Finally over the Alberg Pass after about seven or eight hours and it’s downhill all the way and uh I’m looking forward to my dinner tonight. On my way to Insrook, crossing the river in for uh well several times already. It’s been downhill most of the way. All is well. Looking forward for an appleful strudel soon, I think. Well, that’s me finally off the busy roads. It was not great at times. Traffic was passing by me quite fast and sometimes a bit too close. So, um I’m quite glad to be on this uh much better track now. You can see quite nice scenery. Although, because of the cloud, I’m not seeing the the high mountains today, which is a wee bit of a pity. When I um tried to get off on a quieter road earlier on, I used Google Google cycle cyclist routes to to try and find another route there. And it took me down a horrendous route there and I ended up having to push my bike for about a kilometer up this uh muddy hillside there to get onto the main road again. It was it was a bad route choice, but hey ho, these these things happen anyway. But this is this is a lot better now. Anyway, I also had a high pass to to cross today. I think it was called pass Thor. It was about 1,400 m. And my legs found that really tiring today. So, um I think I’ve done about 50 kilometers and I’ve got about 55 km to go. But the great news for me is it’s definitely all flat now. No more passes to go over. I’m basically following a river called the Salac, which is a tributary of the Danube. And the Salac goes right to um to Salzburg. You can see it there. It’s quite small, but um when it reaches Saltsburg, it’s a big river. It’s actually uh one well, it’s actually one of the main tributaries of the of the Danube, which at some stage in the future I’ll be I’ll be reaching. So, that’s some of the views there. And I’m just going to close now and just enjoy this nice bit of quiet road. Well, I’ve been following the river Salzac for several days now, and at last I’ve reached the beautiful city of Salzburg. You can see the castle up there. That castle was first built in the 11th century, a thousand years old. It’s one of the biggest in Europe and mass biggest medieval castle in Europe and other things you see there quite you call it Barack that’s Saltzburg Cathedral I think it’s 17th century so no doubt Mozart made some visits to to that place as well but it’s great to be back in Salsburg and it’s lovely to have some sunny weather here and I’m just going to enjoy the city out. I’m still enjoying the sunshine as I cycle a little bit north of Saltsburg on the way to Bur Mo. I’m following the Salac as I’ve been doing for a few days now. And this time it’s gone through a a forest which is which is quite nice actually. I’ve got a bit of shade from the sun at times there and I can smell the the wild garlic and hear the birds. So, it’s been a good cycle. It was nice to see Saltsburg, although I had some difficulty getting onto this path. It was closed early on, so there was some complicated diversions through various bits. But, it’s good to have this entire quiet road all to myself. I’m just on the way to Balnau and I’ve just recently passed the confluence between the river in and the river Salisac when you join together. It’s still called the the river in there but you can see how wide it is now. It’s now become a seriously big river. It seems that about six or seven days ago it was a relatively small river that I could get across very rapidly. But I guess that distance now must be oh at least uh 150 m wide across. This is the road surface again. Pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty quiet. I think a bit like the section I had in the rine. It’s very much following the top of a flood embankment. And the road runs parallel but probably about 400 500 m away to my right hand side. So this is the Austrian side and um the other side of the river in is [Applause] Germany. Well, here I am traveling up from Bermoos along the the Danube. If you look on the other side, that’s actually Germany. So this is forming the border between Austria and Germany. You can see that the road surface is a sort of granary type material. I’ve had every single type of road surface from beautiful smooth tarmac to um well muddy fields really. I’ve certainly had a bit of that. I guess I’m not a great fan of of too much gravel particularly when there’s ups and down hills, but hey, this is all right. And um it’s another beautiful day. So, I’m still following along the river Salac, which will eventually get into the Danube. And um I came across this wonderful castle complex, Berg Hen Castle, and that’s Bergen town itself there. Quite a fascinating area there. It’s actually in Germany. That’s the the river Salac is the border, but I nipped across the border. Had a we explore of the castle, checked it out in Wiki and would you believe it’s the longest castle in the world and I think the third largest palace in the world. So quite impressive and well worth my uh €30. So continuing on now along this uh beautiful bit of um road. It’s nice and comfortable to ride along. I had quite a large section of gravel early on, which wasn’t great on my bike, but this makes up for it now. Oh, what’s this over here? And there’s some ornaments there as well. So, I’m on the Austrian side, but looking towards the the German side, particularly the castle. Good to be crossing the donor. Now we know it as a Danube, but locally it’s the donor. You can just sort of see some views there. There’s a barge coming along. It’s fascinating area there. It’s been a tough cycle today. I didn’t have the beauty of mountains and interesting cities to keep my mind off the sheer effort of getting up and down various hills and it’s been quite hot as well. I’ve avoided busy traffic up to this point when I had to cross the bridge. But fortunately, there’s a cycle and a walking way that I’m on, so it’s good not to be in the same road as all this busy traffic. Managed to avoid it all day, but looks as if I’m going to have a little bit off it now. Right, I’m going to start paying attention to the road. Well, um I’m about 30 kilometers up from Mel on the way to Vienna and you can see I’m well and truly in the vineyard territory. quite interesting to see and I might have a we glass of wine at some stage. Well, I left Vienna about sort of 3 or 4 hours ago and it was a bit of an effort getting through the Monday morning rush hour traffic to get to this fantastic road that goes along the Danube. But I’m heading to Bratislava today and I think I’ve got another 50 kilometers to go. a bit of a pitterpatter of rain all the way, but I’m looking forward to get to somewhere where I can dry off things and uh try my first Bratislavin food. Well, another crossing of the Danube. This time I’m approaching Bratislava. So, that’s some Slovakian graffiti along there. Looks a little bit artful. Anyway, it’s been a wet and windy day and I’ve had um something like four or five hours of this weather. So, I’ve got a little bit shelter just now as I’m crossing this bridge, but I’m certainly looking forward to get some dry clothes on and um perhaps a hot meal or a soup. Big strong coffee would be great. Nice of them to arrange the bells for me arriving at Ga in Hungary.
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