Greetings from Dürnstein

Never heard of it?

"Dürnstein?" You might well ask, as it is probably not on your radar unless you are a medieval history buff, or are highly interested in all things arcane about the royal lineage of Britain. We're in this small village on the Danube River, near Vienna in the Wachau region of Austria. The area is known for its wine. But the town is also a tourist hotspot because of the fact that Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned in Dürnstein Castle in December of 1192 after returning to Europe from the Crusades. This is what is still standing today ...

All that is left of Dürnstein Castle

... and a few glimpses of what it's like moseying around the ruins ...

View over Dürnstein and the Danube

Few features like this remain

Archer's position

A cell near the top of the castle remains

Although it's just a small village there is still a fairly representation medieval architecture surviving. The most significant of these would be the Dürnstein Abbey, which still stands intact and is now owned by the Augustinians. Here's a view of what the abbey looks like outside nowadays ...

Dürnstein Abbey (note the castle on the hill behind)

... and inside ...

Very ornate, isn't it?

We've had a rest day (sort of) so that people who were interested in sightseeing in Vienna could do so.  Most of chose to take it easy and poke around the village and have a look at the castle.

Getting here

We spent five days riding our bikes to get here from Lienz, where we rejoined the Lionheart tour after abandoning last year due to Di's accident. Our route to get here looks roughly like this ...

Lienz to Durnstein

(If you want to get a clearer, customisable view you can click on this link.)

The riding and company have both been great along the way. Here are a couple of shots of Di that one of our guides took during the journey ...

... and here's one of me that one of our fellow riders took as I dragged my butt up to the summit where he had paused ...

It's been an amazing journey so far, from riding up the fearsome Grossglockner to yesterday's sedate pedal down from the hills onto the banks of the Danube. We've stayed in castles the last few nights, including our memorable night at Burg Plankenstein ...

Burg Plankenstein

...where we dressed up in medieval garb and feasted according to the style of the day.

While Di was dressed as a lady in waiting, I opted for the jester's costume - which could just have easily been a dunce's outfit - due to my route following error getting to the castle ...

The lady and her joker

It's been a great adventure so far and I look forward to (hopefully) reporting back in a few days' time when we have another rest scheduled near Salzburg. If you want more details of our travels you can visit my blog on the Bike Odyssey website. (To see previous posts look at the column on the right.)

Enjoying Life in Small Town Austria

Savouring the Sunshine and Soaking up the Atmosphere

We've been lucky so far with the weather in Lienz. Today is our third full day here after arriving about 4 pm on Thursday. It's been sunny with temperatures rising to the mid 20's each day and not a lot of wind. Perfect cycling conditions, especially given that we've been finished by lunch or shortly after for each of the three rides we've done.

Here are a few images from the last two days that show what we've been enjoying ...

Wandering around town

Only about 13 000 people love in Lienz so it's a pretty laid back place - but there are a lot of very active people here: hiking, climbing and riding bikes. There's a bunch of outdoor stores and at least two high end bike shops and another that is a specialist repair shop. I reckon they probably break a lot of bikes around here, what with the steep mountainous terrain surrounding the town. There is a nice vibe about the place and it's quite pretty with a high concentration of well preserved medieval buildings. Here are a few glimpses ...

The only thing that worried me was what appeared to be a dungeon just off the central plaza ...

Yesterday, after we'd finished our ride we wandered out to get some groceries and were stoked to see some cycling action with a mini criterium course set up right in the middle of the central plaza. What was particularly delightful was that they were having races for little kids. First it was some quite small boys ...

... and then some slightly older girls ...

Di was enjoying the action so much she took a couple of short videos which I stuck together for her ...

The main event of this cycling festival was a Gran Fondo that was on today. There were two rides: the original event which has been running for 32 years and covers 112 kilometres and includes 1870 metres of climbing; recently added is the SuperGiroDolomiti, covering 207 kilometres and 4,597 metres of climbing(!).

Is there something else besides cycling?

Just outside the town one can find the Roman settlement of Aguntum ... 

... which dates back to the first century B.C. We rode past it yesterday, but if we can find a bit of drive we might walk out there tomorrow to have a gander. The site also contains a museum with a bunch of stuff from the time and 

Another attraction that would help us get a deeper understanding of the history of the area is Bruck Castle ...

,,, a medieval fortress. It also houses a museum and  looks like it's worth a visit.

It looks like we could be in for some thunderstorms starting from late tomorrow. Hopefully they will pass before we get on the road to the Grossglockner in three days time. It's the highest and longest pass that we are scheduled to ride over on this tour so we'll want some reasonable weather if we're going to be able to ride over it.

From Hobart, Australia to Lienz, Austria

By Car, By Plane, By Bus and By Train

Somewhat of a slog getting here, but just check this out!

Getting There

It's a bit of journey from home to here. We started with a short drive to the airport via lunch in the Coal River Valley wine region with our friends David and Margot. Three flights later - adding up to 21 hours in the air - plus a bus shuttle in the Hammad Airport of Doha then another bus from Venice's Marco Polo airport to Mestre and we were checked into our hotel by 2:30 in the afternoon. What a relief! It's always good to get all that mechanical moving about done and dusted.

Glad to have all that behind us!

An Interlude in Mestre

Piazza Ferreto

With about 5 hours of train travel and an hour in transit at Villach ahead we thought it best to have a layover when we landed rather than trying to make a train connection directly in Lienz. (Hmmm. Yes, that probably is a bit of an understatement.) As it turned out once we settled into our hotel, wandered out for a cold drink and then an early evening meal we were in bed and dead to the world by 7:30. The Hotel Aaron, recommended by our excellent travel agent Gillian, was a short walk from the stazione but, just as usefully, was wonderfully quiet and we both slept really well. 

With our train not leaving until after 10 we had plenty of time for a morning stroll to find breakfast - especially as we were both wide awake at 5 o'clock.

Di strolling along via Dante

It turned out that we had a very enjoyable wander, discovering some delightful sights quite by accident. We stumbled across the via Dante, which is a street that has had a major section blocked off to motorised transport and now consists of a wide footpath and a super bike path. Many other streets had clearly marked bike paths alongside them ...

... and even a bike icon added to street lights in places ...

The quietude of via Dante must be wonderful for students who go to the scuola elementare and provides for pretty relaxed cycling ...

The most rewarding part of our walk was our discovery of the Piazza Ferreto, which looks like it is the centre of the old city of Mestre. There are lots of great buildings scattered around the piazza including the Duomo di San Lorenzo ...

There was a bookshop with an interesting mix of books in the window ... 

... and nearby we were surprised - but probably shouldn't have been - to come across a canal ...

The best part of our walk though was finding the market ...

Lots of wonderful fresh fruit and vegetables

Whatever this was, it looked delicious 

Squid in abundance

What a great paella I could make with these ingredients!

Loving it in Lienz

Arriving in Lienz, we again had just a short walk to our accommodation. We're staying in the CitySuite Lienz apartments. It's a good thing too, because we had a bit of luggage to move ...

We checked in at four o'clock, got the bikes assembled and thought that was enough for the day - except of course for getting something to eat. Luckily there was a pizza and pasta joint just a few steps from our accommodation. A meal, a bit of crossword puzzling (me) and some reading (Di) and we were ready for sleep by 8:30. Not bad: an hour later than the previous day in Mestre. We must be acclimatising.

With the bikes put together we were keen to go for a ride this morning. The weather looked promising ...

The view from our apartment at 5:30 this morning

We're keeping it moderate for the next few days before we set off, hopefully for a traverse of the famous Grossglockner Road. Di liked the look of a ride to Mastrei I mapped out before we left home.  Here's an image showing our starting point in Lienz and the turnaround at Mastrei ...

I happened to notice as we went into Matrei and then back out again that there was a sign next to a cable car advertising the Grossglockner resort, so I guess it must have got up to the top, or at least nearby. If you look at the image closely (click on it and you can see it full size) you will see the Grossglockner to the east. The Grossglockner Road goes up through another valley system to the east of the ride Di and I did today.

It was fabulous riding, almost entirely on bike paths and secondary roads with virtually no motorised traffic. But there was plenty of human-powered activity happening. People on all sorts of bikes, people roller blading, lots of walkers - many of them using poles. There was even a guy doing the dry land cross-country skiing think.

Here are some images from along the route, mostly taken by Di ...

A very good bridge for human-powered traffic

Some sort of dam on a side stream, perhaps for hydro-electric power generation?

A ruined castle alongside the route

Significant barn: the farmer must be very successful!

An icon along the way

Teepees at a campground

The valley in front of us

We had to do some shopping when we got home, so here are a few images from around the town ...

Bread and pretzels: lots of variety in shapes and sizes

It looks like Lienz rocks to an old-time beat

Downtown in the historic quarter

Finally, an panorama from our balcony ...

Bright afternoon sunshine after it looked like a thunderstorm

It looks like being another good day tomorrow so we will try to get in another fun ride. After all, we are in the mountains and it could change any time. Right now I need to get some cleaning and lubing done on our drivetrains so I better get to it. I hope you've enjoyed the blog!