Page 167 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SUMMER 2022 DISCOVERING MADRID

That night, after wine and a delicious salmon Richard the Lionheart’s undesired home in
dinner, I looked out over the river from the 1192 and 1193.
deck of the luxurious Amalea and thought The following stop was Vienna, which we
about women and children senselessly dying in reached via a relatively easy 28-mile ride, fol-
Ukraine. lowed by a guided walk through the city that in-
The next morning, following an itinerary talk cluded visits to parks, palaces and places where
by the guides, we rode past immaculate farms musicians Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph
that looked as if they'd been painted yesterday. Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven lived and
We were offered several routes ranging from performed.
20 to 40 miles, mostly on flat riverside trails. That night, I ate dinner at a lakeside restau-
But I felt hearty, so I took the option that in- rant recommended by Gamil on an island in the
cluded a climb with a difficult 10.7-degree Danube with Montgomery and his wife, Kris,
grade, which hurt. About half the group had e- plus a pair of Canadians from Vancouver, Ron
bikes, which made climbing hills a breeze. Sturgess and Barbara Block.
Our goal that day was Passau on the Austrian On the second-to-last day, we crossed in Slo-
border, which is known in German as Dreiflüss- vakia, the eastern half of the former Czechoslo-
estadt (City of Three Rivers) because the vakia, passing through the Danube Wetlands
Danube is joined there by the Inn River from National Park.
the south and the Liz River from the north. Before we left Austria, we had lunch at the
On a walking tour with a Hong Kong-born Schloss Hof, a castle that served as hunting
guide, we strolled through the university town lodge for Habsburg royalty.
and stopped in at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, home The vast estate now has a working farmstead,
to one of the globe’s biggest organs with where visitors can learn about rural life in the
17,774 pipes and 233 registers. baroque period during the 17th and 18th cen-
On the third day, we crossed into Austria, turies. Old Austrian breeds at the Schloss Hof
where Gamil told us the grass was greener, the include Nonius, Lippizan and Noriker horses,
towns prettier and the women lovelier. (He was white donkeys and spectacled sheep. (No, they
correct.) do not wear glasses, but their facial markings
Some took a 27-mile route to Enns, the oldest make it look so.)
town in Austria. Others took a longer path, We then pedaled into Slovakia, which was
pedaling more than 50 miles to Linz, where we once behind the Iron Curtain and which came
walked through the old town before dinner. down only 31 years ago. Our destination that
But we all began the day in a drizzling rain day, following 45 miles of riding, was Bratislava,
that turned into a downpour before the sun - once a major capital in the Austro-Hungarian
thankfully - popped out in early the afternoon. Empire. After cleaning up, we toured the Old
After the long ride and the spray of mud from Town, the Bratislava Castle and St. Martin’s
our bike tires, a shower and a restful night's Cathedral, where 11 Hungarian kings and
sleep felt good. queens were crowned between 1536 and 1830.
Then it was on to the Wachau Valley and On our final day of riding, to Hungary’s Buda-

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