Friday, April 12, 2013

Munich to Salzburg to Vienna

Munich - A city with a large but extremely busy city center. My right handlebar wrapping had come undone, so I dropped my bike off at a shop to have it rewrapped. Turns out the duct tape I had put over it to keep it in place had stuck to the wrapping so well that it ripped the wrapping when It was taken off, so it wasn't rewrapped, just retaped. While the bike was in the shop, I did learn one thing. Munich, and also Vienna has their bike paths as part of the sidewalk. This makes it safer for the cyclists, but it means cyclists are constantly avoiding pedestrians who wander onto the cycleway. When I was cycling I found myself getting very annoyed with pedestrians, and yet when I was a pedestrian myself, I couldn't help but wander into the cycle paths.

I spend several hours wandering the German Museum, where I found an 8 inch floppy:
and a bunch of WWI and II replica airplanes, such as this one, painted to look like the Red Baron's plane:
And they had some cool prototype supersonic jets:
Munich also has a lot of old buildings, churches, monuments:


One thing I must say about Munich is that I have never in my life seen so many people not jaywalking. I honestly felt like I was instantly marked as a tourist since I would get odd glares from people when you could clearly see no car coming for miles, yet no one would cross until the green walk sign was showing.

After one day in Munich, I went to the Dachau prison camp. The hostel was organizing a tour there that cost $20 euros in transportation costs, but it was only about 12 miles away so of course I saved myself the money, stashed my gear in the hostel, and cycled over there. It was fairly depressing and I'm not sure why I went.

After that it was half a day riding, and another full day to arrive in Salzburg and stay at a hostel there.
The next day was spent in Salzburg, which was fairly interesting, as well as an incredibly warm day.
I went to the first non-gothic church so far, and it was quite impressive:
Leaving Salzburg, there was a bit of a climb. However, the slow, constant descent after made it worth it, and I dropped 400ish feet over 10ish kilometers through a valley, and following a few lakes. I even had some tailwind. Austria is everything Switzerland wishes it could be.
I ate lunch here:
Just as I was looking for a place to camp, it started to rain, but the rain stopped before morning, so that was a welcome change.
The next day I joined the eurovelo 6 route, still enjoying the crazy tailwind, doing 20mph on flat road along the river.
I ate lunch here:
I met up with a german cyclist who was also headed my way, and we rode along the river to Vienna. He is going about the same speed as me, but will be staying longer in the main cities. We camped outside a farmhouse the first night, then made it all the way to Tulln where he had already arranged to stay in a church in town where we got a free warm bed and breakfast. With the tailwind, I/we have made it 70+miles each day for the last few days. It has been nice to ride with someone going the same direction and the same speed. Also, he just started his tour a week ago, so it has been interesting being able to share some tips with him. For example the day we met was the first day he had camped on his journey, and we shared pasta and a beer.
Apparently thousands of people ride along the eurovelo 6 route each summer, but so far we've only seen a few.

I am now in Vienna and I will be for one more day before riding the 50km to bratislava, then on to Budapest.


2 comments:

  1. Hey James. Thanks for taking the time to write these posts. I've enjoyed reading them for the past couple months. Looks like winter's finally behind you?

    I'm preparing for my own 3 month solo trip (Norway and then the various Alpine countries) this summer. I'll mostly be hiking. Just curious what your solution has been with your phone? Buy different SIM cards as you go? Use an International Data Plan from a US carrier? Avoid 3G data entirely, do wifi only? How's it working out?

    Any other pearls of wisdom?

    Best of luck.

    -Sean Sullivan

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    Replies
    1. Winter should be behind me for now, although I might head back into the mountains a bit. Up through Switzerland I bought a prepaid sim card for each country for 10-15 euros, but so far I haven't bought a new one since. I really doubt you'll find any US carrier that offers international data roaming for cheap. I have heard decent things about the international sim cards, such as the ones you can buy in the UK that cost about 30p a minute and 70p per mb even when roaming.

      Since Switzerland I have essentially gone without a phone plan at all, since I've been passing through countries so fast. I use an app called Oruxmaps that lets you save huge map files offline, so as long as I have internet every few days I can avoid buying paper maps. I've been using my laptop to take screenshots of google maps pages of any location I want to visit or the address of a hostel or host I'll be staying at. Most hostels or tourist info places will also give you free maps of the city or region they're in. Also, in most countries there are still starbucks and Mcdonalds with free wifi if you need it in a pinch, though some of them require you to register and receive an sms to logon.

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