Vienna to Passau: Trains and Police Officers

September 25, 2015

Keith and I went round and round last night about the best course of action, and decided to sleep on it and decide in the morning. When we woke up we looked at another day in Vienna, but the accommodation situation was simply out of sight. The cheapest thing we could find was in the 200 Euro range. That was for a budget hotel. I guess you can't blame the hoteliers...everyone is trying to make a living, but it was too rich for us.

After much thought we have decided to save Budapest for another trip, the one where we will stay a week in Vienna, not a convention week, and a week in Budapest. So we rode our bikes to the train station and bought tickets to Passau.

The bike ride to the train station was incredible. Almost all on bike lanes or in bike/pedestrian zones. Keith used Google maps to get us to there with very few miscues. We passed by many of the beautiful buildings we saw yesterday and some new ones too. It was about a twenty minute ride.

I bought the tickets, and tried to explain to the lovely clerk that six minutes may be fine to change platforms and trains if all you are carrying is a purse, but it is a bit of a tight timeline with loaded bikes. She assured me we would be fine. I can assure you she has never actually done it! The first train was a fast train and we met the lovely Laura, from Passau, who was returning home from riding Passau to Budapest on her own. She shared our concerns about the train change, so we came up with a plan.

Aided by other passengers, we removed the bikes from the hooks before Linz. Then, all hands on deck, we got all the panniers out of the train, followed by the three bikes. We then rode the bikes to the elevator, crammed all three of us in, went down a level, repeat, and back up to the next platform. How I wish we had pictures of the elevator mash up. We were moving too fast to even think about it. Laura spotted the bike car first, and hooray, it was a roll on, roll off train. We made it with about 30 seconds to spare.

The next train was not a fast train. It stopped at every community between Linz and Passau. When we arrived our train was swept by police officers looking for refugees. They didn't find any on our train, but were wonderful to us. They carried our bikes down and up the stairs as the Passau station has no elevator. They are building one now.

When we left the station we saw a large group of refugees being detained, and I found it distressing. We didn't linger to stare or take pictures. Laura lives just a few blocks from our hotel so we followed her lead and were checked in and drinking a beer in no time.

As luck would have it, a group of six from RVYC, and two from Seattle are bike touring and are in Passau tonight. We have just returned from a great evening of wine, beer and schnitzel and much hilarity. The RVYC Outstation in Passau! They will be staying to enjoy Passau tomorrow, while Keith and I are on our way to Salzburg. We are excited.

The Internet is very slow here tonight, so I will load the pictures in the morning. It has been a great day.