Murradweg (Bike route along river Mur – Austria, Slovenia, Croatia)

Just came back from touring the Murradweg. It's a long distance bicycle route (~470 km) which follows the river Mur (also called Mura) from around it's source in Austrian Lungau, to it's mouth on the Croatian-Hungarian border. Some official information only mentions the part of the route in Austria (365 km).

We did it in 6 days, credit card touring all the way, on touring/gravel bicycles with 40-45 mm tyres, carrying just some basic maintenance gear, spare cycling clothes, and basic "civil" clothes. We have slept in accomodation, and ate in restaurants/supermarkets along the way.

Our stages were:

Muritzen Alp Parking – Murau (78 km, 550 m total ascent)

Murau – Sankt Michael in Obersteiermark (95 km, 800 m total ascent)

Sankt Michael in Obersteiermark – Graz (86 km, 615 m total ascent)

Graz – Bad Radkersburg (97 km, 175 m total ascent)

Bad Radkersburg – Toplice Sveti Martin (45 km, 235 m total ascent)

Toplice Sveti Martin – mouth of river Mur near Legrad (and further going home) (73 km, almost flat)

Logistically, it's not the easiest thing to get to the start. I have researched various options with buses or vans as there's apparently some company which takes people and bikes up there, but I haven't used it so I won't go into details. We were lucky enough we had a friend who drove us and the bikes up there, and returned the car home. If you want to get to the parking, you need to pay the entrance to the last 4 km (I think it was 8€). We had planned to ride even higher with our bikes, to the Sticklerhütte, which is the formal start of Murradweg (although the river source is even higher), but a very steep road with a difficult surface persuaded us to just start from the parking.

The route itself is wonderful. Well marked, relatively easy, mostly paved surfaces with some gravel. It starts quite high in the Alps (around 1550 m), so the views are amazing. It changes over distance, as Mur descends and transforms from a mountain stream into a valley river, and finally into a lowlands meandering river.