the end of amazing Austria... and past Passau

Phew! Now that messy story is out of the way, we can get on to the more pleasant parts of our journey, more Austria!

August 8th we rode into a small community (called Au) outside of Mauthausen, Austria; a beautiful, bustling community with tons of things to do and a lively atmosphere. This community had also been the location of a level three (referring to rate of death) concentration camp during WW2. We decided to pay our respects to the lives lost during this dark period of history, and I suppose, if given the opportunity, one should visit a concentration camp. We should learn from our history and be aware of the evil that we are capable of.

The Mauthausen concentration camp expansion was only two camps in Europe to be labelled as level three camp, the highest ranking death-toll classification. The camp was reserved for the "intelligentsia" population, or those ememies of the Reich who were educated and of high social standing. The camp is infamous for the horrible practice of literally working the inmates to death... upwards of 300,000 people died as a result. The Mauthausen camp liberated in May 1945 by 65th infantry division the US army (Go Yankees). I don’t feel I could explain such a place, but the experience was sobering and contrasted sharply with the peaceful and fertile county that Austria now is.

We rode on to Linz, the capitol of the county, and then into the country side where we camped, once again, next to the river. Linz was a sweet little artsy-fartsy community and was full of beautiful buildings. And I don’t think we will ever tire of sleeping in little “Kempingplatz” next to the sound of trickling water, breathing fresh mountain air.



We ended our tour of Austria August 10, as we crossed into Germany and the city of three rivers, Passau Germany. Here we found a set of maps for the next portion of the journey (unfortunately the guidebooks are only sold in German) and we actually found camping fuel that works correctly for our MSR camp stove. Up into this point we had been using some crappy stuff that we found out was actually lamp fuel, and every time we went into a store looking for the right stuff, the store owner wouldn’t sell it to us, saying we would “blow up!” and shake their heads. The stuff we got doesn’t “blow up”, in fact it works like a charm and we made a lovely meal to celebrate. Garlic seasoned fresh veggies on top of quinoa and two bottles of cheep local wine.

The route in Germany doesn’t come close to the ease by which we passed through Austria, and the trail markings are in fact more confusing and sparse. Todd has a theory that some well-meaning townspersons goes around and rotates the sign posts so that you end up going through their small towns and spending your money. Whatever the case, between the maps being only in German, the backwards signage and detours due to copious amounts of flooding along the route, it’s been slow going.



August 11, after hours of biking through farm fields and occasional villages it was only fitting that we stayed our second night in Germany in a middle-of-nowhere farm community of Waltendorf. Some smart farmer had set aside a small portion of his farmland as a little campsite, he sold beer out of a converted barn and added an extra bathroom with a scrub sink to the side of his farm house. I’m telling ya, this is the life man. The Germans, they got it goin’ on.

The other funny thing about Germany is their strange fixation with lederhosen and obsession with all painting their houses the same shade of white. Everywhere you look its red roofs, whitish-cream houses with some sort of wood siding. You are also likely to find lacy white drapes in the windows and windowsills overflowing with vines and flowers. It must be some sort of unwritten German housing code. Whatever the case, they made great schnitzel and their camping is cheap as dirt (if the campsite owner even bothers to make you pay).

The other difference we come across is the hills. There a bit more than “rolling” in fact, there more or less vertical… and never ending. Still, it’s always nice to climb for an hour in the corn fields, to look down over the… cornfields, and then coast for a few minutes into more cornfields. It’s like a lumpy Wisconsin.


We stayed in Regensburg the night of the 12 and scarfed down some German/Turkish Kabobs (man, those things almost kick the pants off of schnitzel) and rode on past Kelheim the next day. Our riding has been getting a bit sloppy and I’ve been keen on taking more breaks than usual and complaining more about the hills and we decided to take it easy for a few days, until we found a hostel where we could finally do some laundry and find internet (there is NO WiFi here… I’m serious. When we ask about it, people just scrunch their eyebrows as if we asked where the payphone is… it just doesn't exist!)

So here we are, August 16, in a fancy hostel in a little town of Danuworth. You could blink and miss this old-world town, so it’s suites us just fine for a day of rest and relaxation. (We don’t have any guilt from not doing the sight-seeing thing, the only museum is a German puppet and porcelain doll exhibit which I’m convinced would only give us nightmares). We should be nearing the source of the Donau river soon and from there we’ll just figure it out.
Auf Weisterstain for now!