Day 87: Vienna to Salzburg (at 3 p.m.) and on to Ulm: Goodbye Sacher and Mozart (in that order).

August 14, 2012

I am writing this bit sitting on some steps in the train station in Salzburg. The station, like that in Vienna is very clean and modern, and has a good selection of coffee, pastry, and sandwiches. This one even has a quite large Spar grocery store. What is does not have is any seats (at all!).

We got up at 5 this morning and quickly broke camp. Our train to Salzburg was set for 9:44, from the West Banhof. We are now (after two whole days) seasoned Vienna experts, but our ability to get lost is also well developed, so we wanted to leave plenty of time.

We cycled the 15 km to the station, first along the Donau radweg and then on the Gurtel radweg, as recommended in the guestbook by Brian Wasson. The Gurtel (belt) is the second level of ring road that surrounds the old town. Out at this distance from the old town (not very far at all) the city looks like any other. In fact it is rather more drab and higgledy-piggledy than most. This is despite quite a few quite nice buildings standing around, but the roadways and general organization are not there, and strangely there are quite a few sex shops and suchlike along the way.

The bahnhof itself, though, was modern and clean. We bought a pile of sandwiches and pastries to help us survive the trip. The Austrian train company (OBB) seems to have free roving assistance workers in the station. Whether she was one of these of these or not, a young woman in a yellow reflective vest was very helpful, showing us where our train would leave from, and importantly, letting us know that as soon as the train entered the station we could go and begin work on getting our bikes on board.

Two gulps into my latte and the train was there (about an hour before scheduled departure). We sallied out onto the platform and found ourselves surrounded by other cyclists with the same idea. I found the car with the bike section (wood floor, lots of racks and straps), but the large door to the section needed to load from the platform would not open (from inside or out). Apparently, the conductor is in charge of supervising the loading of the car, and he had not shown up yet.

The other way in was up stairs to a narrow corridor, with a sharp left turn. We cyclists decided to give it a go, and cooperatively lifted all the loaded bikes in. By the time the conductor showed up, it was all done. He was not exactly pleased, but got told off for being late by the German speaking contingent of our “group”. He is not the chief, we the customers are the chief, they asserted.

The rest was easy. The train was not crowded, and the hard fought kilometres we had cycled from Salzburg just melted back. In no time we were dropping our bikes back onto a platform. Now we are waiting for our train to come up on the screen that will tell us the platform. It’s the calm before the storm. Soon we will be into finding the train, the exact coach, the safe spot for the bikes, the way to lift them on. Maybe I will go find a coffee…

Wow, the coffee lady filled up my whole thermos. I did not expect to see that again in Europe. Better than that, we ran into Peter Leitner. He is one of the train company employees whose job it is to circulate and help people. As we sat on our steps for a couple of hours, we had a chance to observe him in operation. We saw that not only is he approachable, but also he senses when people need help and approaches them. Dodie went in to the ticket office and registered a compliment for him with the staff there. They said they know, he is the best.

When our “number” came up on the big screen, Peter walked us to the right elevator and saw us onto it. Up one level, we were looking at a chart, trying to decide where on the platform our car would be. We turned around and here was Peter. He had followed us up, sensing no doubt that we would have trouble figuring it out. Score a touchdown for OBB!

Unlike at the last platform, the cyclists seemed a bit competitive about getting on board. Two in particular charged to the front and lifted their bikes on, without caring about the others or how all the bikes would best pack together. Dodie, in relative terms an old lady, struggled with her end of her bike as we lifted it up steep steps. No help forthcoming. As Dodie then struggled to find a place for her bike on board, I was left on my own to lift my fully loaded bike into the air and carry it up the stairs. Good thing I am so immensely strong! After that I lifted other bikes over ones in the front of the car to allow them to be stored in space still at the back. As I say, there was not a lot of cooperation or coordination among the cyclists this time. Still, no one (and no bike) was left behind, and we are all on our way (north) west.

We made it to Ulm, and got our bikes off the train with only a bit of shoving of other bikes out of the way. Three old timers (meaning – older than us!) helped with lifting the bikes down. So there we were at the station in Ulm around 7 p.m. and no idea of where any camping might be, except that our Bikeline map and Google Maps did not feel there was any. The only “Information” in the station was train information, and they said dunno, ask a taxi driver outside.

We actually did that, and two helpful drivers chipped in that there was camping about 2 km away, They recommended we take a trolley there, Hah, clearly they had not just lifted loaded bikes in and out of trains all day. Anyway, we just followed the trolley tracks, which brought is to a stelleplatz – a parking lot for camping cars. We felt if they could squat there (up to three days, the sign said) so could we. There were no facilities, but hey.

Since it was still light and we did not want to set up until dark, we headed into the city for a look around the old town. Our friend Rene from Zurich had seemed to like Ulm a lot, but while we found the old cathedral to be really old looking and interesting, it was surrounded by much newer (but still pretty old) buildings, without the charm of many we had seen in other old towns. We explored other streets of the old town, and again, ok, but not blow your socks off.

We went down toward the Donau and struck a very old area, including an extremely old and listing to one side building, now a hotel (see photos, when and if internet allows). At the waterfront itself we were disappointed to see lots of litter and cigarette buts all around, plus graffiti. I shot photos of that the next morning, so look at tomorrow for the photos.

Just a little distance from the Donau, in a park like corridor, we decided we may as well pitch the tent right there, rather than wending our way back to the car park. We cleared out a little spot under some big trees and whipped up the tent.

It turned out to be one of our best stealth camps – no bands of carousing teenagers, no herds of dog walkers, no horse riders. Just relative quiet, and some church bells.

With no internet available, we gave in to total exhaustion and fell asleep at 9 p.m. The alarm was set, though, for 5 a.m.!