Linz has a large cathedral built in the Gothic style. The cathedral was similar to the cathedrals in Regensburg and Ulm, but the cathedral in Linz had beautiful, intricate stained glass windows.
We tried walking to the Franz Joseph Tower. It looked so close on the map of Linz we got from the tourist office, but we kept walking and walking and didn’t see it. Eventually, we gave up and turned around. Then, we wanted to take the train to Postlingberg, which is the steepest non-rack railway in the world. We had trouble finding where the train left from, and when we found the station, we couldn’t find where to get a ticket. You couldn’t buy a ticket on the train, and there was no ticket kiosk at the train station. We were about to head back to the tourist information center to ask where to buy a ticket when we saw a ticket kiosk at random spot on a side street not on the actual train route. Although the steepest non-rack railway sounded very impressive, it was not as exciting as it sounded. It didn’t seem all the steep to us. The view from the pilgrimage church at Postlingberg was great. However, it was snowing when we got there, so we weren’t able to see as well.
Postlingberg Pilgrimage Church
View from Postlingberg
After walking around the city in the snow, we were cold, so we went to the nice and warm Ars Electronica Center, and it was the coolest museum! It was a museum made for geeks like us. They had lots of interesting gadgets and interactive exhibits.
This was an interactive sculpture. As you walked into the sculpture, there were motion sensors, and parts of the sculpture would start moving towards you. It was really cool.
This was a screen covered with black sand that you could move around to cover parts of the screen. There were little organisms that were swimming around on the screen. If you opened up a larger area in the sand, the organisms would multiply, or if you covered the area with sand, you could kill off all the organisms.
This was an interactive exhibit where you could create a 3D drawing.
As you touch this screen, you could feel different textures on the screen, and it would make different noises as you moved your finger over different sections of the screen. There was also a little man that walked across each screen, and if you moved your finger over him, you could knock him over. Once he was done walking through the screen, the screen would change, so if you continually knocked him down, you could spend more time playing with that screen.
A Japanese artist put eyes on pieces of furniture, and they would communicate with each other through infrared and blink at random intervals.
They had a video for a Japanese art unit called Maywa Denki that made awesome robotic musical instruments.
There was an exhibition called “Morpho Tower”. There was a ferrofluid, a liquid medium that has nano-sized magnetic particles suspended in that react to a magnetic field. There was a spiral in the middle of the ferrofluid with an electromagnet, and as it spun, the particles moved along the spiral seeming to defy gravity.
There were several cool machines built by Arthur Ganson. Machine with 22 Scraps of Paper was my favorite. It was made only by moving scraps of paper, but it simulated the movement of a flight of birds beautifully.
There was a video about the Dutch artist, Theo Jansen, who creates kinetic sculptures that are powered by the wind, and he releases the “creatures” he creates onto the beach in the Netherlands.
The outside of the Ars Electronica center was lit up with a series of LED lights that would change color and create neat patterns.
We had complimentary breakfast at the bakery down the street, and it was really good. However, the dining area was full of smoke. Half of the people in the room were smoking up a storm. When we left the bakery, my clothes and my hair smelled like smoke, and it was really gross. I was surprised at the number of people that smoke in Europe. They even have cigarette vending machines, and a pack of cigarettes was 5 euros! That is a very expensive habit. There seemed to be even more people that smoked in Austria, and it seemed more acceptable to smoke inside restaurants.
As we were packing up to get ready to go, Jonathan noticed that my back tire was a little a low on air. However, as he pumping it up, the pump broke! At the same time, the tire valve leaked a bunch of air, so my back tire was lower on air than it was before he started pumping up the tire. It was too low to ride on with all the weight on the back. We had seen a bike shop when we were walking around town yesterday, so we went over there to try to get a new pump. However, the only day of the week that the bike shop was closed was Wednesday, and of course it was Wednesday. We could never predict when places when be open in Europe. Before we got to Austria, it was usual for places to be open during the week and closed on Sundays. Now, in Aschach, the places were open on Sundays and closed on random days during the week. It was very strange. Fortunately, we found a sign for another bike shop, and it was actually open! We found a replacement bike pump, but it was very expensive. The bike pump we brought was having problems before we left, and we considered replacing it. We learned that it is better to replace your old equipment before going to Europe because it is much more expensive to replace it in Europe. But, we had a new bike pump that was much nicer than our old pump, and we were able to fill our tires with air.
We had a short ride to Linz. It was still very cold, but it was pleasant ride along the river and through the farms. The last 10km to Linz was not very enjoyable because it was along a bike path next to a busy road going into the city. Once we arrived in Linz, it started hailing! We took shelter under a covered walkway, and it hailed for a long time. This was such crazy weather for October!
Hail in Linz!
Accumulated hail on outdoor seating
We got very cold, and it was a long way to get to the hostel. Fortunately, they had a double room available for the night, and we basked in the warmth of our room before heading out into the cold again. We also had our own bathroom and shower in our room for the first time at a hostel. This hostel was run by Hostelling International, so it was in a converted office building on the outskirts of the city. Once we were warmed up, we walked around Linz, and we had dinner in a nice, warm pizzeria. Originally, we were planning to continue riding tomorrow, but the weather was going to continue be cold and unpleasant for the rest of the week. So, we decided to stay in Linz for another night and spend the day in Linz. Linz had lots of museums, so we figured we could spend most of the day inside a warm museum. When we returned to the hostel, we asked the woman at the reception if it would be possible to stay another. However, the woman was very grouchy. She was a smoker and was coughing constantly while speaking to us. When she wasn’t coughing, we could barely understand what she was saying because her voice was so gruff from the smoking. She said to us that she speaks very little English and there were no rooms for tomorrow night. We asked about dormitory rooms, but she just yelled at us again that there were no rooms available. We gave up and decided to ask another person in the morning. When we talked to another woman in the morning, she was very nice and told it was no problem for us to stay in a dormitory room.
Today, the weather was similar to yesterday. It was cloudy and cold with periods of rain, but we were nice and warm as long as we were biking. We had a nice tailwind, so we rode along at a good pace. The first part of the ride out of Passau was not very nice. We were riding along a bike path next to a busy road. Once we left the road, the bike route became much nicer. The ride was very pretty with the mountains rising up from the river. This was one of my favorite sections of the Danube bike route, and we didn’t ride by a single cornfield today. 🙂 As we rode into Obernzell, we were surprised to see a house with American and Confederate flags with old cannons in the yard. It was like we were suddenly transported to the South.
Today, we left Germany and entered Austria. There was no sign at the border crossing, so we didn’t realize we had entered Austria until we passed a Danube bike route sign and saw that it was different from the signs in Germany.
We made it to Austria!
When the weather cleared up, we stopped for lunch at Au at a park next to the river. However, just as we were about to eat, dark clouds rolled in, and it began to rain. We ate quickly and started riding again since there was no shelter nearby. When we reached the ferry crossing, it was raining steadily, but fortunately, there was a covered waiting area for the ferry. It was still raining when we got off the ferry at Schlogen, so we waiting under cover until the rain passed. Fortunately, the rain passed quickly, and afterwards, it was beautiful and sunny for the rest of the day. Schlogen was where the Danube does a loop around granite ridge. We hiked to the overlook, and we were fortunate that the rain had cleared because it was an amazing sight. The view was exactly like the poster on the wall of the ferry boat. They also have a webcam at the overlook.
Schlogen Loop
We decided to stay at a pension once we reached Aschach because it was too cold for camping. We saw a sign for a place on the way into Aschach, and it was a penson/pizzeria. However, when we got to the pension, the sign said to go into the pizzeria to get a room, but the pizzeria was closed on Tuesdays. However, we saw a sign on the buzzer that we believed said to press one of the buttons for the pension. We tried it, and fortunately a woman answered. She let us in, and we got a room for the night. The room was incredibly nice! We had a couch, a TV, and our own bathroom. After camping and staying in hostels, this felt like the ultimate luxury. We were watching TV, and we saw the weather on CNN International. We found out that the weather we were having was not typical. An Artic front had moved into Europe, so the entire region was experiencing early winter weather. Temperatures in Germany/Austria were 9 degrees Celsius below the average. Although it was not fun to be riding the in cold, we were reassured that this was unusual weather and that it should return to normal at some point.
Today, we spent the day exploring Passau. We had the strangest weather today. It was sunny when we left the hostel. I was optimistic about the weather, so I decided not to wear my rain jacket. As we started walking into the city, it started to pour, and the wind picked up to blow the rain into your face. We took shelter under a covered church door. The rain shower did not last very long, but it was enough that I was completely soaked and cold. The weather was like this throughout the day. Just when you thought the rain had cleared up, it would rain again.
We went to the St. Stephen cathedral for the organ concert, and we were glad to be inside a warm, dry place. The St. Stephen cathedral has the largest church organ in the world with 17,974 pipes and 233 registers, and they have daily organ concerts. The organ is actually made up of several separate organs that are accessible from one console. The organ concert was beautiful. You could feel the vibrations from the organ. The entire church was full of people- there wasn’t an empty seat in the place. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like during peak season. The bike book said that the line extends outside the church an hour before the concert begins during the summer. There were a lot of people in the church that were on the big bus tours, and they began leaving before the concert was over. The concert was only a half hour, and they could not last that long. I thought it seemed rude that they left early, and we couldn’t hear the last song as well with all the people moving around. The inside of the cathedral was also beautiful. The original structure was destroyed in a fire, and it was rebuilt in baroque style. There were amazing frescoes painted on the ceiling, and the pulpit was completely covered in gold.
St. Stephen Cathedral Organ
After the concert, we were hungry for lunch. However, our timing was horrible because we were heading for lunch just as all the kids got out of school. We had to wait in a long line behind all the kids at the kebab place. 🙂 After lunch, we went back to the hostel to get warmer clothes since we were both cold and wet. It started raining again when we walked back to the hostel, but this was actually a good thing because it was cleared up by the time we had our extra layers of clothes on.
Passau was at the confluence of three rivers: the Inn, Ilz, and Danube rivers. The confluence was very neat because each river has a different color, so you could see where they meet and merge together to make a different color. The Inn River was emerald green, and the Danube was a muddy brown. The Ilz River was much smaller than the other two rivers, but we could still see that it was different shade of brown than the Danube. At the overlook of the confluence, we also had a neat view of the city. While we were at the overlook, it began to rain again. However, the rain created a beautiful, full rainbow. It was largest rainbow I had ever seen.
Confluence of Inn, Ilz, and Danube rivers
View of Passau from overlook
Rainbow!
We stopped at the strangest place to check email. The sign outside said there was Internet, but it was actually a laundromat. The woman running the laundromat had one computer that people could use to check the Internet while they were waiting for their laundry. In order to check the Internet, we went to some strange places. In Neuburg, we checked the Internet in the basement of a bar. The computers were mostly set up for playing poker on the Internet, and they were also coin-operated like at an arcade. I think we were one of the few people that used the computers to check email.
I enjoyed Passau, but I was ready to leave the hostel. The hostel had so many rules that were not clear, and I never felt comfortable staying there. It seemed like every time we did something, someone would yell at us for breaking the rules. Last night, we asked if they had a kitchen that guests could use, but they said no. We went outside the hostel, and we cooked with our camping stove by some benches. The woman came outside and told us that no “fires” were allowed on the castle grounds. Tonight, we decided to have bread and cheese for dinner since we could not cook. We went into the dining hall and sat down to eat. A woman came and told us that we were not allowed to eat our own food there. Then, she took us to the “Tea Kitchen” where we were allowed to eat. The “Tea Kitchen” would have been perfect for us to cook our dinner last night, so I don’t know why they said that there was no kitchen. It was strange because the “Tea Kitchen” was not open, and the woman had to unlock it for us. It seemed like it was more like a kitchen for the staff, and they were allowing us to use it. At least they had a place we could eat our dinner. While we were eating, we were joined by one of the guys that was staying in Jonathan’s room. We invited him to join us at the only table in the kitchen. He was not impressed with the hostel either because it didn’t have an iron. 🙂 He made noodle soup in the kitchen, but there were no regular spoons. He ended up eating his soup with a big wooden spoon. 🙂
This morning it was still cold, but we were glad that it had stopped raining. Even though it was cold and cloudy, the ride was enjoyable. We spent most of the day riding on bike paths next to the river alongside farms and through the forest. The terrain was still hilly, and it was pretty to see the hills rising up from the river banks. We stopped for lunch at a castle ruin by Winzer. The castle ruin was on top of a hill with a great view of Winzer and the Danuber river valley.
Winzer Castle Ruins
On the way to Passau, we stopped at Vishofen, and they had a big festival going on in the city center. They had a bunch of stands set up and a couple blow-up castles for the kids. There was also a stage set up for performances. When we arrived, a high school band was playing polka music wearing traditional Bavarian dress. There was also a group that did some dances that were similar to square dancing, except with accordion music. The highlight of the performances was the group of men doing traditional slap-dancing. I felt like I was in the middle of a Rick Steves show. 🙂
Vishofen Festival
Vilshofen Slap-dancing Performance
As we arrived into Passau, we were surprised at the size of the city. Passau had only 50,000 people, but it felt much larger than that. There were a lot of suburbs as we rode into the city. The campground and the hostel were next to each other, so we had to decide whether to camp or stay at the hostel. It started to rain a little bit as when we got near the campground and hostel, so we decided to stay at the hostel. However, we did not realize that the hostel was at the top of a steep hill next to the castle. We were already tired from riding all day, so it was not fun to haul our bikes and gear up the hill to get to the hostel. We asked if they had a double room available for two nights, but they only had a double room available for one night. We would have to stay in separate men/women dormitory rooms the second night. Since they didn’t have a double room available for two nights, we decided to camp instead. The campground was at the bottom of the hill, so it was much easier to ride down to it. However, when we arrived at the campground, it was closed for the season and the restrooms were locked up. Since we had no other option, we decided to ride back up the hill to the hostel. I was so exhausted after we arrived at the hostel for the second time. It was too hard to ride up the hill with all the gear, so we walked our bikes up the hill instead. The road up the hill was made of cobblestones that were very slick from the recent rain, so it was a challenge to walk up the hill with the loaded bike. I felt like I had been lifting weights because my arms were sore from pushing the bike up the hill. The weather turned out to be pretty unpleasant over the next couple nights, so we were glad that we decided to stay at the hostel.
The hostel was at the top of the hill next to the castle
We walked around Straubing in the morning. They had a big market square with neat buildings. There was also a 61 meter tall tower with five spires in the middle of the square. Since it was Saturday morning, there were lots of people walking around the market square, and there was an open air market going on.
Straubing market square
Since tomorrow was Sunday, we stocked up on groceries and got a loaf of bread at the bakery. By the time we returned to the campground, it was already late, and we decided to relax for a while. We got a really late start for our ride. As we started riding, it began to drizzle, and it steadily turned into rain. We had been lucky with the rain, and it had only rained at night. This was the first time we had been rained on while riding. We were wet, cold, and muddy by the time we reached Deggendorf. We decided to find somewhere warm and dry to spend the night. We had passed lots of guesthouses and rooms on the way to Deggendorf, but once we arrived in Deggendorf, we could not find a place to stay. It was dark and still raining, and we were both cold and miserable. We were about to give up and ride to the campground in the dark. Then, we found a map of the city in the main square with the hotels on it. We found the cheapest hotel listed in the back of our bike book, and fortunately, it was only a couple blocks away. It was expensive to stay at the hotel, but we were happy to have a warm, dry place to stay. We had our own bathroom for the first time of the trip, and we took advantage of it to wash off all our muddy gear. We were tired and worn out, and it felt so good to lay down on a warm, soft bed and watch some German TV. 🙂
The highlight of today’s ride was visiting Walhalla, another of King Ludwig I’s monuments. Walhalla was modeled after the Parthenon, and it honored the important German figures. It located on the side of a mountain, so we saw it from a long way away. There was a great view of the Danube from Walhalla. Past Regensburg, the Danube becomes truly navigable, so we saw our first barges and ships on the Danube. Inside the monument, there are busts of all the famous Germans. King Ludwig I had the biggest monument with a big seated statue of himself dressed in Roman garb. There were a few women represented in the monument. One of the women was Empress Katarina of Russia, which I found interesting. Albert Einstein’s bust was the funniest. There was not much fine detail, and it looked like it was made of plastic from a Mold-A-Rama machine.
Walhalla
Busts of famous Germans inside Walhalla monument
King Ludwig I gets the biggest monument
Funny Albert Einstein bust
The rest of the ride was pretty along the mountains that were pushing the Danube southward. We stopped in Worth for lunch, but it was not much fun getting into town. There was tons of traffic on the road into Worth because Worth was next to a major four-lane highway. We ate lunch in a square by the church, and it was a happening place. The kids in Germany only go to school until 1pm, so they were already out of school. The church square was the main hangout spot for the kids. As we were leaving Worth to return to the bike route, we missed the turn to cross over the highway. Instead we accidentally turned onto the on ramp for the highway, but we quickly realized our mistake and turned around. 🙂
The campground at Straubing was one of the nicest campgrounds. The restroom, kitchen, and washroom buildings were immaculately cleaned. However, they had the craziest reception hours. Reception was only open from 3-4pm daily. We arrived after 4pm, and we were planning to leave before 3pm the next day.
We spent the day exploring Regensburg. Most of the city is designated as an UNESCO world heritage site. It was a really neat city with nicely preserved old buildings. We walked along the Stone Bridge, which is the oldest bridge in Germany. There are great views of the city from the other side of the bridge.
Stone Bridge
We went inside the cathedral with its twin towers. The towers remained unfinished for a long time because the church ran out of money. In the 19th century, King Ludwig I financed the completion of the twin towers. The cathedral was enormous inside, and I felt like I was inside a big cave. They were completing the installation of a huge new organ. They had a short church service everyday, and we stayed to hear the organ music. The rest of the service was in German, and we didn’t understand any of it.
Cathedral
Cathedral
We found a sausage stand set up in a square next to the cathedral, and they actually had turkey sausage! Usually, they only had beef or pork, and that did not work well with my dietary restrictions. We finally had an authentic Bavarian lunch with sausage and a big pretzel. The only thing missing was the beer. 🙂 We spent the rest of the day walking around the city admiring the neat, old buildings.
David and Goliath mural
We stopped at bookstore because we had run out of reading material. They actually had a large selection of English books, and we were surprised to find a book about a library cat named Dewey in Spencer, Iowa. 🙂
On our walk back to the campground, there were people everywhere in the city. There were two universities and a college of music, so there were lots of students walking around. We ended up following a large group of students as we were walking, and we thought we would end up at a wild party. Instead, everyone was going to see a play at a theater. 🙂
Instead of riding through cornfields, we rode through hops yards for a change of pace. The hops had already been harvested, so we only saw fields of the tall poles on which the vines grow. We took a detour to Eining to visit the ruins of a Roman fortress. The Roman fortress called Abusina was a huge structure when it was built, but not much was left. The foundations for the buildings were all that was left.
Abusina Roman fortress ruins by Eining
Instead of backtracking and returning to the bike route, we found another gravel road along the river. This part of the Danube has big cliffs on either side, and the trees on the cliffs were changing color. It was a beautiful ride along the river, nicer than the official bike route.
We arrived in Weltenburg and tried to find the ferry to take us up the river through the gorge to Kelheim. There was no one at the ticket booth, and there was a sign in German that we could barely understand. We asked someone, and they explained that the water level of the river was too low for the big, ferry boat to navigate. We saw smaller boats that were going up and down the river, and we saw a woman get on one of the boats with her bike. We put our bikes on the boat, and we thought it would take us to Kelheim. However, we went a short distance upstream, and the boat pulled over to the shore. The woman got off the boat, and the captain of the boat said this is where we needed to get off for the Danube bike route. We realized that there was a bike path on the opposite shore of the river. It costed 5 euros per person to take the boat only 1km upstream. This was the most expensive 1km we traveled on the bike tour. The smaller boats did not go any further upstream than where we got dropped off. It was only a scenic tour of the cliffs in the gorge. The ride to Kelheim was very scenic with cliffs on either side of the river.
In Kelheim, we visited the Hall of Liberation, a monument built by King Ludwig I for the soldiers who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. In King Ludwig I style, the monument was enormous and completely overdone. The monument had a huge ornately decorated dome, and there were series of oversized marble angels stand in a circle holding hands. We climbed to the top of the monument for a great view of the Danube valley. The monument was on the top of a cliff, so it had a great vantage point.
Hall of Liberation
Hall of Liberation dome
Hall of Liberation marble angels
View from Hall of Liberation
It was already 4pm by the time we were ready to leave Kelheim, and we still had 38km to ride to get to Regensburg. We rode straight from Kelheim to Regensburg. It was a beautiful day, and most of the ride was along the river. We were worn out by the time we made it Regensburg, and fortunately, we found the campground easily.
We were surprised to find clear, blue skies when we woke up this morning. The rain had cleared up, and it was a beautiful, sunny day. I was mostly recovered from my stomach sickness, so I was up for continuing on the bike route. We spent the morning exploring Ingolstadt. Ingolstadt was a really neat city. The city center was a pedestrian zone, and there were people riding bikes all over the city. It reminded us of Freiburg. Across the river from the city center was a big fort with thick walls. The fort had been bombarded during battle because there were marks in the walls from bullets and cannon balls.
Ingolstadt fortress
Ingolstadt also has a palace, and there were a bunch of cannons in the palace yard. One of the cannons was ripped through the middle. The walls of the cannon were really thick, so there must have been a big explosion to rip it into two.
Ingolstadt palace
We also went inside the Asam church. It topped the Dillingen church as the most ornate church I had seen. The altar was covered in gold. The frescoes on the ceiling painted by the Asam brothers were incredible.
Ingolstadt Asam Church
The campground was on the eastern outskirts of Ingolstadt, so we decided to ride along the gravel roads by the river instead of backtracking to get on the official bike route. We had an adventure riding along a road that was under construction, but we rejoined the main bike route with no problems. We stopped in Vohburg, which is a neat town with a cool gate. My stomach was feeling so much better that I was able to eat some ice cream. 🙂
Vohburg gate
When we arrived in Neustadt, we stopped at a grocery store. We went to an Aldi in Ingolstadt, but the Aldis have horrible selection. Small town grocery stores have better selection than big city Aldis. The grocery store parking lot had a monster truck parked in it advertising a monster truck show. Unfortunately, we were not going to be in town for the monster truck show. 🙂
Neustadt Monster Truck!
The campground at Neustadt was really nice. We were camped at an old farm, and our campsite was next to a stream with ducks swimming in it. We had also entered a big hops growing area. There were hops yards across from our campsite.
