostly just setup, grabbed a bite, and retreated to my tent to read an Agatha Christie novel on my kindle. This is a sign that the novelty of the tour has begun to wear off (in a good way!) it’s still damn fun but it’s now becoming routine and I am willing to let myself just rest when I need it rather than striking up or being stricken up by other campers for chatting.

Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 425 km (264 miles)

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