Danube River Valley

Today was a free day for us, so Karl, Matt, Ryan, Maria, AJ, Ben and I went and rented bikes to ride from Melk to Krems along the Danube. After an hour long train ride or so we got off the train in Melk and began our journey. We started off at the Abbey in Melk which was absolutely beautiful. Then we headed off on our bike for the 37 km ride. It was really one of the best days in my life, it was ridiculous how amazing everything. Little city after little city, vineyards everywhere, castles just sitting on the tops of the hills. For 37 km it felt like nothing, my legs were hurting a little bit, but you just get so caught up in what’s around you that you forget that you are doing any work. We stopped and got some food at a little restaurant at the base of a hill that had the remains of a castle on top of it. The food was so good and the restaurant was overlooking the Danube. After food we got back on our bike to go check out the castle, but as we started riding, Ben got a flat tire. We ended up a kilometer or so down the road at a gas station where we were lucky enough to have a nice guy come and help us get his tire back up and running. We made it the rest of the way with no problems.

We also had a chance to see the Dürstein Castle where Richard the Lionheart was held captive. It was an incredibly hard hike considering this was very near the end of the bike ride, so we were getting tired, we hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and we had to climb a mountain, everything was going against us. But we made it and the view was unreal. I know that Richard the Lionheart probably didn’t get out much to check out this view, but if he did, this might not be the worst place to be held captive.

We made it to Krems and then got some eiscafes and hopped back on the train to Vienna and called it a day. If you go to Austria you must make this bike ride, it will blow your mind!