Tour of the Big Island: Stage 7

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This route covered another part of the Ironman biking course, i.e, Hwy 19 (aka "Queen K") between Hapuna and the Kona airport. And I rode all by myself, like a time trail. According to Alex, a lot of athletes came to the Big Island just to ride this course for training and nowhere else. Man, they don't know what they have missed. I did see a lot of riders that day. Even though it looked flat, for the 54 mile I covered, there were actually ~2000ft of elevation gain. The 2 free bottles of water from the hotel was definitely not enough. Fortunately I found this Blue Hawaiian Helicopter airport with 9 miles to go selling bottled water (and for $1 only. They certainly don't try to milk the tourists)  I was more tired than I thought by the time I returned to the hotel, which was around 11am. I was thinking about sneaking in a round of golf in the afternoon but I quickly nixed that thought (BTW, the green fee was $95, which was actually quite reasonable but I also need $55 for club rental) Instead, I took my sweet time for a good bowl of cobb salad for lunch next to the beach. Then swam a bit in the ocean and looked at the tropical fishes (some are big, longer than 1 foot!) The beach of Hapuna Hotel was one of the best according to the locals. Many spent time here to enjoy Easter. Then I took a hot sauna and a shower at the fitness center in the Golf course club house, courtesy of the hotel (I've already checked out) Sipped a Mai Tai while listening to the awesome guitarist/singer and enjoying the view of Sunset at the beach as well as the Hula dancer. After finishing my fish burger and strawberry shortcake, Jeremy from the tour drove me to the airport to end this wonderful trip. I ended up riding a total of 270 miles. And coincidentally the length of the Big Island coast line is about the same. So even though we didn't always ride along the coast, I pretty much did the equivalent of actually circumnavigate the Big Island :P

2012 Euro Cycling and Art Trip - Epilogue 1

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.