Come rain or shine (Inzell, Austria)

After spending a lazy afternoon in Passau yesterday, this morning I was eager to get back on the road. The fact that I had finally mustered up the courage to look at the map for the rest of the way had a big impact, as I was very positively surprised by the distance that there was left to Vienna and on to Budapest. Now, any normal person would of course have known this from the beginning, being well prepared and with a clear plan on daily routes and destinations, but for me, *not* making those plans has come to symbolise ultimate freedom. At times, this has led to unpleasant surprises as I have discovered that there is a lot more distance to cover than I thought, but this time, the remaining 630 km to Budapest seemed like child's play as I had been worrying it would be double as much. Funny how the mind works!


The morning was fresh, almost chilly, something that seemed like a wonderful gift after boiling in my own sweat for days. I set off from the campsite in Passau, populated almost solely by fellow bikers, and was delighted to find the wind once again in my favour. Very quickly, I had reached the German -Austrian border, and the next moment, was in Austria.


This stretch of the Danube bike route is the most popular, and for a good reason: The scenery, with tall forests, winding bike tracks flanking the now different coloured river (the Inn that joins the Danube in Passau brought with it a beautiful, opaque green tint that makes the water incredibly clear) along with absolutely no hills makes the going really easy. There are quite a few other cyclists, although it is not the high season yet, but mostly, I am travelling alone with my thoughts. The only thing that is slightly annoying is the weather, with constant showers.


So far, I haven't even mentioned tango, and one may ask whether this is a sign that my obsession with it is showing signs of cooling off. Indeed, after my first tango crisis since I started, something that made the first half of this year quite painful, I think I am in a bit of a recess when it comes to dancing. However, the last couple of nights, upon getting to my sleeping bag, I have felt a terrible urge to listen to tango, and Pugliese, Di Sarli and Tanturi have put me to sleep while reminding me of how much dancing still means to me. Similarly, last night, getting in touch with my tango friends in Vienna and Budapest, my first thought was a logical one: When can we dance?


One may be temporarily fooled that the desire to dance has subsided, but it is lying there, hidden just beneath the surface.

Comments

  1. Gizella09/07/2015, 17:47

    planing to join and cycle with you on the way to Budapest.
    please, let me know when will you cross the Austrian-HU border?

    gizella
    gbarsi@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paris, finally!

Image
Paris. Here I am, after all those weeks on the road, at the End of this Road. And I Love It: The city is lovely, the weather is beautiful, the people are friendly and the dancing is good. Most importantly, though, I feel really good about the achievement that took most effort in the very beginning and the last few days. As a matter of fact, I did get here already Friday evening, but time has just passed in such a blur that I simply have not had the time to sit down and write about it. Even as I write this (at 4 am on Sunday morning, having just returned from a milonga), I am about to fall asleep while seated, so I will need to be brief. On Friday morning, I had an early start from Peronne, and despite the minor (?) logistical problem of a 40-km stretch missing from my maps (funny, considering that they were the neighbouring pages of a series of maps) managed to cover most of the remaining distance without getting lost. This changed, however, the moment I got into the...
Read more

Getting into the swing of it (Pärnu)

Well, after two days of cycling I have both good and bad news. The good news is that very little seems to have changed for me in terms of travelling this way. Yesterday, although getting out of Tallinn was as stressful as leaving a strange city on a fully-loaded touring bike always is, I quickly noticed that indeed, I had not forgotten how to do this. Nor did the little over 100 km I covered both yesterday and today seem impossible to do, although the last 20 km certainly took some willpower. One thing that has greatly eased my settling into the right mindset is the fact that my Dad is accompanying me for a few days in his camper van. This means that not only do I have a soft mattress to sleep on and someone to pay my meals (;-), most importantly, there is someone to encourage me on (in his case, this means trying to get me to put the bike on the van and driving with him instead of cycling, something that I obviously wont do :-). All this works in my favour, as does being able to get...
Read more

The charm of the Danube (Vác)

And so, after 10 days of cycling, I am now almost within shouting distance of Budapest. What remains is 35 km of winding bike track, hugging the side of the now slowly, almost dreamily flowing river. The sky has a few scattered clouds that at this hour (11am) still offer some shelter from the heat that is set to climbing up to 40 degrees as the day progresses. Knowing there would be little escape from the sun, I set off from the campsite at 7, stopping in the centre of Esztergom only long enough to get some groceries for breakfast. A minor problem arose at the campsite reception, when the same guy who had refused to charge me when I arrived last night, saying I would have to wait until the morning, now said the reception would only open at 9. Now this was Far too late for me, as it would mean I would have to cycle the whole 80 kms in the already merciless heat. So, what to do? I simply put on my tour leader mode, the one that was once needed to keep my safari staff operational, ...
Read more