27 July 2014
Krems to Vienna, Austria (52 miles; Total = 324 miles)

Gina has us speeding along the Danube on our way to Vienna. My Tortoise is having trouble keeping up with her Hare. I can only hope she stops to take a nap. I’m not sure why we’re in such a hurry but I say nothing because I’m breathing too hard for small talk.

Maybe she had us pick up the pace because her clairvoyant self knew the storm clouds were brewing. We’ve come to expect these afternoon thunderstorms, as much as we don’t like them. Today’s had us darting between a parked car and the trees that were shading it. Pretty much exactly where one shouldn’t be standing with lightning crackling down but we did it anyway, donning our rain gear and waiting out the worst of the downpour. Rumor has it Austria is having an atypical summer with terrible weather. We can confirm this rumor as true.

Our route into Vienna is another treasure hunt of sorts. We are meeting a friend of a friend at a U-Bahn station near the outskirts of the city. She will then lead us via bicycle to her mother’s home where we will be staying in her mother’s guest apartment. To find said U-Bahn station, in a city of 1.5 million, we are to look for the towering incinerator. We are a little bit nervous at the prospect of actually finding the right place, but once we saw this, we knew we were nearly there:

Dominique is a very fast cyclist, pedaling us quickly up the road through railways and intersections and traffic. After an already long day on the bicycle, my Tortoise may just drop dead from the effort of keeping up, but then again there is the adrenalin burst of not wanting to get left behind that keeps me hanging on to the back of our mini peleton. The apartment, we find, is fantastic, offering us a cozy space to relax, do laundry, get caught up on our road-chores, and plan our next few days in this big city.