Krems to Vienna - June 18

June 18

Rod got an early start and made his way to Vienna before us. Before we left town we took the walking tour of the old city and had a coffee in the town centre. Just near us in the cafe were two young women having breakfast, one of them chain smoking. Smoking is still permitted nearly everwhere in Austria, and our impression is that a greater percentage of the population are smokers compared to Australia. It is often an issue to find somewhere to eat without being choked by smoke.
;

The Krems campground.

The Krems old town centre.

Amazing old building in central Krems.

The bike route largely follows the river and although a fairly long days ride at ~90km, we enjoyed it thoroughly.

Typical of the morning's ride.

We stopped for an early lunch at a beautiful town called Tulln. Around Tulln the bike route passed through areas of forest that were like gardens.

At Tulln.

Approaching Vienna.

Towards Vienna of course things slowed down. We crossed the river on a ferry then followed the bike path on the other side for a while planning to catch a train for the last few km through the city.

Waiting for the ferry while it waits for a barge to make its way upstream.

Still approaching Vienna.

Unfortunately the first railway station we found was not suitable and we wasted a bit of time finding this out. We then ground our way through the city for a bit before having better luck and catching a train for the last 5km to the Westbahnhof area to find our hostel.
We arrived at Hostel Ruthensteiner at about 4pm. When we had booked on the phone that morning we had been told there were no ensuite rooms available, but upon being asked again the helpful staff put us in a very comfortable ensuite room across the road fromt he main hostel, complete with a lounge area and kitchen only shared with one other room, occupied by a Kiwi couple for the duration of our three night stay.
Meanwhile Rod, travelling separately, had arrived by virtue of a pretty quick run from Krems aided by hooking up with a Spanish roadie making the run into Vienna pretty quick.
The route the Spaniard took took him through the local nudist zone, so probably lucky not to have a nasty cycling accident.
Rod did not catch the train through the city but decided to cycle through checking out some of the major attractions along the way.
He grabbed our other booking at the Wombat hostel, Tracey and I though that was very appropriate.