River Danube Cycle – Passau to Vienna Part 1

A 6 day cycle along the river Danube from Passau to Vienna. This video covers the first 2 days from Passau to Linz.

Music bt the Bolton band AMT

[Music] route that I shall be taking uh starting in Pasau which is in Germany on the um German Austrian border. First day will take me to a place called Obi. Second day I’ll be heading over to Linds then on to a place called Grain. On the third day Grain or Grin, not sure how to do that, pronounce that. Sorry. Meronsorf um will be end of day four. End of day five will see me in Tres Maua. Um and when the final day, day six, I will end up in Vienna. So it’s all looking uh pretty straightforward. Uh, by the way, this map is brought to you by this company up here, O Touristic. Uh, not sure how they pronounce that, but they are the company that provided the um all the information uh that um this holiday or this cycling holiday um uh comes with. So, it’s very very in-depth, I’ve got to say. Uh days, the hotels are staying at. Um, so yeah, it should be you got nothing to worry about apart from the actual cycle itself, which is good. The luggage is transferred for you. All you’ve got to do is worry about the the cycling on a day-to-day basis. The weather’s looking pretty good for that week. Um, towards the end, I think it’s going to turn a little bit um bit rainy. Um, but apart from that, looking forward to it. There’s only one section I’m slightly concerned about. And if I you can just zoom in on here. Um the first day as you see we’re coming along the river here from Passau going to this place Obermill. Now the the route the track seems to um go in land at this point um and then start going uphill. You can see from these contour lines here that it’s actually uh pretty steep as well. you know, the I don’t know if you understand contour lines, but the the closer a contour line is together, the steeper it is. Um, so you can see from there, it starts off the river level is about 300 m. You can see 300 m there. So, um, and it goes up to there, which is 500 m, and you’re still going up. Um, I think eventually it goes up to, let me have a look. I think it’s around 600 m. This top bit up here, that’s 550. Um, and then we’ve got 600 m there. 600 m. Flattens out a little bit there. You can see, but that’s that’s after you’ve gone up um 300 m in height. we’re talking about not not not length. So yeah, I’m a bit bit concerned about this part. I’m not sure why they’ve done that. Um but you do then end up coming down a quite steep down um to where the river it joins the reg joins the river and then you’ve got uh Obermules here which is the the first uh stopover point. The next morning it’s up early. Um but I will be up early anyway. Um getting a ferry over to the other side of the river and then carry on. The only thing that I’m a bit disappointed with about by taking this route is that here this is the Schlurgen Schling. Um which is whenever you see a picture of the Danube which is taken from a viewing point. Um pretty certain is probably come from this point here. This is a very famous shot uh of of the of the river Danube. Um but by taking that route here, I’m not going to be seeing this. I’m going to be cutting this out, which is a bit disappointing, I’ve got to say, because then the route carries on this way. So anyway, that’s the route I’m going to take. Really looking forward to it. Um so next stop is Pass. I hope you enjoy. [Music] I feel [Music] Well, finally got going. Uh I’m about 10ks out of Passau. It’s a bit difficult getting out of Paso cuz uh there was uh there’s three rivers that all run into Passau. My sat nav’s not working. I didn’t think I’d need it too much cuz it’s uh pretty much just following the river. Fortunately, I think I followed the three rivers coming out of pass across them all before I finally got to the right one. But now I’m on route on the way. [Music] [Music] So when I planned to do the um river Danube in the summer. I thought it’d be a lovely ride along long flat uh river side views. Um and it’ll be gorgeous and the sun will be shining. Well, it started out like that this morning for the first couple of hours. Nice long flat, beautiful views. Unfortunately, I just hit the uh bit for some reason. And whoever did the route planning for this particular ride thinks it’s a good idea to uh instead of carrying along the river to take a sharp left and then start going up over the top of a hill. Now that may cut a few miles off the off the route, granted, but it’s hard work. It’s hard work getting up that hill. And to top it all, it looks like we’ve just come into a a start of a thunderstorm. Thunder and lightning in the background. starting to rain. Not too heavily at the moment. Um but yeah, it’s it’s threatening dark clouds. Um quite a lot of thunder, a bit of rain. Hopefully it’ll pass. Well, the good thing is once I do start going down the other side, it should be fairly quick on the other side. So, here it goes. Don’t if you can hear that bit thunder in the background. Um just when I thought it started to lighten up, it’s uh started to get quite dark again. Um this is the beast and I’m trying to cycle up this hill. It’s a typical touristy touring bike. It’s uh it’s even got a luggage rack on it, a luggage label on it. Um it’s hard work. It’s heavy. I’m sure it’s quite robust, but it’s um it’s hard work getting up the hill. I wish I brought me own bike. Actually, I’d love to do this on me own bike. Maybe next the next section when I get around to doing it, I’ll probably do it on me own bike. So, over there now. Got to keep going up and up and up and up that hill. I’m just going to crack on. If I get soaking wet, I get soaking wet. I’m soaking wet with sweat anyway. So, what difference is it going to make? [Music] Well, I’ve been going uphill now for about 40 minutes. I was cycling or getting off and pushing when my heart rate gets a bit too high. Heart’s going like billio at the moment. So, I just got off hopefully looking at the map. Um once I get around this corner, I’m hoping it’s all downhill. If it’s not downhill, then it’s going to be even more uphill. But at some stage, you got to start going down. I’m I’m nearly at the top of the mountain. Surely I wasn’t expecting this, but there’s a couple just cruised past me on a couple of electric bikes. Just making it look so easy cuz it is when you got electric bike. Um, but hopefully I’ll feel the benefit of not having had electric bike by the end of the week if I’m still alive. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Well, on the way down now, finally. Even this is hard work cuz it’s so steep and turny. Um, and it’s wet now. Very wet underneath. So, but yeah, I suppose there is a plus side to come up here. Get a great view of the bend on the river there. Shouldn’t have too long to go now. Looking forward to uh where I’m stopping tonight. It’s a a fish restaurant um and an orchard where they do cider as well. So, looking forward to some Austrian cider tonight. Bring it on. [Music] [Music] So, that’s the place I’m staying in tonight. I can uh think of worse uh locations to spend the night in. Um yeah, it’s gorgeous. Weather’s not been too great today, but it’s not been too bad. Could have been worse. Good day. Hard day first day. It was uh much harder coming over that hill than it would have been to stay on the river. Not sure why the organizers directed us around there, but there you go. So, um just want to say uh what a great place to stay this this uh guest house on on the river. Um which I kind of pointed out last night when I arrived. Had no idea how good it was going to be. Uh the homemade cider, fantastic homemade wine, brilliant. Uh food excellent had um I had catfish for the first time in my life. It was really tasty. But yeah, this hotel guest house on the on the on the river Danu. If the rest of the accommodation is even half as good as this, I’ll be delighted. I’ve stayed in many many places in on my travels and this is as good as it gets. I think fantastic location just on the river. Great food, great wine, great great cider. Fantastic. I I will definitely be back here again sometime in the future. So, on to day two. Cheers. See you. [Music] So ferry is on its way. I’m just going to ring the bell anyway. Apparently, you ring the bell and the ferry will come over, but looks like it’s coming anyway. But I’ve been waiting to do this all night. [Music] Heat. Heat. Well, I’m only 15 minutes into day two and yet again I find myself going up up up and up. I managed to stay on a bike for 10 minutes going uphill. This heat already is killing. And this is only 10:00 in the morning. God blind me. If the rest of the day is going like this, it’s going to be hard work. Whoever told you cycling along the river down you is easy and flat telling lies hill after hill. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] So this is the famous Danu bloop. Very busy now. It’s a Sunday. people out. Well, after that mistake I made this morning going up the hill and then having to bomb down, come back to only a few kilometers away from where I started, it’s now been a really, really pleasant ride. Only thing is it’s Sunday, so there’s loads and loads of cyclists out. Loads of them. So yeah, can’t blame him really, can you? If you live nearby, why wouldn’t you be doing this on a Sunday? I’d do it every day. [Music] Where are you? [Music] [Music] down. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music]