To Linz, Austria

Today we cycled to Linz Austria. Linz is the 3rd largest city in Austria with about 215,000 people. Graz is second with about 310,000. Vienna, our destination on Saturday, is first by a long way with a population of around 2 million, over 20% of Austria’s population which is about 9.2 million people.

It was a wonderful morning as we left Passau Germany. Passau is known as the “City of Three Rivers”. The Ilz is the smallest of the three and tends to look black in color. The Inn pictured above tends to look lighter green, but with the sun shining towards me, that is not really visible in this photo. The Danube, which is the middle fork of the three rivers, is intermediate in color.

This photo was taken about 15 minutes after crossing the Inn River. Based on the GPS coordinates, I was already about 1 km into Austria. Apparently there was some sort of sign, but I did not notice it.

This was the first of two covered bridges on today’s ride. The second was shortly before Linz. Both were bridges just for the bike path.

We spent the whole day in the valley near the river, most of it alongside it. We were on bike paths or very small roads the entire time. We never had to ride along this main road shown to the right here. Again, I can’t overemphasize how great it has been cycling in places where the infrastructure has been built to make cycling safe and easy, and in countries where the drivers are attentive to, courteous of, and patient with cyclists.

Of course, we passed scenic churches.

I passed a herd of fallow deer. These deer are not native to Central Europe, but were initially introduced by the Romans from the Eastern Mediterranean, likely from Modern Türkiye.

The riding today was fairly fast. When I was cycling along the river, it was well paved, flat, and we had a nice tailwind. I had a 10 mile stretch where I averaged over 22 mph.

This is the first of two hydro-electric dams along today’s ride.

The apple orchard here reminded me of my home town where we have two major and several minor orchards. However, the church building is not at all like any of the three churches in our town.

As I bicycled along, I saw this goose that I did not recognize, so I stopped and worked to get as good of a photo as I could with my small camera. It turns out that this is a Barnacle Goose. While they are not uncommon in Central Europe, they are very uncommon for this time of year. This bird is banded, but I was not able to figure out anything from what I could see of the banding code. I reported it to E-Bird since it is considered a rare bird for this time of year in this location.

Up on the hills, there were occasional manor houses or castles such as this one.

Over the past few days, we have been seeing more and more of these river cruise boats. Some of them are quite large and fancy with 3 floors and the roof deck.

Finally, I will end today’s blog with a photo of my trusty bike resting against the inside of the second covered bridge of today’s ride. We have a 68 mile ride tomorrow then a 76 mile ride on Saturday to get to Vienna.