This Road Leads to Kofola

Nearly 300 kilometres into our ride, the historic city of Mělník rises above the confluence of the Elbe and the Vltava. The final climb is barely 50 metres, but at the end of a day’s riding over uncertain surfaces, it takes on Alpine proportions. By the time we had crawled up and bounced across two kilometres of medieval cobblestones, we were rattled to the bones.

At the centre of the town square, three monumental women cluster around a giant wine jug in the 1930s sculpture Vinobraní (The Grape Harvest), celebrating Mělník’s thousand-year-old wine industry. Vineyards surround the town, overlooked by a 10th-century château perched above the meeting of the rivers.

A magnificent wine bar occupies a strategic position in the château complex.

At this point, thirsty cyclists are expected to choose between local wine and local beer. For most visitors, the choice is difficult. For my fellow-traveller—known to the reader of this blog as Sidekick—it is impossible. Like all serious travellers, he seeks authenticity in local food and drink. Unlike most travellers, however, he is a teetotaller.

Melnik Chateau wines on display: nothing for the Teetotaller

This creates a recurring problem throughout Europe. Every village has a local ale that is naturally the ‘finest in the world’. Every region has its own wine. Every town has a centuries-old alcoholic beverage whose provenance is discussed at exhausting length. But ask for something local and non-alcoholic and you almost hear Europe’s famed drinking culture grinding to a halt.

Last year, while cycling through Slovakia along the Danube, Sidekick discovered Kofola.

Village cafés had it. Restaurants had it. Roadside kiosks had it. It emerged from taps alongside beer. By the time we left Slovakia he had become convinced that Kofola was not merely a drink but regional pride—bottled and carbonated.

Created in communist Czechoslovakia in 1960 as a domestic alternative to Western cola drinks, Kofola quickly became part of everyday life. It looked vaguely like Coca-Cola, tasted nothing like it, and by the 1970s was reportedly available everywhere from pubs to post offices.

Naturally, when we arrived in Prague—the city where Kofola was conceived—Sidekick hoped for a reunion. He did not have to wait long.

Historic restaurant in Prague: U Dvou Kocek

On our first full day in the city, we were taken to lunch at U Dvou Koček by the Indonesian-born Czech pop singer Rony Marton (but that’s another story). Dating back to the 1600s, the restaurant once catered to communist-era political elites and later appeared in the hit Czech comedy Run, Waiter Run.

This venerable old institution proudly continues to serve Kofola. To Sidekick, this confirmed the drink’s status as one of history’s great survivors.

Away from Prague, however, Kofola became harder to find. Restaurants offered Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Bars offered enough beer to float a fleet of warships. Kofola appeared only intermittently, and generally not in smaller cafés and roadside stalls.

The Velvet Revolution of 1989 had brought political freedom and consumer choice to the Czechs. It also brought Coca-Cola, supermarkets and a flood of Western brands. Kofola’s sales collapsed. For a time, it looked as though the old socialist cola might go the way of the Communist Party.

At No.1, our nearest cheap eat in Melnik: plenty to drink but…

By the time we rolled into Mělník, Sidekick had grave concerns.

Our hotel stood less than a hundred metres from the town square and, quite literally, next door to the château and church. None of the half-dozen restaurants on our street served Kofola. The one kiosk in the square sporting Kofola umbrellas had already closed for the evening.

Inside the château’s elegant wine café, gilded chairs surrounded marble tables beneath high white vaults. The décor suggested hunting parties, sweeping gowns and inherited titles. The Coca-Cola advertisements on every table asserted something else — Globalisation wasn’t merely knocking at the castle gate. It had booked all the tables inside.

Sidekick’s solution was to turn to that modern bastion of consumer choice: the supermarket. Google Maps revealed a Tesco hypermarket just 800 metres from the château gate. But a very long way down hill. Down we went any way, ignoring premonitions about the climb back.

The search began: First came Coca-Cola. Then more Coca-Cola. Then Pepsi. Then energy drinks promising to improve everything from athletic performance to environmental impact. Then an entire continent of beer—beers that had won international awards; beers that had fought international wars.

But no Kofola. Eventually, after photographing thirteen separate drinks displays, I gave up.

An elderly employee was stocking a fridge.

“Kofola?” I asked.

The elder employee looks for a cold Kofola at my request

He corrected my pronunciation, shifted a few Coke bottles and revealed several small bottles of Kofola.

I gestured: “Big?”

He pointed somewhere up towards the ceiling at the far end of the supermarket.

I followed the pointed finger towards the fluorescent lights. And there they were! Several large plastic bottles of classic and sugar-free Kofola, at the far corner aisle, on the top shelf, well-beyond the line of sight of not just the height-challenged (eg. Me) but even 6 ft tall humans like Sidekick.

Shelved way above the head of the average punter

Not extinct. Perhaps not even endangered. But clearly, struggling for territory in the supermarket ecosystem.

Kofola had survived. In the early 1990s, when many assumed the brand was doomed, it was rescued by Kostas Samaras, whose family had migrated to Czechoslovakia after the Greek Civil War. The new owners quickly realised that competing with Coca-Cola was futile. There was no need. Kofola’s advantage was that it wasn’t Coca-Cola.

It was Czech, nostalgic, stubbornly local and tasted wonderfully unique! Instead of fighting the global giants, the new owners embraced its special identity and thus got the business back on its wheels.

Which is how, after cycling nearly 300 kilometres through Czechia, we found ourselves standing in a supermarket in Mělník celebrating the survival of a soft drink. Outside stood vineyards that had produced wine for centuries.

Melnik’s historic vineyards and primeval waters

Just before we climbed back up to one of the most beautiful historic town centres in Bohemia, we drank to a revolution that had survived communism, capitalism and globalisation.

It was still alive, albeit backed into a corner, at aisle 27 or thereabouts in Tesco.

Following the Elbe: Slow Riders, Impatient River

‘পরের কোনও পর্যটক বাঁচবে, তাই
কোথায় হাঁটি, কোথায় থামি… লিখে গেলাম।’ Srijato

Another traveller will arrive, so
where I walk, where I stop… I inscribe.

The River

Mountains on the border of Czechia and Poland

We are on the high moorland of the Giant Mountains nearly 1,400 metres above sea level, wondering how on earth this insignificant seepage through cracks in the stones will somehow gather enough strength to become one of Europe’s great waterways—crossing the breadth of Czechia and Germany before entering the North Sea some 1,200 kilometres away.

Pramen Labe, the Elbe’s official birthplace, is marked by a circular stone well and prominent signage. It takes quite some digging to discover that this is not where the river actually first surfaces. The marked site serves the traveller’s needs rather than a hydrological one: it gives us a place to arrive, a point from which our journey can begin, while leaving the river to be born in peace in a protected peat bog further west, undisturbed by human feet.

The river seems impatient. Barely a kilometre from the official source, it is already hurling itself over black granite, dropping somewhere between 30 and 45 metres—depending, I suppose, on how they measure a waterfall—before continuing through another two hundred metres of rapids into the valley below.

The Elbe Falls: you have to be there to see its magic

Last year, while cycling beside the Danube, we watched a great river gather itself slowly over many days of riding. The Elbe, by contrast, appears in a hurry to grow. Just eight kilometres from its source—and a thousand vertical metres lower—in the little town of Špindlerův Mlýn, it is already a gushing stream, at times ten metres wide.

Historically, snowmelt and heavy mountain rains had the river surging through these valleys and periodically causing devastating floods. Dams built in the early twentieth century eventually curbed some of those excesses.

The Royal Forest Dam, whose architecture is as pretty as the surroundings

Even so, by the time we are another hundred kilometres downstream at Hradec Králové, an old Bohemian dowry town once ruled by queens, the river is more than twenty metres wide. Soon afterwards, swollen by the Chrudimka, it doubles its girth again. And so it goes.

The Hike

For us, the actual cycling began at Vrchlabí, about twenty kilometres downstream from Pramen Labe.

We had considered cycling all the way to the ceremonial source from Vrchlabí railway station, as the Elbe Cycle Route Guidebook (henceforth, “the Book”) recommends. But after several days of negotiations involving maps, gradients and public transport timetables, we concluded that riding a thousand metres uphill was quite beyond us. Having since watched a couple of cyclists labour through the final stages of the climb to Pramen Labe, I can say with some confidence that we made the correct decision.

Cyclists parking at Labska Bouda– walkers only beyond this point

A six-kilometre hike involving five hundred metres of ascent to obtain the obligatory photographs of an official beginning seemed challenge enough. After that, the route would be downhill most of the way—or so the Book promised.

Ski lifts which take the walkers part way up the hills

The Giant Mountains are breathtaking in both the figurative and literal sense.

The Ride: The First Hundred Kilometres

Starting off from the little resort town of Vrchlabi

A hundred kilometres of riding brings us to Pardubice, where I began writing these notes. Any town at which you choose to stop seems to possess a medieval castle, church, monastery or some other grand structure dating from somewhere between the tenth and eighteenth centuries.

Zirec church runs interesting projects and was open, unlike many others

In late May, summer is beginning to shoulder spring aside. Wild poppies line the roads. Swallows dart overhead, frustratingly difficult to capture in a photograph. The cherries are still green. The skies have been crystal clear. Most days the breeze has been an ally against the heat, although a capricious westerly can sometimes get a bit pushy.

Poppies: shot from camera mounted on handlebar, thus the angle

The promise of “downhill all the way” does not immediately materialise. Our second day of riding, from Hostinné to Jaroměř, included several long, slow climbs—particularly challenging on a busy road and with temperatures approaching thirty degrees. Naturally there are no photographs from those sections; one is generally too occupied with panting and cursing. Even the trucks are polite in Czechia, however. So the traffic never feels unsafe.

A Stop

Gateway to the old town centre in Pardubice

At the end of a forty or fifty-kilometre ride, it feels good simply to stop. But Pardubice, a regional capital of some 93,000 people and the largest town we had set foot in since Prague, seemed determined to make us feel particularly welcome. Our hotel room overlooked the fortress walls. Music drifted across in the evening air.

Was the city putting on a show for us? But no, we had stumbled into Pardubice Museum Night.

One night in May, each year, the Pardubice Castle—originally a thirteenth-century moated fortress, later transformed into a Renaissance château—and the East Bohemian Museum housed within it remains open until eleven o’clock, with free admissions. Bands play in the courtyard, loudly enough to keep even the weariest cyclist awake.

Lumbini in Czechia? This one is a cafe in Pardubice.

Several days later, Sidekick is still salivating over the dinner he ate at Pardubice’s only Nepali restaurant, Lumbini. Meanwhile, I am still trying to work out why a family of peacocks—decidedly not native to Bohemia—seem to have taken up residence inside a medieval castle-fortress-château.

A fine feathered South Asian a long way from his origins?

A renaissance mansion, free museum, live music, good food and inexplicable peacocks: this is a place refusing to disappear in the blur of the long distance cyclist’s one-night stops.

Berlin via Bengal

We were in Berlin due to poor planning — which is the governing principle of our travels. We first had to retrieve our bicycles from storage in The Hague and then somehow transport both bicycles and owners across the width of Western Europe to a small Czech town near the Polish border. Then turn around and head back, more or less in the direction from which we had come.

Oberbaum Bridge across once a checkpoint in a partitioned city

But great cities do not like being relegated to mere transit. Berlin decided to get up-close and personal.

Photo from the net- I’m too frazzled to take photos by this stage!

In Europe, getting two bicycles and their owners onto the same international train at the same time is itself a demanding sport. Booking systems appear designed by the young for the young, with excellent eyesight and rapid reflexes. The actual business of boarding continental trains with loaded touring bicycles has only slightly more grace and civility than entering a third-class railway compartment in Kolkata’s Howrah Station just before Dashera.

Amsterdam – not our photo, but definitely our experience boarding for Berlin

Things did not improve when we reached Berlin and failed to enter our “smart apartment,” a modern arrangement in which hospitality has been liberated from human presence. The promised “personalised” check-in instructions never arrived. The “emergency” phone number on the door went unanswered. To be fair, it was after nine on a Friday night — clearly even bots do not work that late.

We were beginning to wonder whether the people sleeping under the railway bridge opposite the Chutney Indian Restaurant were guests of the same ‘smart apartments’ who had just given up. Just then we were rescued by two young angels. They appeared, zapped open the outer door, and allowed me to drag bicycle, panniers, and remaining dignity into the lift, while David — aka Sidekick — outdid himself by conjuring from a reticent machine the key-card that finally opened our tiny top-floor apartment.

One of the many causes at the Brandenburg Gate

The next day Berlin embraced the weary riders at its sunniest best. Crowds drifted around the Brandenburg Gate carrying banners for every conceivable cause, and several inconceivable ones. Currywurst stalls — once, according to a Berliner friend, the culinary life-support system of West Berlin — now edible historical monuments on crowded footpaths. Cyclists and runners flowed through the Tiergarten. Somewhere nearby, a fellow South Asian was belting out Tamil lyrics, though sadly, linguistic difference prevented conversation.

As we rode past Berlin’s many museums, I found myself wondering what became of the Tagore paintings once acquired by the National Gallery here. During his third and final visit to the city in 1930, Berlin had hosted a major exhibition of his watercolours and sketches. Later, the five paintings he gifted to the gallery, were swept up in Nazi purges. It remains unclear where they finally ended up.

Bengalis do not travel very far in Europe before Rabindranath Tagore enters the conversation. We move through foreign cities with the comforting assumption that he has already been there before us — observed the place properly, formed an opinion, and left behind some immense cultural footprint for the rest of us to inherit.

And Berlin, in the 1920s, absolutely adored him. Thousands attended his lectures. He was mobbed wherever he went. German editions of his books, hurried into print for his visits, sold out rapidly. During his first visit in 1921, admirers are said to have unharnessed the horses from his carriage and pulled it themselves through the streets. (Apocryphal as it sounds, google tells me it is quite true, and that pleases a Bengali immensely.)

That admiration survives now mostly in small markers and fading signs. Somewhere in the suburbs there is a street named after him, though too far away for two exhausted cyclists with only two days in Berlin. At the Hauptbahnhof information desk, a young employee looked baffled by my determination to locate an obscure residential street an hour away by public transport. Berlin, it turns out, has streets named after foreign writers everywhere; Berliners perhaps do not quite understand why this particular one matters so much to me.

Indian Embassy – Closed and no visible sign of the Tagore Centre

There is also a Tagore Centre inside the Indian embassy, and a school named after him — Tagore Gymnasium. Both, naturally, were closed because we were there on a Sunday.

It was later that evening, standing before the remains of the Berlin Wall, that the more personal ghosts appeared.

If you are Bengali, the fragments of the Wall feel strangely familiar. They echo other partitions elsewhere — other borders drawn abruptly through landscapes both material and emotional.

Famous Christine Kuhn project at the wall

The Partition of India, which came some years before my birth, separated my parents’ homeland from their nation. Their ancestral landscape lay in what eventually became Bangladesh, while their country was India. Like millions of others of their generation, I suspect my parents never entirely recovered from that rearrangement. So while hundreds of tourists, including me, photographed the once-grey slabs now covered in some of the world’s most famous street art, my father’s ghost wandered beside me carrying another battered and bloodied map.

Big, crowded, confusing, old, new and under construction

He would have liked Berlin. The actual city of today would baffle him: the high-tech shops and automated hotels, young men shooting up beneath railway bridges, kebab shops everywhere, and the surrounding cacophony of languages. But he would have liked the idea of Berlin — a divided, ideological, argumentative city. “Rather like Kolkata,” he might have said.

Kreuzberg – apartment block with a giant map inviting the world in

On this trip, Berlin seems a city of traces, where walls break into memories. Histories are painted over only to become more visible. And an iconic Bengali name lives on as a sign on the road long after the crowds have gone home.

Czech and Balance

There comes a time when the universe tells you to slow down. In response, we have packed our panniers and set off once more to wobble along another European riverside on loaded bicycles — of course, at a pace officially classified as ‘sedate’.

Bikes, picked up from storage, serviced and loaded: we’re rollin’

Last year we cycled some 1400 kilometres from the source of the Danube to Budapest, despite having absolutely no previous experience of long-distance cycle touring. Some kind friends described this as admirable spontaneity. Others muttered darkly about cognitive decline.

In truth, we had only the vaguest idea of what we were doing. We simply pointed the bicycles east and kept pedalling. We eventually chickened out in Budapest because the lower Danube route had a scary reputation among cyclists: muddy tracks, missing signposts, feral dogs, and stretches where you apparently had to push your loaded bicycle across a mile of sand while inevitably reconsidering your life choices. We didn’t want to risk turning a bi-pedal road-trip into an orthopaedic incident.

Still, we returned home convinced that we had not surrendered so much as strategically retreated to take on another ride another day. Soon enough we found ourselves drifting into discussions about padded shorts, tyre pressure and headwinds with the haunted intensity of veterans. Before long another river ride had begun to loom into view: Labe when it rises in the Krkonose (Giant) Mountains, Czechia, and Elbe as it wanders through Germany to the North Sea.

Another river looms : Elbe/Labe as seen on-line

Meanwhile, a war had broken out in the Middle East and Cycle Sidekick (CS), sensing a golden opportunity to derail the expedition entirely, threw himself into researching airline routes with the grim dedication of a NATO logistics officer.

Over several days he developed an increasingly elaborate set of safety criteria. No stopovers longer than six hours. No routes passing within cooee of either Russia or the Middle East. No airports likely to attract geopolitical attention. And so on.

I assumed this exercise would end with a solemn announcement that a Europe trip right now was unreasonably risky and that, regrettably, the expedition would need to be abandoned in favour of staying home and watching travel documentaries from the safety of the sofa.

Unfortunately for him, after days of determined pessimism, CS succeeded only in finding a route that satisfied all his own conditions: Perth to Amsterdam in roughly thirty hours with only minimal chances of international incident. His final respectable excuse had vanished.

Perfect flight and a pretty sunset thrown in for good measure

There was now no turning back.

We were headed for the hills in Czechia, though not before a few days of serious carbo-loading in The Hague — which sounds considerably more athletic than eating Dutch pancakes while trying to recover from jet lag.

Carbo loading at Pannenkoekenhuis Oma Toos, Scheveningen

I had originally sold the Elbe route to CS on the basis of widespread cycling-community consensus that the path was mostly flat. Closer inspection of the route map shows that in cycling terminology ‘mostly flat’ actually means: ‘There is one catastrophic hill right at the beginning, but after that your suffering becomes more evenly distributed.’

Day one: ride up from Vrchlabi to Labska Bouda

Oh well, we’ll cross that hill when we get there.

We have also completed the familiar phase known as Acquiring Tiny Expensive Objects. These arrive in disproportionately enormous padded envelopes and rarely fit either the bicycle or the cyclist for whom they were allegedly designed. Clearly, the cycling industry survives largely by convincing baby boomers that they are only one titanium bit away from eternal youth.

And yet, at a stage of life when some of our contemporaries are investing seriously in adjustable medical beds with remote controls, tiny titanium thingummies somehow manage to signify rebellion. Besides, they are considerably cheaper and less environmentally damaging than buying a red Alfa Romeo.

Which brings me finally to the matter of ‘balance’, which at our age is no longer merely a cycling skill but a comprehensive lifestyle challenge.

If you follow my blogs, you will see that performance metrics play no role in this expedition. In theory, we would like to complete the entire river — roughly 1100 kilometres from the Giant Mountains to the North Sea. In practice, I shall consider the enterprise a success if we manage to remain upright on our bikes from one hotel to the next for a few weeks, without requiring a major medical rescue.

And so, despite the creaky joints, the logistical anxieties, and the growing awareness that physical recovery now takes as long as the continental drift, we are once again strapping waterproof bags onto bicycles and heading into Central Europe armed with energy bars, anti-inflammatory gel and heroic assumptions about our backs and knees.

Nothing could possibly go wrong, right?

Danube Cycle: the final spin

Budapest is the perfect place to end your Danube ride — scenic, grand, and with the Buda Castle practically built for selfies. But cycling into the city in the middle of a weekday feels more like a survival challenge: dodging potholes, trucks, and a variety of other motorised machines.

Buda Castle: Fisherman’s Bastian selfie-setting

Let’s backtrack to Bratislava, where the last blog left off.

Gabcikovo Dam: Cruising times on Slovak cycle paths

The collective wisdom of the cycling community says that as you head east of Bratislava on the EuroVelo 6, both the path and the traffic get worse. While broadly true, the experience is less a steady slide into chaos and more of an erratic patchwork — mostly you’re cruising, interspersed with (thankfully, brief) periods of handle-bar clenching anxiety.

Choosing your route is part strategy, part luck as any guidebook or route map becomes outdated quickly, as upgrades and diversions happen on both sides of the Danube — in Slovakia and Hungary.

Ipoly bridge with a perfect cycle path was only opened in 2024

Our first foray into Hungary — across the bridge from Komárno (Slovakia) to Komárom (Hungary) — was brief and traumatic. That bridge was not built with cyclists in mind, unless the goal was to weed out the faint-hearted. We promptly retreated and stayed on the Slovak side for as long as we could.

Komarno: On the Slovak side of the Bridge

The route we followed — over 300 kilometres through Slovakia — was mostly on flood levees: easy riding, low traffic. Signage is minimal, but there’s little risk of getting lost. There isn’t much spectacular scenery to distract you, and any deviation from the levee quickly lands you on potholed back roads or highways crammed with impatient motor vehicles. Self-preservation has a way of focusing the mind.

Smooth and pleasant, but hardly spectacular

Štúrovo, our final stop in Slovakia, is unlikely to feature in many tourist brochures. Just across the Danube, its glamorous Hungarian twin, Esztergom, boasts domes, spires, and postcard charm. The vast grey-green dome of the basilica (colour-matched to the Danube?) pulls in tourists on riverboats named after English poets!

Štúrovo’s only drawcards are its budget hotels and the wonderful view of Esztergom castle as you cycle in — though the town could be vastly improved if it simply learnt to put its skeletons in cupboards, instead of leaving them strewn along the main street.

Shortly after Štúrovo, the EV6 veers onto main roads for several tense kilometres. And then — miraculously — a perfectly sealed cycleway reappears just before the new Ipolydamásd Bridge, marking the border into Hungary. We missed the cycleway on the bridge, as did the bemused Frenchman on his way to the Black Sea, whom I ran into while backtracking to photograph the “Hungary” sign.

Perfect! Could it possibly go all the way, nearly 70 kms, to Budapest?

While we were fumbling with phone maps, the Swedish Cyclist swung in, oozing local knowledge. Yes, he assured us, we were on the right path, and yes, it would take us straight into Budapest.

We didn’t quite follow his advice. Instead, we crossed the river again to visit the historic town of Visegrád – our first overnight stop in Hungary. It has the works: river, hilltop castle, stunning views from our boat-hotel.

Ferry crossing from Visegrad to Nagymaros

Next day, we missed a turn and got lost on Szentendre Island. Luckily, it turned out to be the perfect place to get lost: we met an English-speaking chef who not only guided us to the ferry but also gave us a list of must-try Hungarian foods, which we dutifully did as soon as we got into town!

Eventually, trusting in the Swedish cyclist’s ‘local knowledge’ of Hungary, we rejoined the smooth, well-marked path toward Budapest. It was perfect — until it wasn’t. About 10 kilometres before the city, the route dissolved into an industrial hinterland where potholes ruled both road and pavement, and trucks roared by uncomfortably close. The “cycle path” seemed to be whatever flat surface you could ride on. We saw just two other cyclists in this stretch, both carrying what appeared to be the detritus of their lives: bikes festooned with ripped plastic bags, bulging with cans, bottles and rags. It was a throwback to my childhood in Delhi, where adults cycled only if they had no other choice.

Margaret Island: perfectly manicured bushland

The cycle route into Budapest is not well marked. Wth various electronic maps CS (Sidekick) — somewhat miraculously — got us into the peace and shade of Margaret Island, which fully earns its title as the Lungs of Budapest. Our sigh of relief was short-lived. A final dash through traffic on busy main roads, where some drivers seemed unaware that cycle lanes are meant only for cycles, brought us to Budapest city centre— and the end of our journey.

Budapest traffic: shot from the security of our hotel window

1,300 kilometres from the source of the Danube, in 38 cycling days — more if you count sightseeing on rest days, and more still if you count the times we got lost and had to retrace our steps. But who’s counting?

Budapest parliament building: largest in Europe

It feels good to have completed our first-ever long-distance ride at 70. Proves you can indeed teach old dogs new tricks.

And now, the Awards:

BEST WILDLIFE: Germany

BEST FOR 70+ TRAVELLERS: Slovakia (free museum entry)

BEST FOOD FOR HOT CYCLISTS: Hungary (Fruit soup)

And we have just started planning our next cycle trip… all suggestions welcome!

Out of Austria, Into Slovakia: More Sweat Than Tears

Having waxed lyrical (perhaps a touch prematurely) about the sublime cycling infrastructure in Austria, I feel obliged to offer a gentle coda from the country’s eastern frontier. Austria still ranks as a cycling paradise—but as we pedalled east out of Vienna toward Slovakia, a few cracks appeared. Some metaphorical. Some distinctly under our wheels.

Cracks on road after river crossing: story below

The exit from Vienna, heading east, along the north bank of the Danube, is mostly pretty, but less poetic than the approach to the city from the west. At one point the paths through leafy parklands and mellow suburbs fall away and the official cycle route marches you out through a couple of kilometres of industrial estate.

Museum Quarter, Vienna, could have spent many more days there

After Vienna, the path was quiet. The tour groups on bicycles completely vanished. In some ten kilometres through the Donau-Auen’s picture-postcard scenery we counted just three cyclists.

Donau-Auen National Park: not one tour group in sight

Our plan was to cross to the southern bank by ferry at Orth and overnight in Petronell. Why Petronell? Because the stretch from there to Hainburg is lined with Roman ruins—and Cycling Sidekick (CS) has a thing for antiquity.

Reconstructed Roman village in Petronell: photo by CS

This stretch is home to Carnuntum, once the capital of the Roman province of Pannonia Superior. A few kilometres further, there’s a museum at Bad Deutsch-Altenburg and, just beyond that, a medieval castle perched on a hill above Hainburg.

It was a good plan. But then came the ferry crossing, which dropped us off on a pile of pebbles, which was followed by mud, then broken cobblestones bedded into yet more mud (see photo of muddy track above). No signposts. No tarmac. No clue about how to reach the nearby village of Haslau, where we hoped to reunite with EV6 signage and a decent road surface.

We did find Haslau soon enough. But only after dodging highway traffic, leaping over railway tracks, and a good dose of guesswork did we finally rejoin the EuroVelo 6, just when it appeared to be doubling as a tractor road.

Eventually, after a few more missed steps through grassy tracks, the familiar signage reappeared, assuring us that yes, this really was still the EV6—and yes, we were still in Austria. But this part of the track was not the silky-smooth ribbons of asphalt we’d come to expect all the way from Passau to Vienna.

Patchy surfaces continued until just past Hainburg, where the cycle path was restored to its high Austrian standard, eventually delivering us smoothly across the almost invisible border into Slovakia.

Bratislava shimmered in the distance, and with it the promise of an air-conditioned hotel room—before the mercury hit the forecast 37°C.

Austria may still wear the crown for top-tier cycling infrastructure, but summer riding here isn’t for those of us who get easily overheated. Much as I love being out on my bike, I also like to end the day in a room where the air moves—preferably on demand. That’s not something to take for granted in rural Austria, where charming small inns in historic buildings lack air conditioning and no one has heard of an electric fan. Even in our Vienna hotel, the cooling system seemed less than a match for the afternoon heat.

But kaiserschmarrn at Cafe Mozart, Vienna, is pretty good in any temperature

Historically, Austria probably hasn’t needed much indoor cooling. But temperatures here have risen by as much as three degrees since 1900—and they are rising faster than in much of the rest of Europe. Understandably, most hotels weren’t built for this new heat.

More signs of climate change: flood levels chart, near Hainburg an der Donau

However, an Irish friend who’s lived in Vienna for over a decade offered a more culturally nuanced explanation for the lack of even a table fan in most places. “You can’t have fans,” he said, “because they create Luftzug—a draft that invades your body, causing aches, pains, colds….”

Growing up in urban India, where ceiling fans are ubiquitous, I first encountered draft-anxiety 45 years ago, in tropical Indonesia, of all places! All over sweltering Java turning on an electric fan or opening the window of a packed bus, brought howls of protest—“kena masuk angin, loh!” “The wind will get into you.” (Though these days, urban Indonesia has fully embraced air-conditioning.)

As a young researcher, I learnt to respect cultural codes. But as a mature-aged sweaty cyclist I prefer room-ventilation to be unconstrained by cultural considerations.

So, Slovakia came as a relief, just as summer heat reached into the high-30s. Four hotels booked ahead, including two in tiny hamlets—and every single one has promised either air conditioning or a functional fan!

Bratislava by night: from hotel room in air-conditioned comfort

In the end, my affection for Austria remains. But let’s just say we’ve entered into a more realistic understanding. I’ve seen the mud and felt the sweat, and decided that we can only be fair-weather friends.

Some very cool poster art at Museum of History, Bratislava

So far, Slovakia is looking cool and refreshing, with a few additional bonuses like much cheaper food and accommodation. Best of all, entry to the charming Museum of History in Bratislava is FREE for those who remember times when travel meant paper tickets and post-cards not google maps and selfies!

And now, we pedal east, out of the capital Bratislava, into the countryside, wondering how smooth the ride will be…

Austria, We Bike You A Lot! Upper Austria to Vienna

There can’t be many cycle routes in the world that blend pastoral charm, imperial grandeur, and perfectly smooth tarmac quite like Austria’s 380-kilometre stretch of the Danube Cycleway. The Austrian section of the EuroVelo 6 is Mary Poppins-like—practically perfect: signage impeccable, surfaces silky, and views almost unfailingly charming.

Most of the time you see the river and the hills far away

And then there are the OAMTC Fahrrad stations—at least six of them dotted along this stretch of the Danube. A kind of roadside toolkit for the travelling cyclist, each station offers the basic implements of self-rescue: air pump, Allen keys, and more, all mounted on a frame. A little touch of infrastructure, that makes a cyclist feel truly loved.

Bike repair station: we even met the maintenance crew

For much of the ride to Vienna, cyclists are spoiled for choice: left bank or right? Both sides offer their own temptations—orchards, taverns, castles, villages—and whichever you choose, the other side continues to look greener. So, FOMO (fear of missing out) may be your biggest challenge. One day we followed the northern track and missed the pear cider said to be “unique” to Ardagger Markt. Now I’ll never know just how unique. But just ten kilometres downstream, Grein appeared with a theatrical flourish: a bend in the river, a palace poised above the town, and hints of the Alps rising behind. A missed sip, perhaps—but in return, a stage set.

You’ll need to dip south again for Ybbs an der Donau, which probably doesn’t top anyone’s bucket list. But for cyclists, its bicycle museum is an endearing trove of eccentric stories, oddball engineering, and persuasive reminders—if you needed any—of just how marvellous and revolutionary a bicycle really is.

Ybbs: Cycle Sidekick trying out yet another bike

For the Venus of Willendorf, you’ll want to be back on the north side. She’s 30,000 years old, discovered above the sleepy town of Willendorf and now on display in Vienna’s Natural History Museum. A gigantic replica of the 11 cm original figurine watches over the Wachau Valley—a UNESCO-listed ‘cultural landscape’ of myth and memory.

For cyclists, Wachau is the deliciously undulating stretch between Melk and Krems on the north bank, winding through vineyards, orchards, and villages steeped in centuries of slow, productive living. Apricots are in season. Wine tastings can be frequent and sometimes free. In hindsight, that may explain why the road felt so… floaty.

If you’d rather not end your day in Krems—a large industrial town—consider tiny Dürnstein (population 800-ish). England’s King Richard the Lionheart was once imprisoned in the castle above the village. The past isn’t just preserved here—it’s baked in, fermented, and ferried.

We stayed in a bed&breakfast in a 600-year-old building that doubles as the Rathaus (town hall), lunched at a bakery founded in 1780, and bit into a Wachauer Laberl—crusty roll invented here in 1905 and now boasting its own Wikipedia page.

Historic Bakery: here in this building since 1780

Later, you can cross the river on a ferry run by a company that’s been at it since 1358. Though the boats are solar-powered these days, they’ve kept some old communication technology—you summon the ferryman from the opposite bank by banging a metal drum.

We didn’t take that ferry. Instead, we crossed later via the Traismauer Bridge, where the S33 highway and a bike path converge. You and your bike corkscrew up from the river on a ramp shaped like a half-helix to a cycle path, suspended from the motor vehicle bridge, eight metres above water. Fly across the river, and swish down the other side—equal parts cycleway and theme park ride, with industrial chimneys and tranquil waters taking turns to catch your eye.

Photo take from halfway down the ramp, Traismauer Bridge

Then comes a jolt: Zwentendorf, where Austria’s only nuclear power plant squats like a Cold War ghost behind a popular café. The plant was completed but never used, rejected in a 1978 referendum by a margin of less than one percent. Today, it’s rented out for dystopian film shoots. One wonders: what would this gentle stretch of the Danube be like if Austria had voted differently.

The Austrian section of EuroVelo 6 is packed with sights, stories, and what-ifs. The real trick is giving yourself time. Go slowly. Stop often. Don’t choose between the castle, the café, and the scenary—choose all three. Meander left and right, take bridges cute and commanding, ride ferries medieval and modern.

And then—before you quite realise it—you’re in Vienna.

There’s something deeply satisfying about arriving in a great capital under your own steam. No timetables, no turnstiles, no confused rush through the Hauptbahnhof or being disgorged from a tour bus into a cruise ship. Just you and your bike, rolling gently through the outskirts, the Danube now, broad and hard-working, the city gradually revealing itself—new sky-scrapers and old steeples rising through the treetops.

First glimpses of the city still more than 10 km ahead

From the Steinitzsteg Bridge, where EuroVelo 6 swings north towards the Donau-Auen National Park, we peeled off and followed the river toward the Innere Stadt, our base for the next few days. It was one of the easiest, most elegant entries into a major city we’ve ever made—by any mode of transport.

The final riverside stretch is so effortlessly beautiful, you barely notice the shift from countryside to capital—except, perhaps, for the uber-urban graffiti art under the bridges. And then you’re undeniably in the metropolis: bands on boat cafés, trams clanging past palaces, and a cacophony of traffic noises and languages, swirling around you.

Like any other great city, Vienna has its underbelly, of course. But Austria via EuroVelo 6 has no downside for the slow traveller.

Water and Other Food for Thought for the Aspiring Cycle Tourer

In last week’s blog, I mused aloud on the curious reluctance of German cafés and restaurants to serve something the country has in enviable abundance: high-quality tap water. A number of experienced long-distance cyclists responded, and I’ve tried to incorporate their collective wisdom here.

There’s already a torrent (sorry—couldn’t resist the watery metaphor) of online discussion about Germany’s complicated relationship with tap water—cultural, environmental, and economic. I won’t dive into all that, except to say that British journalist Nick Thorpe writes movingly about the ecological consequences of mineral water extraction further downstream along the Danube. If you’re cycling the river, his book is well worth the space in your pannier or on your kindle—more thoughtful and compelling than most in the travel genre.

Back to practicalities. It turns out that a few bold or charming individuals simply ask for tap water—and even receive it. Others report success when requesting a refill after ordering food or drink, particularly in bakeries and smaller cafés. But as a rule, there’s institutional resistance to handing out water for free.

Germany’s hospitality lobby, DEHOGA, has actively opposed any move to make tap water mandatory in eateries. When the EU’s 2021 Drinking Water Directive encouraged countries to improve public access to water, DEHOGA argued that obliging businesses would unfairly burden small operators. So the choice is left to individual owners—and most appear to stick with established practice.

So, if like me, you don’t speak German and would rather avoid social awkwardness, here are some tips from seasoned cyclists for discreet—sometimes even inventive—ways to refill your bottle on a hot ride.

Churchyards and cemeteries (and you pass a LOT of these along your path) – are unexpectedly reliable. Most have taps for watering flowers, and almost all water in Germany is safe to drink. If it isn’t, it must, by law, be marked—look for signs like ‘Kein Trinkwasser’.

Petrol stations and campsites – often have accessible facilities (you don’t pass a lot of these on your way).

Public toilets (paid or unpaid) – anywhere you find a tap, really, seems fair game.

Some cemetery taps require a special key or handle to turn them on. Apparently, these are available in most German hardware stores, and some cyclists carry one in their toolkit. Whether forcing a cemetery tap is strictly legal is, I guess, debatable—but it is definitely more ethical than the bottled water option, since every step in the latter’s supply chain adds to our climate footprint.

If you prefer to keep things both legal and virtuous, check out Refill Deutschland. Their blue droplet stickers mark cafés and shops happy to refill your bottle. It’s a lovely idea, but we didn’t spot a single sticker along our 600 km route through Germany.

And if all else fails—and you really can’t bring yourself to buy bottled water—there’s always beer. Or Sekt, Germany’s answer to Prosecco, for those who prefer bubbles without hops. But be warned: if you confess to not liking beer, every publican has a local brew they’re sure will change your mind.

Austrian Waters (and Paths) of Change?

Even a cup of tea comes with a cool glass of water

Cross into Austria, and suddenly your coffee comes with a glass of water—unbidden. Ask for tap water with your meal and, often a cool carafe appears with no fuss—sometimes even at no charge. At other times, there’s a modest service fee: we’ve paid between €0.50 and €1.50 over the last couple of days.

Delightful, Restaurant Ayam Zaman in Linz, Upper Austria

A Syrian restaurateur in Linz explained patiently: “Tap water here is high in calcium, so we filter and chill it for our guests.” And so, they charge €1.50 per large glass—perfectly understandable, and refreshingly free of the environmental toll that comes with bottled water.

Now, having cycled about 120 kilometres since crossing the border into Austria—I also find myself starting to revise my previous effusive assessment of Germany’s cycle paths. They are, of course, superb. But Austria… might be even better?

So far, the Austrian path seems free of baffling excess of route options that can some times be too much of a good thing for the novice. We never quite got the hang of road signs in Germany, even after 600 kms. Case in point: leaving Passau (our final German town), we aimed for the popular ‘Austrian’ side of the Danube—only to find ourselves on what looked like a prehistoric staircase, not a cycle path.

Cycle Sidekick (CS), who is this team’s official map-whisperer, swears blind he didn’t make a wrong turn. You can make your own judgment from the visual evidence provided.

Happily, ten minutes later we were on the official route— less happily, we were almost immediately swamped by a blur of super fast road cyclists in full flight and determined packs of tourists on rented e-bikes, who seemed more aware of their rights then their responsibility (I will restrain myself from speculating on their nationality). If you can survive the next 20 minutes while everyone overtakes you, you are in Austria.

Day One in Austria: Impeccable bike path hugging the river

From the border to Linz, the EuroVelo 6 has been gloriously smooth, immaculately signposted (with R1 and arrows), and so far no diversions, and not a single patch of path dug up in the name of improvement. The Passau to Vienna section is said to be the most popular long-distance bike path in Europe, and I can absolutely see why.

So, as we ride toward Vienna, the “City of Dreams,” through the land of schnitzel, strudel, and Sachertorte, I wonder—could this be the best country to start baking your cycle-touring dreams into a sweet reality?

The German Leg of Euro Velo 6: The good, the flat and the hmmmm … questionable

Over the past few weeks, we’ve wobbled, explored towns and villages, videoed, and photographed our way along the Donauradweg, Danube Cycleway, and somehow made it to Passau, which is teeming with tourists who’ve arrived quite literally by the boatload. This is our final stop in Germany.

I’m no great cyclist. Not fast, not strong, and unless “middle-aged” has been recently redefined, I’m well past it. Thus, having pedalled some 600 kilometres across Germany, I feel compelled to offer some totally unsolicited advice to anyone dreaming of their first long-distance ride.

The “Practically Perfect”

First: the Danube Cycleway in Germany is flat, mostly. You’re following the river downstream, so gravity is on your side.

Our hotel in Passau: inside old cities, paths can be challenging

But more importantly — Germany does bike paths like no one else. The country’s National Cycling Plan 3.0 (yes, they really have one) runs until 2030 and backs every kind of riding — weekend leisure, daily commuting, and cycle tourism — with substantial funding. Bavaria, like other regions, benefits big time. Cities like Passau have also poured in their own funding. Add another billion or so from the “Stadt und Land” (Town and Country) program, and what you get is a web of beautifully maintained, mostly signposted paths linking towns, cities, and countryside.

Not all the signage is quite this good, but many are

Second: everyone rides. All ages, shapes, and speeds — towing children, with dogs in baskets, carrying a week’s shopping. Lycra is mostly reserved for weekend warriors flexing their calves. For the rest of Germany, cycling seems to be just… normal. You can stop every ten minutes to photograph a duck and no one bats an eyelid. The cars are unfailingly patient and give you space — which I appreciated during my wobblier road crossings.

Straubing. But could be any city centre.

Third: on this route you don’t have to do huge distances each day. There is a lot of accommodation close to the trail — guesthouses, small hotels, campsites, and quirky Airbnbs (with safe bike storage) pop up every 15–20km. You might need to veer off the main trail, but Google Maps will help you get there (and usually warn you about any pesky hills).

And if you do overestimate your fitness, the early sections of the trail, your first 150 kms or so — between Donaueschingen and Ehingen — run close to train lines which provide bail-out options for you and your bike if needed. Later along the way, ferries will help shorten some distances too.

The “Fair Enough”

With great infrastructure comes… roadworks. Lots of them. These can lead to detours, some of which are well signed. Others? Not so much.

Of course, it is your own fault if, like me, you don’t speak German and end up on muddy tracks or winding through industrial zones — not quite the charming riverbank vistas you had in mind.

A brief unofficial detour (i.e. bit lost) is great for building your riding skills

Also, shops are closed on Sundays, so if you need toothpaste or snacks, plan ahead. Luckily, bakeries seem to transcend these rules and are open even in the smallest towns, along with most cafés and restaurants. You’re unlikely to starve.

The “Hmmm…Really?”

Now, about the price of water.

Tap water in Germany is 100% safe to drink — but good luck getting it in a café. No one, literally no one, will give you free tap water with a meal. In most cafes and restaurants a 250 ml bottle costs €3 (about $5 AUD) or more. And don’t expect public water fountains or bottle refill stations along the path either. You’ll get blank stares if you ask to fill up at a café.

I don’t understand why no one drinks the tap water here. Is it just habit? Or a national conspiracy to keep cyclists thirsty for beer (which costs about the same as water)? Either way, best to bring your own bottle, and fill it at your accommodation before you roll out each day.

Bottom-line?

If you’re one of those people thinking, “Maybe … one day … I’ll try a cycle tour,” let me say this: the 600km I’ve just ridden is as good as “maybe-one-day” gets. It’s gentle, scenic, well-organised. Mostly, you can finish your day’s ride in cities or villages layered with stories, myths, histories and architecture from the past. And on good days, there is free music, in the churches and on the streets. You might be tired but you’ll never be bored.

Beuron Monastery: free music in churches

So get planning with two wheels and a bottle. Or if you are still wondering, follow us into our Austrian wobbles.

‘Minor Fall and Major Lift’: From Weltenburg (with a nod to Leonard Cohen)

Just after leaving the tiny settlement of Eining, on a perfectly sealed minor road, my front wheel clipped a kerb, and I fell—gracelessly—onto my hands and knees. But perhaps a tumble off a bike is good karma.

Because, the next thing I remember is Weltenburg Abbey rising where the river cleaves the hills—a benediction in stone. These days, the historic abbey doubles as a 57-room guesthouse. We get a room with a view.

Roughly 200 km earlier, we had departed Ulm—thankfully without any of the drama that had accompanied our arrival (see previous blog). A kind woman at the tourist office had redrawn our route out of the city, avoiding all roadblocks, and set us gently on our way east.

Past Ulm, both river and road settled into an easy rhythm. The Danube widens a little each day as it threads through a landscape that feels increasingly open and productive. Our road, whether hugging the river or veering slightly inland, is mostly flat and often sealed—running through parks, small settlements, floodplains, and along levees between the river and its many canals, branches, and tributaries.

On a rare bright day even the buildings look luminous

Evenings bring feasts of asparagus and strawberries. By day, we ride past freshly harvested fields—true farm-to-table territory. In early summer, poppies hedge the meadows, and water lilies bloom wherever the river pools.

And it’s the season for collecting elderberry flowers

The waterways teem with birdlife: swans showing off for the camera, ducks and geese in every variety and pose. Cycling here could be meditative—if only you weren’t constantly braking for the fleeting silhouettes of herons and storks, who’ve eluded your camera for days.

Swanning around!

The Danube and its surrounds are never quite still—but quietly picturesque. It’s easy to forget how many days or miles or towns you’ve traversed, all the cobbled streets and quaint church spires slipping by. You daydream yourself into some hazy, indefinite past—until a passing tractor jolts you out of it. Or more dramatically, when one of Germany’s abandoned nuclear power stations heaves into view, reminding you that some available paths are best not taken!

Decommissioned power plant at Gundremmingen

I believe I was trying to recall whether it was at Staubing—the next small town—or at Straubing, a larger one further east, that the unfortunate Agnes Bernauer was drowned (that story for another blog, perhaps). The road was a little slick from the constant drizzle… you know how easy it is to slip…

Bruised in limb and spirit, and soggy from the rain, my dearest wish was simply to reach the end of the day’s ride. Post-fall, the path seemed tedious—through farmland and away from the river. Had I been a believer, I would have prayed for a miracle.

And then—almost as if to remind us who’s in charge—the Danube came back into view. The road curved with the river’s serpentine turn, just as the waterway narrowed, deepened, and began slicing through the Fränkische Alb to carve a path through the mountains—for itself, and for us. This is the Donaudurchbruch, the Danube Gorge, where the river has spent millennia chiseling its way through Upper Jurassic limestone, creating a spectacle of sheer cliffs and a current rippling with quiet resolve.

Looking back a the monastery: the next day

The river exhales and spreads out as the cliffs recede just a little. Tucked into this peaceful bend is Weltenburg Abbey—both revelation and refuge.

Founded around 620 AD, it is said to be the oldest monastery in Bavaria. But it was in the 18th century that the abbey took its current form. The Asam brothers—Baroque artists with a flair for the divine—transformed the church into a theatre of ornamentation. Frescoes coil and burst across the vaulted ceiling; marble gleams; golden stucco catches every wandering ray of light. It’s all a bit loud for a limping atheist. I wonder whether even some believers might find this relatively small (in comparison to the great churches elsewhere on our road) overdressed space a touch too theatrical.

The abbey’s older exterior walls feel more attuned to its natural setting—reaching out from the treed hills behind, with just enough foothold on the riverbank to seem sturdy, dependable, and welcoming.

And this sanctuary is no stranger to earthly pleasures. Its brewery, in operation since at least 1050, claims to be the oldest monastic brewery in the world. The restaurant menu is classic Bavarian. If you plan well, you can include board with your lodging. We did not – plan well, I mean!

The next morning, though well-rested, we opted to take the boat through the Weltenburger Enge—one of the oldest nature reserves in Bavaria—up to Kelheim, rather than pedal up the 10% gradient out of the gorge. The views from the water were stunning.

Maybe, sometimes, you have to lose your balance to find the best way forward?