Besides my presence, there are additional indications that this establishment attracts only the best. As evidenced by the black and white photographs adorning the walls, the author Thomas Mann and the Duke of Windsor both stayed here, at different times. The Duke is pictured sitting on a stone wall with his inevitable pipe. The room in which he stayed, now called The Windsor Suite, is still available to book and contains, as the young receptionist breathlessly explained, the original furniture!

The Duke, I am led to believe also was attracted to lederhosen. His relationship with Mrs Simpson, Errol Flynn and Lord Mountbatten, confirm that he did not know whether he should be King or Queen. Psychologists have written volumes on this aspect of his personal life and there is consensus at least that he was ambidextrous: he could use a whip in either hand.

The Duke made many visits to Hallstatt, about 30 km away, where in a serene castle by lake’s edge there was a major Hitler Youth Camp in the late 1930s. One can only surmise he, the Duke, was in lederhosen heaven.

The sauna was another welcome retreat today after my round trip to Mondsee.

There is a sign which states “The sauna will automatically be switched on by bad weather conditions.” I have spent dinner trying to interpret this. For what it is worth, I thought the weather was pretty bad today, but the sauna was not working when I arrived in my bath robe! Perhaps it has to snow?

The weather forecast for the rest of the week looks bleak at least around the upper Austria region. I will train it to Hallstatt tomorrow. I rode 71 km today so I can have a lay day…. If only!

A subtle reminder that Norwood Pool opens soon after I return!

Early morning St Wolfgang

I am sitting having “high tea” at the Landhaus zu Appesbach. I don’t know where to begin! Those of us who are mutual friends of Dr Michelle Kiley, will immediately understand my comment that she would approve, unreservedly!

Just as I found an unexpected delight in an hotel with a renowned Austrian chef/cook in Gmunden, so using Booking.com I decided on this establishment based on location and “best price for 3 nights”! Well again it’s a very unexpected but welcomed boutique hotel .

The word “boutique” should say it all!

A condensed version of its web site is as follows:

“This private country estate is located directly on the shore of Lake Wolfgang, a 10-minute walk from the centre of Sankt Wolfgang. Landhaus zu Appesbach features a gourmet restaurant, a private beach, and a large garden with English-style lawns.

Built in 1912, Landhaus zu Appesbach offers classic-style rooms with luxury interiors. Most have lake views.”

Mine doesn’t but who cares!

I remember that on my last cycle day on Ireland on the Ring of Kerry, it was a dismal wet,windy, cold day and so I was in heaven when I cycled up, freezing to death, to a “boutique” hotel that had the ambience of the Manor House! I was met by the Irish equivalent of “Deidre” and Devonshire tea! There was a Master and a couple of Labradors too I recall.

Today was also overcast and drizzling rain, despite wet weather gear, I did feel the cold a little – that burning tingling feeling in the extremities! But it’s better to keep cycling as the physical effort burns the calories and helps with warmth. Constant irritations were my shoes and socks were drenched and my spectacles were constantly fogged up and covered in rain drops…. Life gets tedious, don’t it? Well its not sitting in a BMW with windscreen wipers and the AC on auto.

Anyway, the sense of déjà vue was immediate when, dripping and bedraggled I clipped my way in cleats to reception. The young female receptionist, immediately stated she would switch on the sauna and that after I may care to join other guests for “coffee and cake” in the drawing room”! Yes please! I looked around for some Lederhosen, but none in sight.

I have reserved a table tonight at the restaurant….. My financial planner tells me I have made thousands of dollars profit the day after Abbott was elected. And I did not even vote for the bastard!

Setting out from Gmunden with the lake always on my left.

The lake is still on my left!

Another unique and amazing ride. This is obviously an “old highway” now dedicated for cyclists. It has the same sense of the old freeway ride in Adelaide.

Wet weather gear, still did not prevent my clothes from getting moist! I may walk into St Wolfgang and check out Lederhosen.

The room at the hotel in St Wolfgang. One knows its boutique when there are soft fluffy bathrobes and slippers! Actually it reminded me a little of the Hotel Victoria in Meiringen, Switzerland.

The Landhaus zu Appesbach. And yes that is a Jaguar stationwagon parked out front. I told you it was another Manor Born!

The view from my balcony

A panorama shot so may turn out funny – from the hotel “beach”!

It’s been a relaxing 2 days. As it happens the hotel – the Landhotel is, as I described yesterday, a delightful establishment. It is a true hotel, not a bed and breakfast or variation there of. Moreover it is not part of a chain but family owned. Father, Mother and son – who is dressed in lederhosen! (Why does leather turn me on so?)

Moreover Ingrid Permkopf, the mother is I suspect Austria’s answer to Maggie Beer! She has published a series of books on cooking that rival the Woman’s Weekly! I only found this out today

Having decided to have a fling and eat at their restaurant last night, a reward for the 80 km ride, I was treated to a totally unexpected gourmet dining experience! I had “spinach dumplings”! Sounds ordinary but they were anything but.

Besides the food, there are a couple of criteria that mark an eatery as a cut above the rest to my mind: orders are taken rapidly, the food appears efficiently, is well presented and comes on heated plates! Well the Landhotel and Mrs Permkopf win hands down. Peter Permkopf, in his lederhosen also wins in the legs department.

Not surprisingly I ate in for the second night and on the recommendation of a buxom, bodice filling wench dressed in Austrian costume (think Julie Andrews in curtains) I had fresh grilled fish from the lake with steamed vegetables and truffled infused rice.

A pianist was playing – a medley of opera tunes.

It’s definitely the place for older Austrians from Linz (self funded retirees) to spend the weekend. The place is booked out, the car park filled with BMW, Audi and a few Skoda.

Gmunden has a castle/palace it’s claim to fame is it completely occupies a small island in the lake. There is of course a church, as always built on the high ground. I cycled a bit, took a ferry and practiced the Recorder as well as uploading my Garmin rides to date. So half indoors and half outside – weather permitting.

Tomorrow I cycle to Strobel where I plan to be based for 3 days and to make day trips unencumbered by panniers.

The 3 pics above are of the Seeschloss Ort , the castle on an island in the lake.

Street view with the church spire

A few pics from the boat trip – ferries cross the lake

Modesty prevents me claimimg expertise in navigation and orientation but if getting disarmingly disorientated is a rude teacher, then I am surely a possible pedagogue? In short as Mr Micawber might say, “I shall give my two penneth worth.

I have an iPhone 5 – incidentally as of yesterday, superseded, and a Garmin 500. That’s it! The Garmin does not navigate, but simply serves to give instant data on speed and distance. Helps with distances between 2 points, although of course Google Maps does the same and is more visual.

It provides retrospective data of where I travelled and hence how, when and where I ended up in the middle of a Sherwood Forest.

The battery life of the iPhone is notoriously dreadful. One must carrying an external power pack sufficient to provide enough juice for TWO full recharges. This is imperative if one uses the iPhone to navigate as the location services chew up the power, big time!

Of course I could do away with the Garmin altogether and use an app such as Strava as well as Google maps. Incidentally Google Maps wins over the Apple Maps, not the least reason of which is that the former has a Cycle option!

All my blogs have been created with one finger typing using the simple “notes” app on the iPhone and backed up to the “cloud”.

SIM cards.

Remove your Australian SIM card as soon as your Emirates Airbus leaves Australian soil. I suggest you tape it somewhere safe for the duration – in my case to my inner thigh.

Buy a local SIM card for each country. I usually specify that I mainly want it for “data” – if that provokes a blank or startled response, do a quick Google translate check on the word “data” in the local language, then try explaining its mostly for “Internet”! This sets things straight especially if “data” has lewd connotations in Czech.

I purchased a Czech SIM card with 1GB data valid a month for 600 Kr and in Austria a card with 2GB in a month for Euro 25. Simple! I will always use a free WiFi, if available naturally!

Breaking news! The EU are proposing that roaming charges be abolished across the EU…

Wardrobe.

A pair of walking shoes are mandatory. One can’t do with only one pair of SPD recessed cleat shoes as your universal footwear.

For a cycle holiday, only one or two pairs of underpants required – for formal occasions. The rest of the time I wear NICS and wash then out each night….well OK every second night! They dry quickly usually. I have two pairs.

Pack worn out clothes and once holiday is past half way mark, discard dirty clothes rather than wash! I am up to discarding!

That is the question. I was pleasantly surprised by this billboard just outside Gmunden. Those of you who have been faithfully reading my blogs, will recall the delight I had in immersing myself in the remarkable baroque classical music and choral culture in Prague. The civic fathers have embraced the great tradition of Bach and Beethoven and it provides uplifting experiences for the millions of local and international tourists. This billboard seems to indicate that the tradition continues in Salzburg.

I do claim a modest and moderate knowledge of classical music and I am sure almost every one can recognise Beethoven’s Third Symphony – the Erotic, but for the life of me I have no idea who composed the Erotic Mass. Salzburg of course was Mozart’ stamping ground, but even Google can’t confirm it.

Today was a very satisfying autumnal day! Like a new seasons Granny Smith apple – beautifully proportioned, green skin, moist white flesh with a crunchy zing to the taste and a slightly tart finish on the palate! What provoked that analogy is that all along the country roads that I traverse apple and pear trees form a pungent avenue of ripening fruit.

The cycle path R4, from Linz to Gmunden , I have discovered, is part of the European Camino Trail! I am back on the way of St James. It was but 12 months ago I was on my spanish cycle pilgrimage. Praise the Lord! I suspected this when I began to see the universal blue and yellow nautilus emblem along with the R4 signs.

For most of the day along the R4 I seemed to cycle between fields of ripe corn on one side and sunflowers or cows on the other. By about 1 pm the austrian alps also become more obvious in the distance. Disturbed two deer in the forest. As I was startled by motor vehicles on my cycle path, so the deer were startled by a cyclist in their deer park!

For the cycle tragics, lets get the stats of the day out of the way:

4 hours 40 minutes in the saddle for a distance of 81.71 km, which
averages out at 17.5km/hr. total ascent 600m, total descent 414.

Never, well hardly ever, did I feel under duress and the glorious part was my perception that I was always gently climbing and despite the extra load, and again, hardly ever needed to engage the lowest gears.

A comment on the bike, it is a delight to ride but a Tiagra group set is definitely not Ultegra! They do not take kindly to dropping gears under stress and complain noisily and long, ultimately spitting the dummy and dropping the chain. Has happened once to me, once bitten twice shy. So “anticipation” is my second name.

Gmunden is about 60 Km by main road from Linz. It sits at one end of Lake Traunsee. It has that general look and feel of Victor Harbor as a holiday and naughty weekend retreat for randy South Australians in the 1930s , but on a grander scale. The Landhotel by the edge of the water, has that same nostalgic feel of days gone by. “No vacancies” on weekends routinely.

Here I shall stay for 2 nights surrounded by tall blonde young men in Lederhosen.

On second thoughts I may stay the whole week.

Excellent signage although at some intersections and In the towns, the signage was inconspicuous. I am following R4.

For most if the day along the R4 I seemed to cycle between fields of ripe corn on one side and sunflowers or cows on the other. By about 1 pm the alps also become more obvious in the distance

Just an ornate building! In Lambach.

Another “Schloss” outside Lambach.

Late lunch on the way to Gmunden. The beer is fantastic. A touch of lime! I could almost become addicted to it!

8 km from Gmunden. What a sight it was about 17.30 hours a little crisp but I could have cycled for another 2 hours if that view stayed with me all that time!

View from my room at the Landhotel, Gmunden.

I don’t have any pics of Linz! There was nothing out if the ordinary and being the second largest city in the upper Austrian region, it has the feel of a thriving European metropolis. It has its own medieval town square with a very tall monument, specifically in memory of those that died on the great plague.

The day dawned with fog, sun and crisp air. Again I started on Route 160 – this is beginning to read like a Route 66 story! Over the next 8 km I ascended at a manageable incline, given the extra weight of the panniers. Not the sort of effort where one has to keep one’s head down and pump iron and puff! Almost! The Austrian border was abandoned! No check point “graham”. Cycled gaily through disused and broken barriers. Within minutes, as if by magic, the scenery changed, I kid you not.

The first Austrian town was Bad Leonfelden. From here I at last turned off Route 160 onto a quiet country road and had the road to myself. I gently reached an altitude of about 900m and for the next several kilometres cycled through undulating green, sweet smelling grassy pastures, cows and carefully maintained homes. Actually the cows were also carefully maintained! To some extent it reminded me of the day we cycled up the mountains and onto the plateau above Meiringen in Switzerland, a few years back.

The trip today was about 40 km – a delightful 20 km ascent followed by an exhilarating descent. The only slightly apprehensive time was that for the last 8 km into Linz I had to return to Route 160. As I could get up reasonable speed, the polite Austrian drivers did not hassle me too much!

Tonight it has turned cold, wet and windy! The forecast is for it to clear tomorrow. I will now head toward the Salzkammergut region, staying overnight at Wels then heading to Gmunden. From there Plans open. There is a great map with more than 30 – yes that is thirty – cycle paths in upper Austria. My plan is to do as much as I can of cycle path R2

Have lost a little weight, so had this for breakfast without feeling guilty!

The Czech Austrian border mark

Three pictures showing the Austrian countryside at about 900m above sea level

The tomatoes are very red and tasty

Went into Linz this afternoon and this evening. Happy that I have a feel for the place and relaxed about not spending another day tomorrow.

There is no doubt that riding is so satisfying on a bright crisp sunny day and a quiet traffic free road!

Vissy Brod is yet another quaint Czech village, which like those before, nestles into a bend on the river Moldau and which centuries ago the natives tirelessly toiled to construct a castle and a church, for the rulers and bishops, whilst living in abject poverty themselves.

The main religious buildings at Vissy Brod are all part of a Cistercian Monastery – a part of the Benedict order – not that I am an expert in things catholic. The creed of the Bendicts was “work and pray”….. No comment needed other than to observe that inside the church there were wall to wall confessional boxes. Did I misread their slogan? Perhaps it was “work and play”?

Anyway here follows pictures from the Cistercian monastery at Vissy Brod

This is the Bishop’s summer residence.

The view from the balcony of the Penzion. Very crisp morning! Autumnal in the extreme