Today was another near perfect cycling day. We begin at Worth am der Donau, several miles outside of Regensburg, Germany, and ended up 89 miles later, in Werstein am Inn, Austria. Our route was simple—follow the Donauradweg signs to Passau, then find the Inn radweg and follow it towards Salzburg. Simple and easy—down one river (Danube) then up a tributary (Inn) towards our next destination, Salzburg. The weather was ideal—not too hot or cold, and there was a sporadic cloud covering of the sun. The paths were both well marked, generally well surfaced and gradually sloped. And the wind was blowing towards the southwest while we were heading southeast—a good arrangement.
The Donau (Danube) was on one side as we rode down the Donauradwweg, and fields were on the other, generally fields full of corn in various stages of being harvested. I did not know that this part of Bavaria produced so much corn, but it does. Not far to the east of us were hills marking the western limits of the Danube valley, and on some of the hills were castles or churches. The paths are well used, with walkers and cyclists going both past and towards us.
We finally stopped where we did because the road/cycle path we were on went straight through the middle of a large tent, full of people, which were finishing their three day festival. Such festivals are a fixture of this part of Germany and Austria—a weekend of music, dancing groups, booths selling all sorts of food, and beer. Each town seems to have its miniature Oktoberfest. Since it is Sunday, by the time we checked into the pension near the tent and had cleaned up the festivities were closing down, but it was interesting to see a little and hear a little.
An interesting side comment for today is that we were actually not sure what country we were in when we stopped cycling. We were tipped off to the change from Germany to Austria when we asked the waitress at the hotel restaurant to translate the menu and she pointed to the first item and identified it as a traditional Austrian dish. But until we had studied the maps carefully we did not know for sure where we were. The Austrian-German border has no markings of any kind, and while the Inn River for most of its length is a border, at the confluence of the Inn and Danube, that is Passau, such is not the case. So the cycle path crossed the river and remained in Germany, but at some unmarked and unnoticed to us point the river became the border and we entered a new country. Such is the political nature of the new Europe, the European Union. Lots of positives to this arrangement, but I kind of missed a stamp in my passport…
A final note. The Donauradweg is in a class of itself. The Elberadweg was OK, but not that interesting and at points not well signed. The Saaleradweg was too hard to follow and too mixed between good paths and bad trails. The Naabradweg was very good and the short section of the Regen River trail was good as well. But for signage, scenery, small towns and topography, the Donauradweg is the kind of place you could take your family, enjoy, and be safe. Maybe I’ll do that sometime.
