The very first question you might ask is: why did I pick Munich, Salzburg and Vienna for this trip? Well, I have a very specific time frame when I am free to go anywhere in the world. I decided to focus on two of my favorite activities: music and cycling. I found that most guided bike tours start on Sunday but I fly out on Monday so they are ruled out. The top music festival on my list is Bayreuth (at which Wagner's opera are performed) but it is almost impossible to get tickets (I read that the waiting list is 5+ years) So the "second best" would be Salzburg festival. I planned my trip around it basically. Since it is a small city, it is easier to find flights that fit my time frame and budget when I expanded my search to its nearby metropolis: Munich and Vienna. And I started reading up on attractions at these 2 cities, mainly museums and bike routes, from the Lonely Planet guides to Bavaria (which includes Munich) and Austria.
For biking, there are city tours for all 3 cities I went. In addition, the Danube river runs through Vienna and there is a trail (Donauradweg) along side the river. In fact, it is mentioned and highly praised by one of my favorite biking book about tours around the world.
What I could have done differently was taking the train from Salzburg to one of the city along Donauradweg, rent a bike there and then ride one-way to Vienna but there are several challenges:
1) I need to carry all luggages with me while I ride the bike. Even though I packed really light, it is still too heavy to ride long distance. Biking round trip between Vienna and Melk, I simply leave most of my clothes in the luggage stored at my Vienna hotel.
2) I need to find a bike store that do one-way rental, i.e., allows me to return in a different city (Vienna in my case) I figure it would be possible to arrange this but I don't feel too comfortable. Also, automatic rental system (bike share) is popular in various Austrian cities which was another possibility but I'm not sure how far I could go with those bikes.
Once I decided on where to stay each night, the rest is easy: simply go on the familiar Expedia.com to buy my air tickets and booked my hotels. One might think Expedia.com is US-centric but you would be surprised by the many choices available in major European cities (even non-major one like Melk) My criteria were: close to where major landmarks (plazas) are concentrated, and between US$60-100 per night. Turns out all hotels I stayed at also offered free Wifi, which is a big bonus! I unlocked my phone before the trip and originally planned to buy a prepaid SIM with data plan in Austria but unlike HK or US, phone companies are not everywhere in Austria. Three days into my trip I gave up looking. I ended up relying on Wifi to Facebook and Whatsapp with friends and family.
As far as train tickets are concerned, I asked on forum and I was told it's not necessary to buy in advance because trains run regularly and frequently between European cities. People who are familiar with me know how lazy I am and would be surprised that I booked the trip DIY. No travel agent required! It is actually easier than one thinks.
Looking back I think I made good choices of hotels:
1) The Munich hotel is right next to the Central Train Station (Hauptbahnhof in German) There were trains (S-Bahn) ran directly fro airport to Hauptbahnhof (S1 or S8 train) And the museums are also within walking distance.
2) The Salzburg hotel is within 30 min of walking from Salzburg's Hauptbahnhof. And it is also 10 min away from the concert hall and the Mirabellgarten.
3) The Vienna hotel is 30 min of walking from Vienna's Westbahnhof. I could have taken a train/lightrail but it is not easy to figure out how and how much to pay because info was all in German. The best thing is that the hotel is 5 minutes from the Museum of Art History and right next to MQ (Museumsquartier) where artists and the hip crowd gathers.
4) what I didn't like about the hotels is the lack of A/C. Central European summer nights are hotter than what I'm used to in the SF Bay Area. Still, the heat was tolerable when I was there. I just won't recommend them to those bringing wife/gf. Just avoid something you know she will complain for sure!
On the other hand, I would 100% recommend all three bike stores I worked with. In fact, it is a good idea to reserve the bike/bike tour online in advance (same price as walk-in) because biking IS popular in Europe. I was fortunate that the tours were not sold-out. The only store I contacted in advance was Vienna's Pedal Power. I paid a few more euro to have the bike delivered and picked up from the hotel to save the trouble of public transportation between hotel and bike store. Pedal Power is quite responsive via email and provided me a reliable, well-performing and reasonably comfortable touring bike. It was recommended to me by an online travel review website/forum. I saw quite a few other bikes rented from Pedal Power in the streets of Vienna. I also ran into some bikes from www.radurlaub.com on Donauradweg. You might wanna check them out.
Showing posts with label donauradweg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label donauradweg. Show all posts
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
2012 Euro Cycling and Art Trip - Wachau
I took a train from Hauptbahnhoff at Salzburg around 3pm and it took 3 hours to arrived in Vienna's Westbahnhoff. It was about a 30 minute walk along a few medium sized but quiet streets (e.g. Lindengasse) from the train station to my hotel near MQ (Museumsquartier) I'm tired from walking and hungry too. I walked down the street passed Volkstheater towards the Museum of Art History and Natural History and saw the Wienerwald restaurant, which looks kinda like a Perkin's (those lived in Midwest know what I'm talking about) or Applebee's (I guess it's the green-ish logo) I haven't had an indoor sit-down dinner at a restaurant for a while and decided to give it a try (most importantly, the menu is in English!) I had roast pork and bread dumpling (safe choice!) It's probably not too authentic but I couldn't care less that night. Then I walked around the Vienna central area (National Library, Neue Burg, Michaelerkirche) and took a few pictures and called it a night to get ready for the long bike ride (75 miles) to the Wachau region the next day.
Because of my unfamiliarity with the area, I wasn't really well-prepared for the ride in terms of food and drink supply. All I got was 4 bottles of water and 3 kaisersemmel rolls (BTW, I had probably eaten 10 of these during this week altogether. It's plain and thus deemed "safe" to me) from a bakery. (I misunderstood the directions to the nearby supermarket provided by the "emotionless" hotel receptionist) Plus 6 of the 8 Clif Bar (energy bar) I brought from the States (2 were consumed already) Then the lady from the bike store (Pedal Power) arrived with my KTM Life Fun touring bike (and 2 huge pannier bags on the rear rack) at 9am. I told her my plan of riding to Melk along the Donauradweg (Danube BikeTrail) and she said I should stop by their store to pick up a guide book for that. I got the directions from her and headed there. Her directions were actually quite clear: I needed to get on the "Ring" (a series of streets encompassing the downtown), cross the bridge over the canal and go to the roundabout and then go out to the street with the ferris wheel. Their store was right there. For some reason I overlooked their store even though I went to the right street (the ferris wheel was huge and hard to miss) Eventually I figured it out but it's already 10:30 when I picked up the guide. Now that I have the guide, I'm much less worried about getting lost. Call it my safety net if you will. Still, the chance was there. After all, I don't have a visual GPS to show my exact location. (I do have a GPS watch for recording my routes and speed)
The GPS route I loaded was for riding on right bank between Vienna and Krems, and left bank between Krems and Melk. The Austrian government deserved a lot of credit for "doing it right": plenty of signs (or painted arrows on the roads) made it easy to follow. Nevertheless, I still got confused by some of the signs and made a mistake such that I went from left bank to right bank unnecessarily. I had to go back to the right bank near Krems and I just trusted their signs even though they led to some roads away from the Danube. Eventually the signs changed from Krems to Wachau and Melk and I knew I was on the right way. Another surprise was that Melk was closer than I thought: I remember incorrectly that it's 32 miles away but actually 32km! There are good reasons to get on the left bank there because it went through beautiful vineyards, churches and cobblestone roads (it's not comfortable but it's authentic European!) Most importantly, I knew this route went through Willendorf. So, what's the big deal? Well, just google Willendorf (one 20000+ year old piece of art work, a female statue called Venus of Willendorf, was found there in 1908. The statue itself is in the museum in Vienna but a real person sized replica of it was erected when the discovery was made! That's an important site for art history student like me.) I was surprised that the replica was really close to the main road. I made a small uphill detour and climb some stairs and I was right there! The feeling was unreal. And the city of my hotel of the night was not far away: Soon I saw the sign "Emmersdorf." I thought I passed the hotel so I rode on the streets near the sign but eventually I asked for directions from the guys in front of a building that looks like Fire Department. And I needed to go a few km further to Luberegg. The hotel itself was worthy of a few pictures and it gotta be one of the better looking "Best Western" in the world. I had no energy to go anywhere else for dinner so I had a meaty one at the hotel's outdoor patio. It's unbelievably romantic, even though I went and eat by myself!
After a good night of watching Olympics opening ceremony and sleeping, it's about time for my return trip to Vienna. I visited the world-famous Stift Melk, a magnificent abbey/monastery before I said goodbye.
Here is the link to my pictures.
Because of my unfamiliarity with the area, I wasn't really well-prepared for the ride in terms of food and drink supply. All I got was 4 bottles of water and 3 kaisersemmel rolls (BTW, I had probably eaten 10 of these during this week altogether. It's plain and thus deemed "safe" to me) from a bakery. (I misunderstood the directions to the nearby supermarket provided by the "emotionless" hotel receptionist) Plus 6 of the 8 Clif Bar (energy bar) I brought from the States (2 were consumed already) Then the lady from the bike store (Pedal Power) arrived with my KTM Life Fun touring bike (and 2 huge pannier bags on the rear rack) at 9am. I told her my plan of riding to Melk along the Donauradweg (Danube BikeTrail) and she said I should stop by their store to pick up a guide book for that. I got the directions from her and headed there. Her directions were actually quite clear: I needed to get on the "Ring" (a series of streets encompassing the downtown), cross the bridge over the canal and go to the roundabout and then go out to the street with the ferris wheel. Their store was right there. For some reason I overlooked their store even though I went to the right street (the ferris wheel was huge and hard to miss) Eventually I figured it out but it's already 10:30 when I picked up the guide. Now that I have the guide, I'm much less worried about getting lost. Call it my safety net if you will. Still, the chance was there. After all, I don't have a visual GPS to show my exact location. (I do have a GPS watch for recording my routes and speed)
The GPS route I loaded was for riding on right bank between Vienna and Krems, and left bank between Krems and Melk. The Austrian government deserved a lot of credit for "doing it right": plenty of signs (or painted arrows on the roads) made it easy to follow. Nevertheless, I still got confused by some of the signs and made a mistake such that I went from left bank to right bank unnecessarily. I had to go back to the right bank near Krems and I just trusted their signs even though they led to some roads away from the Danube. Eventually the signs changed from Krems to Wachau and Melk and I knew I was on the right way. Another surprise was that Melk was closer than I thought: I remember incorrectly that it's 32 miles away but actually 32km! There are good reasons to get on the left bank there because it went through beautiful vineyards, churches and cobblestone roads (it's not comfortable but it's authentic European!) Most importantly, I knew this route went through Willendorf. So, what's the big deal? Well, just google Willendorf (one 20000+ year old piece of art work, a female statue called Venus of Willendorf, was found there in 1908. The statue itself is in the museum in Vienna but a real person sized replica of it was erected when the discovery was made! That's an important site for art history student like me.) I was surprised that the replica was really close to the main road. I made a small uphill detour and climb some stairs and I was right there! The feeling was unreal. And the city of my hotel of the night was not far away: Soon I saw the sign "Emmersdorf." I thought I passed the hotel so I rode on the streets near the sign but eventually I asked for directions from the guys in front of a building that looks like Fire Department. And I needed to go a few km further to Luberegg. The hotel itself was worthy of a few pictures and it gotta be one of the better looking "Best Western" in the world. I had no energy to go anywhere else for dinner so I had a meaty one at the hotel's outdoor patio. It's unbelievably romantic, even though I went and eat by myself!
After a good night of watching Olympics opening ceremony and sleeping, it's about time for my return trip to Vienna. I visited the world-famous Stift Melk, a magnificent abbey/monastery before I said goodbye.
Here is the link to my pictures.
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