Day 16 Passau to Linz

101 km day (63 miles), 1027 miles total

A great days riding under cloudy skies. Two significant milestones passed today. I left Germany and entered Austria and I passed 1000 miles from the start of the cycle. I revisited the old town of Passau again as promised to take some additional pictures and went to the point where two Rivers join the Danube. Passau is known as the city of three rivers because the Ilz from the north and wanted the Inn from the south. Passau is also the place where many of the big river cruise boats start the journey is down the Danube, or turn round if they have come up from Vienna or Budapest. Immediately after leaving Passau The Danube enters a gorge and stays in it for most of the days cycle. This makes the way very, very interesting. Everyone is crowded into a thin strip of land at the valley bottom. The road, the cycle path, the cyclists, the villages, the cafes, the bars, everything. Lots to look at and enjoy. I took a screenshot of my navigation map at one point in the valley to show how narrow the flat area is. The gap between the blue of the river and the green of the cliff edge is about 20 m, or about 70 ft. The contours are at 20m intervals. Occasionally, a castle, fine church, or a big house would be appear on top of the gorge side. The river itself was full of interest. Big cruise ships, enormous industrial barges, small pleasurecraft, ferry’s, canoeists, swans with their cygnets, even a stand-up paddler or two! Whenever the valley bottom was wide enough to squeeze in a village, one had been built. Small ferry’s crossed the river at these points taking cyclists and other tourists from one bank to the other. I had to catch one early afternoon. This is a very fine piece of cycling track, and is shown by the number of cyclists - probably the greatest density on the tour so far. Every kind, standard tandems, disabled cyclists hand-pedalling recumbent bikes, very old couples on matching bikes, young families with the children with mini-panniered bikes and the baby in a chariot behind dad! Notable other sights included the gentleman pushing his camping equipment in a box-on-wheels to Vienna (we had a chat about the journey, not the destination being the point. He was a happy man) and 26 supercars - Lamborghini’s and Ferrari’s -parked in a small village. I was going to camp outside Linz but the ferry pilot (I was the only passenger) told me there is a festival of street performance this weekend in Linz (he also sold me some excellent home made Walnut liqueur and Schnapps). I decided to get a cheap hotel and enjoy the fun. That will be reported tomorrow. Stopped at a BP petrol station and car-washed my bike which was looking pretty dirty after 1,000 miles. Very good day and hoping for a similar evening.

Linz early morning. Me by the confluence of the rivers