Two moons ago Graham Finch was chiding me for failing to take a photo of the moon over Vermont, and I’ve felt badly about it ever since. I thought we had missed it again this month but was elated when I glanced out the window on the way down to breakfast. For you then, Graham, if you’re out there. Moonlight in Mühldorf doesn’t sing quite as well as the classic, but here we are.
A day or two past full, but then we weren’t seeing much sky back then. Good enough.
We’re down to breakfast early, hoping we can get coffee while we wait for the whole meal deal. Our table is already set when we enter the room, with soft-boiled eggs and coffee waiting for us. We’re apparently the only guests and the morning host heard us stirring upstairs and anticipated us. A very pleasant woman with enough English skills so that she understands when I asked if the eggs could be tossed back into the boiler until hardened.
Leaving Mühldorf. Very nice place. Nice of them to open their kitchen for us this morning, since I think we were their only guests last night.
It’s a very easy ride today southeast to Villach - not too long, mostly downhill, brilliant weather. We follow the water the whole way, first along the Möll and then along the Drava (or Drau, as the Germans and Austrians speak of it), looking huge already and still four hundred miles from its end at the Danube.
Not long after leaving our hotel the valley widens out and the floor is taken over by agriculture, mostly planted in corn. We follow the Alpe Adria the whole way today, which most of the time translates here into agricultural farm roads and riverside paths through the woods, often unpaved. It feels like about half of the day is on unpaved surfaces, but often the dirt/crushed gravel surface is so smooth and firm that it’s nearly as good as pavement.
No, Rocky - that’s not a giant sailboat up there. Zoom in a little more. I think that’s the Filialkirche Danielsburg.
I had to look at the map again to remind myself of the course of the Drava. Such an amazing river, threading east through the alps and finally emptying into the Danube east of Varazdin. It’s strange to realize we’ve been biking through the Danube watershed these past forty miles. I wonder how far in time and distance it is following the water from Mallnitz to the Black Sea.
Video sound track: Old Devil Moon, by Miles Davis; with Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Art Blakey
Villach, when we arrive at it, ranks as a disappointment. We’re here because logistically it’s at the right spot, but I imagined a city with over two millennia of history dating back to the Romans would hold more of interest for us; but it didn’t really. The fact that the Allies bombed it 37 times in World War II and damaged 85% of its buildings probably had something to do with it.
One of the two sights of interest we found in Villach: the view down the Drava, with the Heiligenkreuzekirche on the right.
Spectacular, I'd say.
2 years ago