26 July 2014
Melk to Krems, Austria (24 miles; Total = 272 miles)

How many times have I started a blog telling about Gina yelling “I can’t stand it!”? Well, add one more to the list. We are cycling high above the Danube through one small cute town after another, vineyards and apricot orchards providing a fragrant backdrop to the stone and mortar homes and streets. There are cyclists everywhere, headed mostly in the same direction as we are, downriver toward Krems. The sun is out and we are happy in the knowledge that today will be a short day, allowing us time to pick out our own super cute Zimmer Frei as we wheel into town.

So go the best laid plans. This town of Krems ain’t so cute. At least not when compared with all of the vineyard towns we just pedaled through. Rick Steves called Krems a “gem” but he must have been smoking some of that weed he helped legalize when he wrote that.

Regardless, we are entertained by how it is that we are to get access to the apartment we have now rented through the Krems Tourist Office. We must first backtrack to Stein, a suburb of Krems that had us bumping along its cobblestone thoroughfare mere minutes ago. Upon arriving in Stein we must phone the owner when we pass through the “Tower”, once one of the few ways into this walled suburb. We forget the phoning step but think very highly of our accomplishment when we pull up to the door, finding the apartment without getting lost amongst the streets that all sound the same (this Strasse and that Strasse). We make the call and are directed to a brick laying on a windowsill, beneath which is hidden the key to our apartment. And when I say hidden I don’t really mean hidden because a walk around the neighborhood later reveals many windowsills in which sit bricks, so I kinda think we could have had our pick of any apartment around here. Our home for the evening does not fall into Gina’s Super Cute category, but it’s clean and functional and best of all includes a real refrigerator. I have not seen one of these since we left Denver. For that alone, I’m happy to be here.