Back to the Danube

DAY 40 - Munich to Landshut - 83km/1464
Our original plan was to get a train back to Regensburg and continue down the Danube but we decide we will just cycle out of Munich along the Isar river and we'll meet the Danube further along. Have only been going for a short distance when the heavy rain starts so we take shelter with some other cyclists until it quietens down. We then cycle alongside the fast flowing Isar, the trail would normally be good but the rain has made it quite slippery and we are getting pretty dirty. Rain starts again and we manage to stop in Friesing and drink coffee until it settles down enough to continue.

Continue along the river through light forest and drizzle, we arrive in Lanshut in the late afternoon, nice looking place but not much time to look around. We find a camp site right next to the river and set up. Cold night.

DAY 41 - Landshut to Deggendorf - 88km/1552

Camping in Deggendorf, looks cold

Today turns out to be the lowest point of the ride for us so far, it's cold, cloudy, drizzly and everything is getting wet and covered in mud and sand because the trail along the river isn't great. Hard going because of the soft trail surface and the slippery conditions, would be a nice ride if the weather was better. Stop for lunch in Dingolfing then for more warming coffee in Landau and then through more miserable weather until we cross the Danube and stop in Deggendorf. Camp right next to ther river and have a basic dinner, walk into town in the evening, nice place. It's good to be back on the Danube but hope the weather gets better, had enough of this miserable stuff now.

DAY 42 - Deggendorf to Passau - 63kms/1615
Yep, more and more corn...

Cloudy start but it's quite bright, things are looking up. Weather continues to improve through the morning which means we have some great cycling. Best weather for about 2 weeks. Stop for morning coffee and cake in a lovely setting in the countryside then continue along great paths with nice scenery and arrive in Passau in the afternoon. Have a great lunch with huge sausages (Mei has a salad). Camping not far from town, still early afternoon so we walk up to the castle to get good views of the city, the Danube merges with the Inn river here and also with the Ilz and you can see all of it from the castle. Passau is a great place, right in the middle of the Inn and Danube and it's definitely one of the nicest places we've seen so far. Austria is just across the Inn river now, we will cross into another country tomorrow. The next section of the trail is one of the most popular parts and there are heaps of cyclists in the camp site. Main problem now is having no clean clothes, i can see a day of hand-washing in my future.

View of Passau from the castle

Swingle Fever

DAY 36 - Regensburg to Munich - Train
Before getting the train we cycle about 10kms along the river to a place called Walhalla. It is a newish building very similar to the Parthenon that has lots of statues of famous Europeans in it. Great building, not sure why it's there or who built it, awesome view across the Danube plain too. Also has the worst coffee i have ever tasted, they even managed to sell me a snickers that tasted bad.

We cycle back to Regensburg and get the train to Munich, I got a bit cocky and tried to wheel my bike onto the train with the trailer still attached and managed to get it wedged right across the doorway, as i was struggling with it there was a guy trying to get on with the snack cart who kindly told me that i couldn't leave the bike there as i was blocking the entrance. Very useful advice, his English wasn't good enough to pick up the sarcasm in my reply and he kindly waited for me to sort things out.

Nice train ride, arrive in middle of Munich and cycle through all of the afternoon traffic and some crazy old woman helps us with directions to Thalkirchen camp site. The Camp is right alongside the Isar river which is very full, no one seems to think we'll all be flooded though.

DAY 37 - Rest Day - Munich

Head into town, have some food and join the locals for a morning half litre of beer and check out some sights. Lift stops working in Frauenkirche when we are at the top of the tower so we have to walk down. Go to Haxnbauer for dinner, great place that does great meaty dishes and some pretty awful vegetarian stuff...i loved it. This was followed by a trip to the Hofbrauhaus where we fitted in nicely with all of the other tourists, we sat at a table of mad Swiss guys, one of them had a smashed glass so he decided to drink his beer through his shirt to act as a filter, interesting.

Decided it was about time to act like serious tourists and take some stupid pictures



DAY 38 - Rest Day - Munich
Today we are staying at the Holiday Inn in the city centre, finally we get a bit of luxury. After checking in we cycle around the English garden and stop there for a beer in the biergarten. We then cycle around a bit more before heading back. Nice stuff, great cycle paths through the city and the drivers actually seem to be aware of the cyclists. Find a cinema that has films in original language so watch pirates of the caribbean 2, bump into my old Computershare workmates in there which is odd.

Swingle singers arrive late and we meet them at the Hofbrauhaus and end up drinking with them until about 3am...good stuff.

DAY 39 - Rest Day - Munich
Sleep in, huge hotel breakfast, meet up with work mates for lunch. In the evening we go to watch the Swingle Singers concert, great show, nice theatre. Then go for some food and drinks, Boris Becker walks in while we're there which is very exciting. Few more drinks back at the hotel and say goodbye to Swingles. Last night in hotel luxury before heading back onto the road, it's been a good break.

What happened to summer?

We've managed to find our way out of the Bavarian beer halls and are back online with an update.

DAY 32 - Rest day - Donauworth
Day off in Donauworth, really nice place but weather is pretty cold and rainy and everything is closed because it's Sunday. We buy 2 cushions to use as pillows so Mei doesn't have to use her expensive sleeping bag as a pillow anymore, i figure now we are cycling on the flat we can carry a bit extra.

DAY 33 - Donauworth to Menning - 83km/1306 total
Another cool morning but at least not raining yet. Cycle through more small towns and farms and even encounter a few small hills. Much more attractive scenery than yesterday, we soon realise that we have been blindly following the signs for the cycle path and our guidebook has some variations. Oh well, we continue roughly along the river following the signs. Great riding along some rough roads next to the river.

Pass through Neustadt for lunch, another nice town we don't have time to see properly. As soon as we leave the rain starts and stays around until Ingolstadt. We pretty much cycling straight past this big city and then get lost for a while trying to find the path. Some old woman points us in the right direction and we cycle past some old guy who points to the sky and laughs. About 1 minute later the rains starts properly, we hide under a tree for a bit and then just go for it. The trail is pretty muddy now and it's not very pleasant. We see a deer, a hawk and also a marmot like creature, nice enough but the rain is miserable. Cycling past an oil refinery the German monsoon struck us properly, our shoes instantly fill with water and can barely see where we are going. Decide to look for refuge and follow a sign for a Biergarten in some random town, i start laughing when the hail starts bouncing off my helmet, look around for Mei and she has ducked under a tree for some reason. We arrive in a town with the main street flooded and pile into the deserted hotel/restaurant/beer hall kind of place.

We stay there so we can try and dry out, weird place, no one is around except the owners and their mates playing cards and drinking beer.

DAY 34 - Menning to Regensburg - 75km/1381 total
Great start to the day, ok weather and good riding. Passed a nice spa town and were tempted to stop and have massages but kept going. After riding through so many corn fields we are relieved to ride past some hops. Much more exciting than corn. We lose the trail so head down to the river and find a dirt road, it's going in the right direction so we take it and arrive in Weltenburg. Nice place, big Monastery that has been turned into tourist attraction central with outdoor restaurant etc. Still very nice.

The guidebook says to get a boat downstream from here because the river runs through a gorge and you get a better view. We do this, only 20kms so it doesn't feel like cheating, the scenery is very spectacular too, limestone cliffs alongside the river...and a warm boat too. Arrive in Kelheim and continue on. Weather gets worse in afternoon and a HUGE storm hits as we are trying to put up the tent in Regensburg. Sick of this really, what happened to complaining about the heat?

DAY 35 - Rest day - Regensburg
More awful weather, walk into town in the drizzle and look around. Very impressive place, great buildings, nice bridge over the river. We go into a couple of churches which are very nice but were there were services in operation so our wanderings were a bit limited, it was Sunday so this is to be expected.

We hear that the world famous Swingle Singers are in Munich for one night only so we decide to get a train there tomorrow to check them out...we love their work.

Bring on the rain

DAY 28
Off on the trail fairly early today, across flat farmland on dedicated cycle paths for the first few hours passing through small German towns. Quite a few cycle tourers out and about, lots of old people on crappy bikes too. Just as we start to think this flat land may get a bit boring after a while the hills narrow in around the river and we start heading along dirt roads through forest with limestone cliffs along the river. Really nice now, we stop for lunch and order something random which turns out to be a sausage sandwich on one piece of bread with about 5 pounds of raw onion...Tasty! Mei gets something similar without the meat...and without the flavour too.

On we go up some short steep climbs into Beuron, looks nice, monastery and stuff like that. Great scenery along the river with the cliffs surrounding us. Signs for "Donau Radwanderweg" appear all the time to keep us in the right direction, basically follow the river downstream and we'll crash into Budapest so not too tricky just yet.

Stop in Sigmaringen and set up cap, it appears all of the cyclists have the same idea, we try to look smug so everyone else thinks we are proper cyclists, not sure if it's working. Decide to have a kebab for dinner, great choice, 3 Euro for a kebab! Mei even has a vege kebab and thinks it is great! Germans know how to feed.

90 kms, fast and flat.

DAY 29
Day off in Sigmaringen, we walk around a bit and walk past the castle which has the biggest display off weapons in Europe, we decide to skip this cultural delight and instead settle down by the river for lunch. Finally it happens, we get proper rain. In fact the rain hammers down all afternoon and night, to the bar then...

DAY 30
Weather not much better today, soon as we leave we get light rain and we just have to deal with it. Most of the day is on flat roads through farms and along sections of the river. Do Germans eat a lot of corn? They seem to grow a lot, i was expecting fields full of cabbage or asparagus but all we seem to see is corn. It actually looks quite nice for the first hour or so. Nice small towns, lots of little churches, the weather makes it all a bit dreary though. We arrive in the large city of Ulm and head for the tourist office, nearest campsite is 20kms outside town, screw that, we go to the nearest hotel and stay there, then go out and eat like kings. First night in a hotel so far, very nice. Ulm looks great too but not much time spent there, pity.

110 kms, imagine how good we would be on drugs.

DAY 31
Day starts off better, cool but there is some sunshine. Have a quick walk around the cathedral (which is very impressive) then leave along the river. Today is actually quite boring, Mei has a habit of going nuts at about 3 or 4pm, when she's had enough she starts singing weird songs and it's a bit freaky, usually means it's time to stop for the day. Today's route wasn't great so that didn't help, there were some nice bits along the river and through some towns and forest but most of it was through pointless fields of corn, who eats all of this corn? It reminds of mid-west America, i haven't been to mid-west America but imagine it's just like this part of Germany. We even cycled through the outskirts of some semi-industrial towns, nice!

Anyway, today wasn't great, i would expect to see more of the Danube on the "Danube cycle way", we arrive in Donauworth in the afternoon which turns out to be a really nice place. The campsite in town is actually on the grounds of the local canoe club, i think they just rent out their lawn to cyclists to make some extra money. Nice warm showers and a beer vending machine (1 euro for a bottle of beer) make it very nice.

We cook dinner then head into town for some beers...surprise surprise.

89 kms.