May 8, 2013  
Obermühl to Linz 49 km (665 km total)
Morning Clouds, Afternoon Sun

Marriott €81 ($104) Double, including breakfast
 
 
When we awoke, the clouds obscured the mountain tops. Some smaller clouds licked the lower down trees like tufts of cotton candy. After breakfast everything had lifted slightly and we could tell it was going to be a great day. Long-sleeved shirt over a T-shirt was sufficient for me. Junko and Hiro don't have much natural insulation and need to bundle up more.

Today, again, we stayed on the north side of the Donau. The Donau snakes through densely forested mountain scenery and it is as pretty as it gets. Our path followed the edge of the river. It was not as busy with cyclists as on weekends.

After about 7 km, we passed neat looking Gasthof In Der Exlau, in the village of Exlau, €58 for double including breakfast. It looked empty now but they have a dozen tables set up on the property. We imagined the must fill all these table during the high season.

 

...In Untermühl a few km further, we caught the ferry (€3 pp including bike) for the short ferry ride downstream. We landed again on the left bank.

From here on, the terrain flattened out, with hills and wide open meadows. The trail left Donau for 6 km before returning and leaving us to ride on top of the dyke into Ottenheim.. From Ottenheim, till a few km out of Linz, our path was next to busy highway, a comparatively unpleasant part of the radweg. It is not an eyesore but it's the vehicle noise and exhaust fumes which make it bad.

At 1:30 we crossed the large bridge at the Nue Rathaus into Linz and the beautiful Haupt Platz. Conveniently, the helpful Tourist Information Center is on left side. They recommended a budget place "Das Goldenes Anker", (€68 for double with shared bath and € 91 for en suite. It is down small alley across the Haupt Platz plaza. We checked it out. People were friendly but rooms stuffy and small and way overpriced for what they offered. We declined.
 
 
 
The night before, Dave had found a "senior" deal at Courtyard Marriott at the Marriott website for €82. No breakfast though. Neither Junko or Dave could get cell or internet access in front of the hotel so we walked back to the tourist info office and asked them to call the Courtyard for us. The same rate quoted and this time they even included breakfast. It was just €14 more than the sub-par "Das Goldenes Anker". We splurged and took it. It was about 2 km from the tourist center of Linz.

We relaxed a bit in our rooms and decided to ride back to center of town and find place to eat. What a difference an unloaded bike makes, we flew up the parking lot incline. But not even 100 m further Hiro had a flat. He decided to fix it in the evening and we walked 5 km round trip in downtown. We stumbled upon a lively Italian place down small side street off Landstrasse.


 
We had toyed with the idea to take a side trip to Salzburg, only one hour from here by train. But in the end, decided to keep that for another time.

 
Dave picked up a SIM card for his phone at nearby tobacco shop - €10 for a 30-day starter pack which included all the talk time, SMS, and internet access we’d need while in Austria. He was able to get the phone number activated on the German language website but could not figure out how to activated the rest. He had a similar issue with his German SIM and was able to figure it out eventually.

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References: 

....1) The Danube Cycle Way; Donaueschingen to Budapest by John Higginson
... 2) Bikeline Maps & Guides; Donau-Radweg 1, (5 books in the series)

Our plan in a nutshell; 2900 total kilometers at 50 km per day - 2 days riding for 1 day off for a total of 58 riding days & 90 total days - April to July, 2013 :)