Austria (all)

A journey through Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria and Poland, by Karl Andersson. I am Karl Andersson from Sweden. This website is about the 2700 kilometers (1688 miles) that I biked from Stockholm to Kraków in the summer of 2002. You won't find the usual gear and packlist pages on this site. Instead, I've decided to share with you the diary I wrote every evening, slightly edited. A travelogue from the road. It's all there: The hellish days in former East Germany, the rain and wind that threatened to make me quit. Why would anyone do such a biketour, and that alone? My answer to this very frequent question among my couchpotato friends is: Why not? But OK, there's more to it...

From Carsten's Cycling Web. While it's still high summer I begin three weeks of mountain bike holidays together with a couple of friends. Ten days later we ride through a snow-covered scenery on our way across Bielerhöhe. Forced by the cold weather we change our plans to avoid the highest summits. Even the cattle have had enough and return from the green summer pastures to the warm cow houses. Nevertheless, we have some nice days off-road. One of the attractions is Val d'Uina with a just 1.5 m wide hiking track blasted into the rock wall over a of 600 m distance. As a prelude to the tour we participate in Ötztaler Radmarathon.

Information about the Greenway between Prague and Vienna. We decided upon this route for our cycle tour of 2002. We took the plane to Prague. It turned out that the Greenway did not start in the city of Prague itself. We had to take the metro to the starting point of the route, outside the town. At the terminus of the metro it was not too easy to find our way, because we avoided the large roads and took roads with little traffic. Such roads are hardly marked on the maps. We ended up on a track through a forest, and we had no idea where we were. We saw quite many other cyclists doing excursions in the rural area near the town and I had to ask one for the road. I was quite relieved when I could understand the instructions which I received from the friendly cyclist. Cyclists understand each other in spite of different languages. Then, in Újezd we saw the first sign of our way towards Vienna - 425 km. Throughout the Czech Republic minor roads, which are good to cycle on and which lead to interesting sites, have been designated as cycle routes. Small, yellow signs have been put up, so if your map is not good enough, you will always be on the right way by following the signs. Various local cycle routes have been combined to form the Prague-Vienna Greenway.

When we had crossed the border to Austria, sign posts of another design pointed out the route towards Vienna. On our way back to Prague we followed the famous and highly frequented cycle way along the river Danube. From Linz on the Danube we headed north towards Prague and the airport, with stops at famous sites like Ceský Krumlov and Ceske Budejuvice.

The mountain bike is ready and the trailer has been packed with tent, sleeping bag and cooking gear. New cycling adventures are in the offing. The Dachstein area with the many surrounding lakes is one of the most beautiful in Austria. Into the bargain there should be very good opportunities for riding off-road. Tempting are also the large plains in the Dolomites further south. Unfortunately the weather puts a damper on the enthusiasm. It turns into the rainiest summer within living memory.

Through the Heart of Europe on Germany's Romantic Road and Altmuhl River Bike Paths, and on Down the Danube almost to Vienna.

I've just spent 16 memorable days cycling beside the rivers of Bavaria and Austria on a network of mostly paved and car-free bike paths. Day-by-day, I pedalled through a series of almost perfectly preserved towns and villages straight out of the Middle Ages. Many were enclosed by still-intact city walls. Entering the walls through a gate in a massive watchtower, I would pedal through a maze of crooked, cobblestoned streets lined by half-timbered medieval houses to picturesque squares with centuries-old churches and soaring Gothic towers.

Out in the country, I cycled on level bike paths beside scenic rivers. The bike paths themselves may have been flat and easy to pedal. But they were full of hidden delights and surprises. Flat sections led through farmlands dotted with scarlet poppies and a patchwork quilt of blazing yellow rapeseed fields. Elsewhere, rivers like the Danube wound between steep, forested mountains where hilltop castles, monasteries and abbeys loomed over the landscape.

Altogether, I cycled along three of Europe's most famous and popular Radwegs (bike paths): the Romantische Strasse and Altmuhltal Radwegs of Germany, and the Donau Radweg (Danube Bike Path) which runs through both Bavaria and Austria. The entire region is rich in history, and towns and villages along the way were on every tour bus itinerary. But the tourist buses miss the many unspoiled and half- forgetton villages, and the spectacular river panoramas, that only bicyclists get to see. Bicycling is undoubtedly the one best way to explore this wonderful region--better, in my opinion, than seeing it from one of the many deluxe cruise boats that ply the Danube.

An account of a two week cycle tour in May 2002 from Treviso (Italy) to Salzburg (Austria), via the Dolomites and the Austrian Alps.

This has to go down as one of those 'truly memorable' tours. The scenery was awesome, the company, perfect, the roads, quiet, the saunas, hot, the weather (yes, some of that was memorable!). It must have been good, I took over 250 photo's!

We were looking for a catchy name for the site, and 'Through Mel to Hell' was suggested, but that implies it was awful. It wasn't in any way (though the wet slog up the Fedaia Pass was, how can we put this, character forming). If anything, some of the weather, especially on the Grossglockner, made the trip even more memorable. I think 'Da Treviso al Paradiso' sums it up quite nicely, even if we did go through a little 'hell' to get there. At times, I think we really did feel like 'I Tre Moschettieri!'. All for one and one for all.

13 tappe e 880 km lungo i fiumi di Austria Slovenia e Croazia.

Il giro è molto bello e non eccessivamente faticoso. Si trovano delle ottime cartine fino a Maribor (Da Dobbiaco è tutta ciclabile, la Drauweg), un po' meno in Slovenia e Croazia, dove ciclabili praticamente non ce ne sono, ma ci sono parecchie strade secondarie senza traffico. In Slovenia agli uffici turistici si possono trovare cartine della zona decenti (noi ci siamo accontentati di quelle, ma consigliamo caldamente di procurarvi una carta almeno al 200.000, possibilmente con le curve di livello?) e un paio di pubblicazioni interessanti, anche in Italiano, su ``Slovenia in bicicletta'' e ``Le strade secondarie sono più accattivanti di quelle principali''. Aiutano molto. Non fate troppo affidamento sui cartelli segnaletici delle presunte piste ciclabili (``kolesarska pot'', in sloveno) che a volte mancano. Sulla strada che abbiamo scelto noi abbiamo incontrato traffico solo in alcuni punti che non avevano alternative, andando a ficcarci in strade impossibili solo un paio di volte, evitabili.

I rode along the Vermenagna River below the Tenda rail line, famous for being either in a tunnel or on a bridge most of the 80km from Borgo San Dalmazzo to Ventimiglia and Nice. The river and its tributaries had ripped out bridges and carried away parts of the road in recent floods. While the railway gained altitude in looping tunnels and bridges and vanished in the mountain for long stretches, I cruised up the 4% grade to Limone (990m), where the climb to the highway tunnel begins and the 8090m-long Tenda Railway Tunnel, completed in 1913, bores through the mountain to Vievola. [...]

Ja, hebben jullie het al gezien, we zijn meer dan 4 jaar onderweg. Wat een tijd en toch.... we genieten er nog elke dag van. Nu zijn we in Jujuy, noord Argentinië. Via Chili gaan we binnenkort naar Bolivia, waar we een tijdlang niet zullen kunnen internetten. We zullen op grote hoogte gaan fietsen, hoogtes waar we nog niet eerder waren. Of dat prettig is.. jullie zullen het later lezen.

In fünf Tagesetappen (130 km -160 km) führt die Radfernfahrt des ADFC Bayern von München an die sonnige Adriaküste. Gemeinsam mit 200 anderen Radbegeisterten erfahren die TeilnehmerInnen die atemberaubende Landschaft der Alpenwelt und Norditaliens. In Cesenatico, dem Zielort, locken drei weitere Tagestouren durch die Hügellandschaft der Emilia Romagna. Höhepunkt der zehntägigen Radfernfahrt ist die Teilnahme an der weltberühmten Radtouristikfahrt Nove Colli.

[Titus is the bike] - 12195 km in 8 months through France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Italy and Greece - includes travelogue and many fine pictures

I've travelled quite a bit through the years, hiking on foot, by car, bus, plane... But cycling is just the right speed. Fast enough to actually get someplace, yet slow enough to smell the flowers as you go... Plus, it's the only mode of transportation where the engine actually improves with usage... Anyways, a friend lent me this book about a couple who spent a couple of years cycling around the world and I thought to myself that I wanted to do that ! So, off I went ! Well, I didn't quite make it... After 8 months on the road, I came back... Mostly due to homesickness, but I should have expected that, particularly on a solo trip...

Mid-morning after leaving Santillana [in Northern Spain], I take a break after a long cycle uphill and watch the progress of this little fellow... That's exactly how I felt... slow... but steady!

From the Vercors of France through Switzerland's Bernese Oberland to the Austrian Tyrol. The itinerary traverses a series of world class bike rides including Gorge de La Bourne, Les Grands Goulets, and Combe Laval in the Vercors; the North Face of the Eiger, Lauterbrunnen Valley, and Grosse Scheideg in the Bernese Oberland; then via the Furka and Oberalp Passes and down the Rhine to Chur and Lichtenstein and by the Tauern Radweg to Zell am See.

I also give full advice and information sources for anyone wishing to cycle this same route or to go elsewhere by Switzerland's National Bike Routes or by Austria's 30 Official Bike Routes. This trip was done in May and June 2001. Will add photos soon.

[...] We crossed the to the north side of the Lenta and climbed above the clouds into a brilliantly clear blue sky as we broke out of this box canyon through cliffs and bare rock tunnels, above the high waterfall into the Gorge de la Lenta. Here we entered a wintry scene with empty chair lifts running in anticipation of skiers from Val d'Isere on the other side of the pass. In one more zigzag, similar to the lower climb, brought us to the summit. Although we were in summer clothing, our leather gloves came in handy.

At the summit we took pictures sitting on the large concrete and stone Col del l'Iseran (2770m) sign, something I first did in 1960. We found a photographer, a guy from Colorado, who had slept in his car at the summit that he had reached in the heightof the snow storm late at night. Without chains, he thought the next day would be safer, and it was.

Photos, a diary and information about their holiday riding by bicycle up the Danube and other rivers from Vienna to Salzkammergut. [...] We cycled some 560km up the Danube, Inn and Salzach Rivers, riding from Vienna to the Salzkammagut area just outside Salzburg. It was a brilliant way to see some great parts of Austria and Bavaria. [...]

We took our own bikes and managed some 40 to 60km a day. The bikepaths over there are fantastic, well maintained and usually dedicated cycle paths (ie no cars). So it was relatively safe riding. Accommodation was generally easy to get...when we were tired we rode into the nearest town or village to get a bed for the night. We stayed in hotels, pensions, B&B's (``Zimmer Frei's'') and Youth Hostels. Staying in the Youth Hostels was fun...but imagine having breakfast with 200 kids!!

[This is] the web site for our 25-day cycling tour in Europe. We flew from Cleveland, Ohio, and Madison, Wisconsin, to Munich, Germany, taking our bikes and panniers. Our bike trip was a 600-mile (930 kilometers) loop from Bavaria to Switzerland, south to the Italian border, and returning to Munich by way of Austria. The following photo journal displays some of the highlights of our self-designed tour.

Our group of five friends biked about 40 miles per day and stayed in quaint, small hotels and youth hostels like this nearly 500-year old chalet in Brugg, Switzerland. [The cyclists were] Bonnie Vargo, Pam Galka, Ed James, Bob Parry and Russ Marx.

A short tabular tour description.

My name is Louis Tousignant, a Canadian in his mid fifties, living in Nova Scotia on the Atlantic shore. Having cycled Copenhagen to Rome in 1998, and the U.K. in the mid 80's, it seemed a good idea to try Eastern Europe. As an eager amateur photographer, I particularly wanted to see Krakow, Prague and Budapest. Having had a grand time in Italy the year before, I also wanted to see Venice, a must... before one dies... Ergo this trip which I enjoyed tremendously.

This 52 day trip included 33 days of touring (3003 km for a 91 km/day average) and 19 days of travel and tourism. The load, minus water, was 20 kg, distributed in 4 saddle bags and one camera bag on the rear rack.

[This is our] online Austria photo album. We (Bob Parry, Ed James, Greg James and Bonnie Vargo) took this biking tour between August 11 to 26, 1999. We flew to Munich, Germany with our bikes packed in boxes, put the bikes together in the Munich airport and then took a series of five trains from Munich to Krimml, Austria for the beginning of our big adventure.

We traveled by bike from Krimml to Zell am See, to St Johann im Pongau, to Salzburg, train to Braunau, then biked to Passau (Germany), Aschbach, Linz, Mauthausen, train to Melk, then biked to Krems and Vienna. (Click map thumbnail to see trip map) Ed and Bonnie then continued for another week and biked into Hungary. We biked about 36 miles a day sightseeing as we went. We stayed in youth hostels and Pension's along the way. During the two week trip we biked about 365 miles, trained about 600 miles and flew about 10,000 miles.

We stopped at the gazebo with two flavors of rusty, bubbly mineral water, that give strength to those who dare climb this hill, before heading up the Gavia. It starts as a smooth wide two lane road with center stripe and a collage of warning signs that might make the wary traveler wonder what's going on. Land slides, falling rock, dangerous narrow road, and a chain requirement from September to July, are not the usual fare for mountain roads. After a short climb, past the first hairpin, reality strikes as the road goes from highway to driveway width and the 16% sign of poster fame sets the tone.

I was impressed with the aesthetics of ANAS, the highway department. They seem to have grasped the beauty of the Gavia and stopped the march of man against nature, right there where it meets the mountain. The road has lost nothing through paving. It is exactly the same narrow one lane Gavia that it always was. I have never seen a road so thoughtfully restored without a gratuitous widening job, but here it is. I hope it never changes. We continued through the thinning larch forest, up the east side of the canyon, finally rising above tree line. Here only thick bushy grass and wildflowers cover slopes where going off the road assures a long tumble to the Frigidolfo, far below.

A tour through Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria by Bill Venners, from Autumn Leaf Cafe - an anthology of ideas and adventures.

From September 7th through October 8th, 1998, I rode my bicycle through the towns, forests, fields, hills and mountains of Europe. I was accompanied by my friend Matt, with whom I'd taken two previous bike trips.

This web site is a travelogue of my European bike tour. [...]

Table of Contents - Annotated links to all the pages; The Travelogue - Stories, data, and pictures from the trip; The Numbers - A table of bicycle and push-up data; The Not-Anal-Retentive Packing List - What to take (and where to put it).

The 7-week adventure had consisted of a solo cycle tour, which started in Chamonix and finished in Lyon visiting the Alpine regions of Switzerland, Austria, Italy and France.

The well-written, well-illustrated report of a grand tour of the Alps. The 7-week adventure had consisted of a solo cycle tour, which started in Chamonix and finished in Lyon visiting the Alpine regions of Switzerland, Austria, Italy and France. This article covers my journey of almost 2200miles.

Having cycled and mountain biked around my native Peak District for many years, I decided the time had come to venture further afield and to try my hand at cycle touring. I had both backpacked and cycled on many occasions, but never had I combined the two together. Graduating from university gave me a sufficient opportunity, since I had a lengthy vacation to fill and the commencement of work later in the year would inhibit such a trip in the future. Preparations were made, panniers purchased and on the 1st August 1998, I found myself heading for Chamonix.

From Carsten's Cycling Web, the Web site of Carsten Gregersen.

This tour has it all: Deep Austrian lakes, steep rocks in the Dolomites, impressive Swiss mountain scenery and the gentle slopes of the Jura Mountains. Last, but not least, there is Europe's highest mountain, Mont Blanc. I have only one day off-road in the Dolomites - otherwise I go along surfaced roads. Starting out as a group of ten we eventually split into smaller groups. I ride most of the tour by myself.

Theft Incidents:

• Muesli and milk (fox suspected); Germany
• Dog chewing Glenn's dinner plate; France
• Cat burgler..feline attempt at food in tent vestibule; Spain

From Glenn and Sheila Ord's Home Page: On the Road to Nowhere - Nowhere is the Place. With an emphasis on budget travelling - Our experiences and advice for cycling in Europe. This guide is entirely based on our 7 1/2 months (12,000 km) in 1998 across (and back) Europe: staying almost entirely in campgrounds (185 tent nights). This was supplemented by our time in Italy (April-May 1999).

This year's bicycle tour was to take me roughly from where I had left off last year all the way to Slovenia and back, traversing Southern Tyrol, the Dolomites and the Carnic and Julian Alps on the way there, the Karawanken, Grossglockner- and Zillertaler-Alps on the way back.

We took the old road that hangs in a notch carved high above the Aar in the slot below. As we climbed above the upper Grimsel reservoir of the Haslital Power Company, the Finsteraarhorn (4275m), the source of the Unteraar and Oberaar rivers, came into view to the west.

After a light breakfast under a partial overcast, we headed up the wide concrete Gotthard highway that starts climbing in town. Here, above tree line, only scrub brush, grass, wildflowers, and alpenrosen, an azalea prevalent throughout the Alps, decorate the landscape. The alpenrose, among the many wildflowers, adds a lovely bouquet of pink and red with its dark green leaves, as do the striking deep blue gentians, pale blue forget-me-nots, and many varieties of daisies and dandelions.

The[se pictures are] accompanied by descriptions which give a general idea of what it's like to bicycle in Austria along the Danube River, and into the voralps (the fore-alps). For anyone considering such a ride (the Danube River Trail makes for an easy self-supported tour), I hope these pictures inspire you to follow through with your plan. For those who have been there, I hope it brings back memories. Enjoy.

This is the report of a one week bicycle tour in the Swiss Alps and parts of the Italian and Austrian Alps I undertook in the ``summer'' of 1997. Complete with plenty of useful practical information. The itinerary was Zürich - Tannen - Grimsel - Furka - Hospental - Oberalp - Splügen (village) - Splügen (pass) - Maloja - Bernina - Poschiavo - Aprica - Gavia - Bormio - Alpisella - Ofen - Umbrail - Stilfserjoch - Reschenscheideck - Arlberg - Braz - Wildhaus - Ricken - Zürich

Nur 10 Tage Urlaub könnten wir 1997 für eine Radtour zusammenkratzen. Dabei lernten wir ein touristisch noch recht unerschlossenes Stück Österreich kennen. Dieses Reisetagebuch schildert unsere Erlebnisse und Eindrücke.

The border to Slovenia is just a few km behind Gorizia. They still actually have border guards there even though Slovenia has recently become an EU member, but they just wave everybody through. Route 444 follows the freeway but is very quiet and pleasant, far more than the roads in Italy that led us here. At Ajdovscina we took route 207 and 621, which turned out to be more hilly than we thought - we gained 750 meters in one long and relentless climb, with little shadow. Very scenic though, with many views of the valleys. Near Podkraj a windy but exhilarating descent began, and after Logatec the second half of the descent was perfect, with safe long curves and no traffic. The last few km to Lubljana were busy though, as usual when entering a large city.

I used to have this mental image of Slovenia as one of those Socialist paradises, with gray people living in gray cities and trees growing in the potholes. Quite the opposite! Friendly clean cities, very good roads, and on a warm Saturday evening like this one the streets and cafes are bursting with people enjoying themselves. This country has definitely arrived in the 21st century. Ljubljana has a very pleasant old town, although much of the rest isn't very pretty.

Dieter flies back to Munich from South America, and jumps without waiting on his bike to conquer the Alps. It is not going to be easy...

3400km, 55337m, and 22 days on the road in rain, sun, and snow.

We set out toward Luzern and the central Alps in a cold rain, riding south across the Reuss valley to Merenschwand, in canton Aargau, with its slender church steeple and red tile roofed houses with window boxes of geraniums.

I looked out the window at first light and thought I was wearing red filters. After some more sleep and better daylight I checked again and it was true, it had snowed more than 15cm during the night. We got a good breakfast before heading up the hill on the freshly plowed road.

Only intermittent drops fell as my max speed record also fell, recording a speed that newscasters would have you believe occurs regularly in the TdF and on far gentler slopes. This is a 13% descent, perfectly straight into Ciapela (1450m) and smooth enough to reach terminal velocity. It was a gas.

Dieter flies back to Munich from South America, and jumps without waiting on his bike to conquer the Alps. It is not going to be easy...

One day: 26 July 1996 from 09:00 to 15:30 - Km 90.

26 July 1996 from 09:00 to 15:30 - Km 90.

Dieter flies back to Munich from South America, and jumps without waiting on his bike to conquer the Alps. It is not going to be easy...

This is the great report of a tour in the Alps that Jobst Brandt did in the summer of '96.

Dieter flies back to Munich from South America, and jumps without waiting on his bike to conquer the Alps. It is not going to be easy...