To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Finally, after almost 2 1/2 years we were back biking in Europe. Even though it’s only going to be a short 5 days, we are still excited about it.
Like yesterday, the weather forecast called for overcast but dry conditions until mid afternoon when rain was due again. We’ve only about 45 km’s to go today so with an early start (8:30 - early for us) we managed to avoid the rain.
Even though our start was early, it was slow. Ride a block, stop and micro-adjust one seat. Ride another block, stop and move the panniers slightly, and so on. We eventually had everything set just-right, and the silver lining in this was that as we were riding north along the Salznach the clock struck 9 (on a Sunday - Mother’s Day no less) and the many many church bells in Salzburg started ringing. It was a very nice touch.
Once we hit the Alterbach river on the north end of Salzburg, we headed east on the Salzkammergut Radweg (which makes up part of the long distance Mozart cycle route) towards the lakes and mountains. Cycling bliss!
The route along the Salzkammergut Radweg was very rural and pastoral. Farmers cutting hay, horses, cows and a few piglets too. There were also quite a few other folks out riding, mostly day riders, and mostly on e-bikes. We are most certainly in the very small minority now.
We only had one ‘route decision’ to make all day. At the ~20 km mark at Thalgau we had an option of continuing on the ‘Team Anderson’ route, which entailed a steep climb over a ridge that would take us through Fischer-Am-See and then down into St Gilgen, or continuing along the Mozart trail to the Mondsee (the ‘Lame and Lazy’ route) and then a short climb into St Gilgen.
When we reached Thalgau, the weather was starting to close in from the east and the ‘Team Anderson” route ridge was in cloud. The ‘Lame and Lazy” route was working fine so we stayed with the status quo. This route was about 3 km’s longer, but we sucked it up (and avoided about 400 m of climbing 😬).
Lovely small church / shrine. When I stopped to take this picture, there was cow standing on the other side of the building visible through both windows. By the time I got set up to take the shot ….
Lyle McLeodTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI’m kind of partial to order as well. Probably stems from training and education as an Engineer. However … I do love the chaos that is Italy and SE Asia in moderate doses Reply to this comment 2 years ago
As we were making the short climb from the Mondsee to St Gilgen, the sky cleared off quite a bit and it was sunny and warm when we got to St Gilgen. It’s a very pretty and tidy town (birthplace of Mozart’s mother - born on Christmas Day even). No problem finding our hotel (Team Anderson May recognize it) and then a relaxing afternoon wandering around town. That didn’t take too long!
The rain came back by 5 pm and we had a lovely early diner at Wirt am Gries, traditional Austrian and very good, the Cream soup with Spargel in particular. This is spargel season in Germany - Austria (aka asparagus - it is on every menu!)
