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Sunday
Date: 17. August 2025
In Degendorf, Germany
Today was a very relaxing day, just watching the Danube flow past all day. What helped was that today, and for the next few days, the temperature is not going to go any higher than 24°. Perfectly pleasant, although on Thursday a bit of rain is forecast.
The moscitos can be a bit of a pest. I thought this was due to the wild camping the other day, but speaking to Martin here, he had the same problem at the official campsite: he was being eaten alive. Luckily, I had just bought a second can of insect spray and could spare one. He was very grateful, as I literally saved his skin. So, between here and the Black Sea, running out of mosquito spray would be a very bad idea.
What is rather nice at these campsites, is that everybody leaves their phone and battery packs charging all over the place and nobody worries anything going missing. You also don't worry to much about leaving your wallet lying around. I suppose cycle tourists are a particular breed and rather trustworthy.
Early start again tomorrow, and let's see how far I get.
Monday
Date: 18. August 2025
From Degendorf to Inzell, Germany
Today I passed through Passau. Another beautiful city, and you can see why most of the river cruises start or finish here. The quay was full of boats and close-up they are massive. Maybe not as big, and certainly not as high as a cruise liner, but still. Also, in the evening three in a row were coming past my campsite going down and some going up. Don't get me started on the carbon footprint. If I compare mine with one of the passengers on them for the same trip, ... (smug git).
Also in Passau the Inn joins the Danube. The Inn starts in Switzerland and so brings water from there to the Black Sea. Due to the different geology, the Inn has a muddy colour and the Danube is never as clear again as it was before Passau.
On cycle paths between the river and cornfields, you regularly see maybe ten or twenty corn stalks cut down and seemingly dragged down to the water on a muddy slide. Sometimes the scene looks rather messy. I assumed they were beavers, and checking with some locals, they are the raiders. They must have developed a taste for corn.
The campsite was attached to a hotel which mainly caters for cyclists. Over the last few years, I am sure, they must have upgraded their electricity supply, to be able to charge 30 or 40 e-bikes at the same time. You can see that a lot of infrastructure is required to support e-bike tourists.
They also didn't charge me for my stay. I suppose between the restaurant and the rooms, they were making a lot more profit than to be worried about a single cycle in a small tent.
At night, the stars were amazing. We sometimes forget what they look like without light pollution.
Tuesday
Date: 19. August 2025
From Inzell, Germany to Grein, Austria
On my route from Inzell to Grein lay the town of Mauthausen with the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. It took some effort to stop and go and visit it. However, with what is happening in Gaza and thinking about the camps set up by the Trump administration, it seemed important to make the effort.
It had a dignified visitors center, but some of the memorials, set up by individual nations, were a bit of a distraction. Although it clearly was an instrument of repression and extermination, it also was the center of a vast commercial enterprise. The local granite quarry, but also many satellite camps, supporting the arms industry.
Walking around and reading about the inhuman arrangements and practices, the question kept coming up: How do people get to the point to do this to eachother? Some years ago I saw an exhibition in Imperial War Museum that attempted to answer this question about the Holocaust, but it still remains there for me.
Particularly in Western Europe, we imagine we are very far from something like that, but are we? Attitudes by some people towards refugees in the UK, could they become a dominant force? We see what is happening to human rights in the US and I will be shortly travelling through some of the countries that were involved in the recent Balkan War.
As a memorial to the people who died there, sites like Mauthausen are important, but I felt even more so, was to remind us to remain vigilant. Personally, we hopefully are very far being involved with something like that, but as a Nation, are we? Although not comparable at all, thinking of the trans issue, even Britain isn't immune for weird ideas to take over the public realm and leading to individual repression.
Maybe the door is open for bigger ones to follow the same path?
Wednesday
Date: 20. August 2025
From Grein to Klosternewburg, Austria
Today was the longest cycle of the trip so far: 92 miles. I know it sounds a lot, but remember, apart from a short climb, it was all flat. Also, with rain forecast tomorrow, I am planning to have a rest day, so I could push it a bit.
It started a bit late, because of the bike ferry taking me across to the Southern shore, only sailed from 8 am, wth me the only passenger. Once accros, I saw a tug pushing a couple of huge barges a short way ahead, and the race was on.
Who was going to be the first to get to Vienna? My speed was a few miles per hour faster than his, but then I had to stop, shop, eat, pee and rest. He, in turn, didn't have to do any of this, but wasted time with navigating locks. Throughout the day it was easy to keep track, as the cycle path closely follows the river and sometimes I was ahead, sometimes he was. About 5 miles before my campsite we were head to head but he still had the Greifenstein lock to navigate. So, I beat him by about an hour!
Although during the first part it was cool and there was a lot of shade, later it was open and hot. So, the race was a welcome distraction. As a cyclist on a normal bike, you are always on the lookout for shade.
In a rest area, you would have the e-bike riders sunning themselves on the exposed benches and the normal cyclists cowering in whatever little shade there was.
The scenery was as stunning as usual.
Getting nearer to Vienna in the evening, the road cyclists came out. I suppose people finish work and took the bike out for a spin. There were hundreds of them on the cycle path, many of them going three times my speed. With the path rather narrow at times, you had to pay attention.
It was a relief to get to the campsite and find all the usual facilities but also a kitchen and a large covered area to hang out during the rain tomorrow.
Thursday
Date: 21. August 2025
In Klosternewburg, Austria
Today, the cycle gloves I bought on 2. September 2023 in Breckenridge, Colorado gave up their ghost. From crossing America, getting good use in Scotland for two years, and now a 1,000 miles here in Europe, they did well. I thought it was important to give them a mention here in my blog.
Originally, I planned to go into Vienna on a hired e-bike to explore the city. However, I scrapped the plan after it started to rain and just needing to chill out. I will just make a few detours when I pass through tomorrow.
When planning my trip, thought I would stay in hostels in the bigger cities as they are very reasonably priced. However, I think I have changed my mind. Sharing a room with 8 other people? It's ok, but I think I am getting too old for that. So, it's going to be camping or hotels.
At breakfast I spoke to Bob from the Netherlands, a builder. Interesting conversation, but I quickly realised that he was very mainland Europe centered. He had cycled a lot on the mainland, but anything beyond that was outside his sphere of interest. Conversations about Trump or Gazza were a bit of a nonstarter.
At the moment it's raining pretty hard, but will stop by midnight, so I can set it up the wet tent again during my lunch break and dry it out.
Tomorrow it a short distance through Slovakia and then into Hungary. I will have to remember to visit a cash machine, once I get across the border. Working out how much things are will also a bit more of a challenge: £1 = 476 Forints. With Euros that wasn't so much of a problem: a small bottle of bug spray from an Apoteke at €18 was definitely a ripoff.
Friday
Date: 22. August 2025
From Klosernewburg, Austria to Mosonmagyarovar, Hungary
The morning started with tour around Vienna. There is of course too much to see, but the beauty of being on a bike is, that you can go down any road or ally that looks interesting. Around every corner there is another beautiful building, statue or fountain to be admired. And then there are the famous coffee shops, but no time for such frivolities. And anyway, some of them are rather posh and would probably turn their nose up on a sweaty cyclists.
Then it was on accross the old Iron Curtain frontier to Slovakia and Bratislava. The actual boarder post looks rather dilapidated now, considering how important it once was. From there I crossed into Hungary. I actually had to check the map, because the boarders were not marked on the road and paths I was on.
So far I passed through four countries now, and never had to showed my passport once. Let's see if they let me get to the Black Sea without showing it.
I had tailwind all the way, but felt for the poor sods coming the other direction. Although flat for both of us, for me it felt I was cruising down ill in a high gear and they struggling uphill in a low one, and ou could see it in their faces. Well, the luck of the draw. Tomorrow might be the other way round.
Saturday
Date: 23. August 2025
From Mosonmagyarovar to Esztergom, Hungary
The mantra in the States was always: don't get to the end of the day completely exhausted. You might have to go another 15 miles, whatever the reason. It happened a couple of times. Once when the police officer couldn't find the key for the bike hostel. The other time the campsite I was aiming for no long existed.
Anyway, I arrived at Eden Camping, and it had been completely booked for some cooperate event. No chance of getting in. The next site was in Esztergom, Camping.another 18 miles further down the road. This would make a total of 90 miles again. I probably could have gotten a room somewhere, but thought it was less of an effort to just keep cycling. At times like that I miss the American motels: they are everywhere, they always have space, are cheap and you can take your bike straight into your room. However, we are where we are, in Eastern Europe.
I am glad I finally got to Esztergom and Gran. I definitely slept well after that.
On the bright side, tailwind and lower temperature helped.