Bratislava- Day 7 – And Austria

It rained overnight which meant that the furniture on the terrace was wet, so I had breakfast inside. And, all of the espresso beverage machines were out of order this morning. So I had to have brewed coffee. But these are very minor complaints. I was surprised that espresso beverages were included in the breakfast buffet. It was another lovely spring day with temperatures between 13 and 16° and a mix of sun and cloud.

The bike share here has six separate plans, including one for tourists priced at €6 with up to 12 hours of riding in 24, with no requirement to return the bike every 30 minutes to prevent overage charges. I was expecting to get my borrowed bike last night or this morning so I purchased a day pass for the bike share yesterday.

I learned last night that the bike that I will be borrowing won’t be available to me until next week because the bike shops here are very busy with spring service, and Milan wanted to have it serviced before lending it to me. So last night I purchased a monthly pass which is priced at €9, but requires the bike to be docked every 30 minutes, or be subject to overage charges. But the overage charges aren’t very onerous at €0.12 for six minutes.

I rode to two small towns in Austria today, and over another one of Bratislava‘s five bridges. It was 31 km, which is a lot to do on a bike share bike with its weight and only three gears, and I did 24 km yesterday. I had to push it up, one short steep hill yesterday, and one today. It’s quite fun to ride on descents, or with a tailwind, with the momentum you pick up.

The nearest bike share stand was empty again so it was a five minute walk to the next one, which had one bike.

I love the look of this building with all the plants inside the windows.

I don’t find the lack of cycling infrastructure on the city streets to be a problem, because, even on weekdays, traffic is light, and relatively slow moving compared to Canadian cities.

This is the continuation of the Old Bridge to the south. I waved at Michael’s office building on the right as I went by.

Petruzelka on the south side of the Danube is part of Bratislava, but has a very different feel. The buildings are all communist, era buildings or newer, and there’s a more open suburban feel to it.

Even there, though, the roads were quite lightly travelled with private motor vehicles.

As I got closer to the Austrian border, it became more industrial, but there was cycling infrastructure. There was a bus stop only a few hundred metres from the border crossing.

Both Austria and Slovakia are in the EU, so the border is marked, but unprotected.

In addition to the architecture, which was quite different from both old Bratislava, and Petruzelka, I could tell I was back in Austria because of the windmills.

I was pleased to see the sign for the Iron Curtain Trail. I read an amusing book by Tim Moore in which he detailed his trip on a Soviet era bicycle, riding the Iron Curtain Trail, from the north of Finland to the Black Sea. It is EuroVelo Trail 13. I saw signs for other EuroVelo Trails today, as well.

The trail was lovely, and very lightly traveled.

I received a flurry of messages from my SIM card provider after crossing over to Austria, all in Slovak, so I had no idea what they were saying, and was concerned it might be warning me I was roaming and incurring additional charges, or something. But I was able to copy the text into Google translate and find out that it was just telling me that I was able to continue to use their service, even though I was in Austria. It really is quite amazing all the information at our fingertips when we’re connected to the Internet which makes travel easier.

I stopped for coffee in Kittsee. It was very small village with not much to see. As I was leaving Kittsee I encountered the most incredible smell of chocolate just before seeing the Scokolade ab Werk with a chocolate shop and a tour bus pulled out up outside.

I like the signs when you are leaving villages.

There were many rest stops very close together along the trail.

I walked down the driveway of the nursery to take this picture.

The sign in this picture says: no entry, excluding residents, agricultural vehicles and cyclists. I only saw one other cyclist, and one resident in a car travelling slowly.

This shelter was well equipped with tools, maps, and vending machine.

I did an out and back to the commercial section of Berg which was even smaller than Kittsee.

This looks like a new subdivision. One of the houses had a green roof. I encountered no cars.

When discussing my plans to ride to Vienna and take the train back with one of Michael’s colleagues, who is a cyclist, he suggested that I should do it the other way around because of the prevailing winds. Based on my ride into the north wind today on the back way back from Berg, Austria, I think he’s right.

There were views of the Hrad in the distance from many places in Austria.

There are no cycling directions available here, on Google maps, or the map layer I usually use in Ride with GPS. There are some in Open Street Maps which are crowd sourced, so when I planned my ride on Ride with GPS I had to switch between biking, driving, and walking modes, so I thought I might be in trouble when I saw this.

Fortunately, I had simply forgotten to turn. I received the instruction, but then saw a place to sit and snack, and then continued straight when I finished.

So I checked my route and backtracked a bit and then found where the cycle path crossed the highway. I am re-entering Slovakia, here.

Had I turned the other direction I could have gone to Vienna, all on bike paths, which I hope to do next week.

This bunker is on the Iron Curtain Trail and was never used because before the fortifications were finished, the Germans invaded, and the bunker was captured.

They have a bicycle highway beside the car highway.

They needed both sides of this sign post to affix all the routes available from this point.

They do not mess around when they’re building cycling infrastructure on their bridges. There are ramps up to pathways for pedestrians and cyclists on both sides under the Lanfranconi Bridge, which was built between from 1985 to 1991, and is 760 m long.

The intersection you see below is for bikes and pedestrians only.

I’m about half way across the Danube.

From here you can see the north Danube Cyclepath, and the UFO bridge in the distance.

I’ve seen a lot of these workout stations around the city.

This is looking back out the Lanfranconi bridge.

We saw this mid rise building from the Hrad a couple days ago, and from that viewpoint, it looks like a ship.

I spotted my first bike share station, since crossing back into Bratislava, and almost returned the bike momentarily to start another free 30 minutes, but then decided I might not be able to get it out again if I did. When I purchased the monthly account, I couldn’t figure out how to add a credit for overage and only €0.60 was provided as part of the initial payment for the pass. When I returned the bike outside the hotel, I owed €3.24.

I was quite tired at this point so I grabbed a takeout latte and cookie at a coffee shop in the subway under the large intersection where the transit stop is, which allows pedestrians to cross the road and access transit without conflict with motor vehicles.

Then I had a rest in the room and reviewed my pictures and started writing the blog.

When Michael finished work, he suggested that I grab the bike share and come and meet him. I forgot that I owed the money. When I tried to scan the bike out, it wouldn’t let me and I couldn’t figure out how to top up the payment so I bought a tram ticket and we met in the old city. I like the mix of old and new buildings.

We walked for a while and looked at restaurants, but nothing was grabbing me so we got the tram back out to near where we’re staying, and went to a restaurant that he recommended that makes good burgers. I had schnitzel and really enjoyed that.

Unfortunately, there is a lot more smoking here, than at home. It’s allowed on restaurant patios, and I can often smell it on people, as well.

After that, we walked back to the hotel now I have to figure out what to do tomorrow. What a luxury.