Passau – Aschach an der Donau

Today marks the beginning of another phase of our journey. Passau to Vienna is one of the most popular tourist areas. From river ship cruising to cycling, it’s a beautiful place to visit. We certainly witnessed some of that today. As we left Passau on the cycle path it was quiet. We started on the south side of the river, and had the river on our left, and a main road on the right. Fortuately the road was rather quiet, so too was the cycle path. At least for a few km. The path was well groomed today. Nicely paved and very smooth. Soon we found a small town with a river cruise ship docked, and things changed quickly. Suddenly there were quite a few cyclists.

We met up with a large group when we crossed the river on a small ferry boat. The group was dressed in mock lederhosen cycling outfits. You can see them in the ferry picture. In the group were a few American‘s – from the Portland area who were doing the cruise cycle tour.

We were the last to load on the ferry so we were first off, and we took advantage of that to head out first. We knew they would probably ride at a slower pace, so it made it easy vs trying to pass later.

As the day wore on, the scenery became more beautiful. The path followed well groomed cycle path or secondary roads. Very smooth, and because of that we had a gentle and speedy ride, passing more and more river cruise cyclists. Around 11:30 we found ourselves just a few km from our hotel and stopped at bend in the river that was quite scenic. We nabbed a park bench and watched the swans and ferry boat action while enjoying our thoroughly smashed cliff bars and other snacks we have packed in our bike bags.

After lunch we meandered down the path and spotted our hotel that was on the other side of the river. Noticing they had a nice deck with the hotel set over the river we made a bee line for it even though it was well before check-in. We were not disappointed, and grabbed a cushy deck chair and had seat to watch the world go by.

We have a nice river view room, and just finished a delightful dinner on the patio terrace. We felt a little out of place as other patrons drove up in their Porsche and Ferrari’s. We watched the sunset with gratitude for another day on the cycle path.

Lastly, somewhere along the way this morning we crossed into Austria. There was no border marking that we noticed otherwise we would have taken a photo. But here we are in country # 2 of 5 on this journey. Thanks for following along.