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May 2003

Pedal Pushers

On your bike! It’s only a few hundred kilometers to Budapest

It’s nearly holiday time again. In the coming weeks many of us will start collecting brochures, examining maps and holding family conferences about where to spend our vacation. This year, however, the floundering German economy and international instability brought on by the war in Iraq will rule out many expensive, long-distance locations. For those who are looking for a fairly inexpensive, but adventurous holiday closer to home, how about hopping on your bicycle and cycling along the Danube to Budapest?

You will need to do some preliminary planning, after all, the route from Passau to Budapest is about 650 km long. Those who are less ambitious may wish to cycle only as far as Vienna, which is about halfway. Nonetheless, the trip offers the chance to see some of Central Europe’s most beautiful landscapes, visit many castles and historic buildings and get fit in the process. Working on the assumption that the average cyclist covers about 65 to 70 km a day, the trip can be done in just under two weeks, including the journey home from Budapest by train.

Prerequisites for all cyclists attempting the tour are a sturdy bicycle, which has been given a recent overhaul, and a good cycle guide. Most bike shops will tune up your two wheeler, though the price will depend on whether any repairs need to be made. While you’re at the bike shop, you should buy a couple of puncture repair kits and make sure you know how to repair a flat tire. Also consider investing in a first-aid kit, available at Apotheken. The small box designed for motorcycles is probably best and costs about € 12. The cycle guides consulted for this article are published by Galli (www.galli-verlag.de) and bikeline (www.esterbauer.com) but there are plenty of others from which to choose.

The town of Passau is a good place to begin your journey to Budapest or Vienna, and many of the cycle guides take this town as a starting point. Passau can be reached from Munich by train. The journey takes a little over two hours by Regionalbahn (regional train). There is a daily connection, which leaves Munich at 11:28 am and arrives in Passau at 1:37 pm. However, make sure that whatever train you choose, it’s one that transports bicycles and, in the holiday season, book in advance. The price for transporting one bicycle is about € 3, but will depend on the type of train ticket you buy.

If you arrive in Passau too late to begin the tour on the same day, there is plenty to see in this picturesque town, which is at the confluence of the rivers Inn, Ilz and Danube (see June 2002 issue of MUNICH FOUND), and there is no shortage of places to spend the night. Those on a limited budget can either stay at the youth hostel, in the Veste Oberhaus (Tel. [0851] 49 37 80), or cycle to the nearest camping site, 10 km away in Irring (Tel. [08546] 633). On the other hand anyone looking for a little luxury before the rigors of cycling, the Hotel Wilder Mann (Tel. [0851] 350 71) on the Rathausplatz is one of the oldest and smartest places to stay. If you are intending to aim for about a 70-km ride each day, then your first day will take you from Passau to either Oberlandshaag or Aschach, depending on which side of the Danube you cycle. Although in many places both banks of the river have either a road or cycle path, it is worth checking where exactly you want to ride at the beginning of each day or, even better, when planning the trip. This will stop you coming to dead ends, having to cycle along busy roads or finding yourself looking across the river at your accommodation, unable to get to your camping site or guesthouse for lack of a bridge. The cycle guide by Galli, mentioned above, describes the advantages of both river banks separately, merging the texts when only one option is available.

For lack luster cyclist the first day on the road provides plenty of exciting scenery as an aid to motivation. The first 20 km will take you past two castles and one palace: Burg Krempelstein, Schloss Obernzell and Burg Vichtenstein, and by early afternoon, having crossed the border into Austria, you will have reached the impressive Schlögener Schleife, where the Danube makes an S-shaped curve through steep wooded hills. There are plenty of picturesque places to rest and have a bite to eat, and for those who like being on the river, no less than seven ferry services traverse the river on this stretch. During the holiday season finding places to spend the night may pose a problem, so accommodation should be decided on and booked in advance. Camping sites, small hotels and guest houses can be found in the cycle guide, but there is also the option of stopping off at farmhouses each night. The organization Donauradln von Hof zu Hof (www.donauradln.at) publishes a list of farms along the route that take paying guests. The advantage of staying at a farmhouse, apart from the entertainment value for children, is that many farmers will collect cyclists if the farm is not directly on the Danube, a packed lunch can usually be provided for the next day and most offer the use of cycle repair equipment free of charge.

The next few days of cycling provide plenty of geographical variety. While day two is mainly across flat open farmland, days three and four take the cyclist through hillier countryside, affording views across the beautiful vineyards and fields of the Wachau region (see May 2000 issue of Munich Found), which for many is a highlight of the tour. By day five you will find yourself approaching Vienna, cycling through the famous Wienerwald (Vienna Woods) and the outskirts of the city, before arriving right in the middle of Vienna, outside the cathedral Stephansdom, in the late afternoon. Those who wish to end their trip here can catch a train home from Vienna’s central station, though there are not many direct connections allowing passengers to take a bicycle and the journey takes between six and seven hours.

Although much has been done to improve the quality of roads and cycle paths on the route from Vienna to Budapest in recent years, this part of the tour is more demanding. There are more inclines and larger roads to navigate. On the other hand, as the cyclist passes from Austria through Slovakia into Hungary, so the landscape becomes more exotic, less tame than in the first half of the journey. A daily route covering about 70 km will take the cyclist from Vienna to Bratislava on the first day out of Vienna. Highlights of this day include the remains of the Roman town of Carnuntum, which include an excavated palace, an amphitheater and an archaeological museum, and the medieval town of Hainburg. After spending the night in Bratislava, the Slovakian capital, the next day, the longest on the trip, offers two routes: one on the Slovakian side of the Danube and one on the Hungarian. Although the distance on the Slovakian bank is 106 km and takes the cyclist as far as Komárom, the cycling is easy if rather boring because much of it is along the Danube’s manmade reservoir. The landscape on the Hungarian shore is much more varied and there are countless places of interest to be visited, such as the palace at Szechenyi and the historic city of Györ, but the route is longer, 123 km, and often well away from the river. Fortunately there are thermal baths in Komárom on the Hungarian side of the Danube, where weary travelers can relax after a strenuous day of cycling.

Much of the next day’s biking is done away from the Danube, too, but this is compensated for by the chance to visit the ancient town of Tata, its castle and lake—definitely worth seeing. The final night on the road, before reaching Budapest, can be spent in Esztergom, often referred to in guide books as the “Rome of Eastern Europe.” If you’re not too tired after cycling the 73 km from Komárom, the Basilica of Esztergom, on a hill above the Danube, can be visited before dinner.

The final day of the Passau to Budapest route again offers the cyclist the choice of traveling either on the right or left side of the river, though the difference in kilometers is negligible. The right bank of the Danube, however, has quite heavy traffic , so if you’re doing the tour with children, the left bank is probably better. And for anybody who has run out of steam and does not want to arrive in Budapest tired and sweaty, there is the option of taking a boat along the last stretch of the river. Most cycle guides devote a couple of pages to the sights to be seen in the Hungarian capital, for those who wish to spend a couple of days exploring the city. Whatever you choose to do at the end of your trip, however, nothing will compare with the invigorating experience of cycling along the Danube and substantiating that old adage, that it is better to travel than to arrive.

Further information:
For train timetables go to www.bahn.de
Tourist Information Budapest
www.budapestinfo.hu Tourist Information Vienna
www.info.wien.at

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