Cycling the Danube – Day 4 – Grein to Melk

Today started again at our great hosts’ place in Linz. After breakfast we headed towards Enns, where we had left our bicycle yesterday. We decided to take the train to Grein and start from there as the journey between Enns and Grein is not that interesting. Alicja and Simon were amazing again and drove us to the train station.

A short time after starting the train ride, I realized I had lost Neta’s phone. A fast texting session with Alicja revealed I had left it in their car. Despite our insistence to send it by mail, Simon and Alicja were yet again too amazing and brought us the phone, but more about that later.

We cycled from Grein Bad Kreuzberg, to the actual town of Grein. We looked at the picturesque square, and then climbed to the castle. It has a nice museum inside, showing the sailing lives of people in different parts of Austria during the Middle Ages.

The museum also had a room full with cool mosaics.

We then turned out from the museum to see a spectacular view of Grein and the Danube. There, Simon and Alicja met us again to give us Neta’s phone, claiming that they are glad they came since they got to see the amazing view for the first time. Well, it was an amazing view, and they are nonetheless angles.

We climbed off the hill on which the castle stands and had lunch at a local restaurant.  All the waiters wore traditional Austrian cloths, and kids were running around constantly.

We then left Grein and cycled through rural paths. The sky was perfectly clear and azure. The roads were paved and we could see beautiful houses and small towns along the way. The Wachau region is truly beautiful.

We made a break in the nice town Ybbs, were we had Apfelstrudel, hot chocolate (Neta) and coffee (me).

From Ybbs we kept cycling in rural environment, surrounded by small colorful houses. We cycled till we reached Pöchlarn, where we had planned to stay for the night. Apparently, due to some Marathon tomorrow, all hotels and Zimmers were fully booked, so we asked one of the hotel owners to get us a cab to Melk. He eventually took us himself, with our bicycles. We got to Melk where we are staying in a great hotel. We had dinner with cool Pizza and locally made wine.

We didn’t get to see much of the town as it was already dark, but we definitely plan on visiting it’s famous abbey tomorrow morning.

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