Bratislava – Day 15 – And Vienna

I got up at 6:30 today so I could get the train to Vienna at 8:37. The train runs hourly, and you buy a ticket to Vienna which you can use at any time. It cost €18, one way, including transporting a bike. It’s going to be another beautiful day with the temperature ranging from 13° to 20° with a mix of sun and clouds.

I was advised by locals to take the train to Vienna, and ride back, rather than the other way around, which I had initially planned, due to the fact that it will be downhill, and I would be more likely to get a tail wind. Unfortunately, the wind is from the southeast today, like yesterday, so I will have a headwind. The ride as I planned it is 72 km.

It was a 2.5 km ride to the station. When I arrived there, the departure was listed, but not the platform. I didn’t have to wait long for the platform to show up. I had to take an elevator and walk through a tunnel to get to the right platform. There were two other cyclists, headed to the elevator when I was, and I thought, I can just follow them, but they continued on when I got to the elevator for platform three. Fortunately, I was paying attention to the platform numbers listed at each elevator up to the platforms.

A few minutes later, the train pulled in with a bike car, with about a third of the car, devoted to bikes with seats that fold down, and the rest of the car with regular sets of four seats like you see on the GO train. You hang your bike and can sit with it, but I chose to sit in more comfortable seats, but in view of the bike. It took 70 minutes.

I was madly trying to research Vienna last night – I haven’t had time up till now – but it was overwhelming and I decided to just take it as it comes. There was far too much to see in the three hours I had there before I started riding back to Bratislava.

I have a tourist guide of Vienna from the Brampton Library, so I looked up the top 10 things to see in Central Vienna and chose to create a route in Google maps, while I was on the train, that went from the station, to the museum district, to the Hofburg palace, to Hundertwasserhaus, where I plan to have lunch in the café, and then onto the Donaukanalradweg, the Danube canal cycle path. I cycled 10 km in Vienna, and when I saw things of interest, pulled over or deviated from the Google maps route.

The station was massive, but easily navigated.

The scale of the city was also my massive, and felt like Prague on steroids. They were complete streets everywhere, with space for pedestrians, cyclists, trams, cars, and parking.

This is the first time I have seen a free water fountain and water bottle filling station since I’ve been in Europe.

Here are a few of the sites that I saw.

This was a massive complex of restaurants and food shops.

This is the museum district.

This massive street separated the museum district from the Hofburg palace.

As I was crossing the street, I noticed bicycle police had cyclists pulled over. As I passed them, I got a finger wagging at the fact that I had my phone in my hand, but I wasn’t stopped. In Ontario it isn’t illegal to ride while holding your phone, only when driving a motor vehicle.

This is the Hofburg palace. I sat on one of the benches, and had a hard boiled egg and a yoghurt drink, which I brought from the breakfast buffet.

This might be the fanciest grocery store location that I have ever seen.

There was a massive pedestrian district around St. Stephan’s Cathedral with public bathrooms and access to the U-Bahn – Untergrundbahn, their subway system which has five-lines with a length of 83.1 kilometers and 109 stations.

There are paths along both sides of the Danube through the city, with frequent stair and ramp access. In addition to the pedestrian and cycling infrastructure at street level.

There were an astounding number of bikes, parked everywhere, as well as cyclists on the move.

Even standing at this spot, it was hard for me to comprehend the scale of what I was looking at until a train crossed.

I thought this was a fascinating building. Outside of it was this sculpture of a sleeping woman. After my long ride yesterday and a few early mornings, I felt in need of a nap before I even set off on my 72 km return journey.

I saw this sentiment in a few places, but this was the most picturesque.

I think this is a university library.

The Hundertwasserhaus is an apartment house, completed in 1985, based on the ideas and concepts of Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. It is one of Vienna’s most visited buildings and includes a small café open to the public. The building belongs to the city of Vienna, who rent out the apartments as with any other public housing. I had a latte, and ham and Emmental cheese sandwich on the terrace. I was still hungry when I finished, but given my experience along the Danube Cyclepath yesterday, expected to have places to stop for more food along my ride back to Bratislava.

It was easy to find the cycle path from my lunch spot despite the fact that I had planned my route back from the train station.

Oops. I’m supposed to be up on that bridge. This was one of the few places where I didn’t see a ramp so I carried the bike up.

After only a few minutes of riding, it felt like I was in the suburbs of Vienna, then I was travelling through a large park.

I crossed the Danube on this bridge, which had spiral ramps up to it on both sides at both ends, with the cycle path beneath the motor vehicle deck, as I experienced on bridges in Bratislava.

Here I am looking back at Vienna. This was my last view of the Danube for quite a while. The path turned away and went through this fuel storage facility.

Then I was on the cycle path for about 40 km with nothing to see but trees and occasional double track dirt paths leading off to villages. The path was elevated about 5 m in the air making the wind even worse. The only amenities were an occasional picnic table, and the direct headwind at 24 to 36 km an hour never ceased. The path was a constant 1 to 2% downhill, but the wind was strong enough, that if I didn’t pedal, I would come to a stop. I missed my drop bars, and often rode with my forearms on the flat bars to lower my wind resistance.

It was one of those rides that I am grateful to have completed, but I must admit to not enjoying the actual experience. If I was doing it again, I would spend more time in Vienna and take the train in both directions or, do it on a day with a tail wind as well as the downhill grade.

On my first day here I commented on globes that I saw in trees, and a friend replied that it is mistletoe. It is a parasite. There was a lot of it in the trees along the path. the scale here is not conveyed in the image. These trees are probably at least 15m tall.

At one point a wild boar ran across my path. As I spotted him heading toward me I was quite concerned. He was massive. But he took no interest in me and disappeared into the woods on my left shortly after he appeared, and I wasn’t even able to get my phone off the bars to get a picture.

At another point I saw two deer run across the path, which were much less concerning than the boar.

These were the only other animals I saw. There were very few other people on these 40 km of path.

I found the ride, utterly exhausting, and at this point ate the last of the food I had brought with me, and was nearly out of water, but was 20 km from Hainburg where Jon had recommended stopping for food. I wasn’t in any danger, just very tired.

This was the first sign I saw for Bratislava.

Whenever the double track roads led off to villages, they were sign posted.

It was interesting to cross a dry channel with a warning high water sign.

This was the first time I had to go uphill about 40 km into the ride, and it was just to get up to the bridge to cross the Danube . You can see from the wind sock that the wind was strong.

After crossing the Danube, but still in Austria, the sights became more interesting.

I was utterly exhausted and thinking about getting the train the rest of the way back when I found the café Jon recommended. The rest and the food perked me up a bit.

Another train station and a train taunted me as I slogged on. This was the only non-bridge access ascent the whole day.

As you can see, the land was very flat, but wide-open and the wind continued to be unrelenting.

I was very pleased to recognize the Austrian Slovakian border and knew the rest of the route from my trip to Austria last week.

I was too tired to go out for dinner, so I had a long, hot shower while Michael got for us to eat in the room.

Tomorrow is forecast to be rainy, which is fortunate because I need a rest day.


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