Aschach - Enns: South bank, north bank, south bank
Wednesday April 6, 2011, 62 km - Total so far: 130 km
Very grey this morning and by the time we had finished breakfast and saddled up, it was raining. But what's a little rain? We were equipped. I had learned my lesson about too short rain pants that let the water run into your waterproof socks from the top. So I got a chance to try out my new rainwear - that was almost fun. Again a word of praise for electric support: You just don't sweat as much under your rain jacket if you aren't working quite as hard.
Very grey this morning and by the time we had finished breakfast and saddled up, it was raining. But what's a little rain? We were equipped. I had learned my lesson about too short rain pants that let the water run into your waterproof socks from the top. So I got a chance to try out my new rainwear - that was almost fun. Again a word of praise for electric support: You just don't sweat as much under your rain jacket if you aren't working quite as hard.
Rain in the morning, the only bad weather on the trip, pretty good for April
View across the river to Ottensheim
We continued along the south bank of the Danube to Wilhering and stopped to visit its Abbey and splendid Rococo church. The Cistercian Abbey was founded in 1146. The elaborate Rococo interior we see today, rebuilt after a fire in 1733, no longer reflected the early Cistercians' philosphy of simple living, but it was the style of the day.
Kloster Wilhering
Church at Wilhering
I like this portrayal of Saint Roch or Rocco with the pose of the dog reflecting that of Saint Roch. St. Roch is depicted raising his pilgrim's habit to show the plague spot on his thigh and with the dog who brought him a loaf of bread every day when he had retreated in a forest. He is a popular figure on the Camino de Santiago (where I became familiar with his story), almost more popular than St. James himself.
Organ loft in Wilhering
From Wilhering we took the ferry across the Danube to Ottensheim. It was so nice to be travelling off season, we had the ferryman completely to ourselves. I think he was even glad to see a few cyclists. He was a great source of tourist information on this part of the Danube -- where to eat, which side has less traffic, is less expensive, is more interesting, altogether more than I could remember. But we did follow his advice for our noon meal in Ottensheim, and he was right, Gregor's Restaurant was good.
Our friendly ferryman
It was a short ride on the left bank to the bridge crossing over to Linz. We took an admittedly superficial look at Linz and its main square, a few pictures and crossed the Danube again to continue on the north bank.
Linz
Linz
Linz
Linz
The weather improved towards the end of the day and we enjoyed the early spring countryside. Close to our destination, we again crossed the Danube and rode up to see the pretty town of Enns.
Spring countryside
We rode back down again when we found the rooms in Enns to be too expensive. We then followed some signs to the Schäferhof, a simple hotel with restaurant. The best feature of the hotel was that we had a room (54 € including breakfast) on the ground floor and we could roll our bikes to the entrance of our room.
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