Riding on 12/9/2009
The next 3 days were sometimes overcast and sometimes sunny, with occasional showers, but not enough to dampen our spirits.


From Linz, we rode along the Danube for a while then detoured into the inland to visit a beautiful Augustinain Abbey called St Florian - a revered Austrian saint, originally a roman soldier who turned to Christianity and was thrown into the river with a millstone around his neck for his efforts. He is also the patron saint of fire fighters so is depicted with a mill stone putting out a fire with water in many Austrian churches.   Aton Bruckner, the famous Austrian composer, often played the organ at St Florians and is buried under the cathederal. It was very beautiful in the over- the-top baroque Austrain style and just as we walked in someone started singing Ave Maria. We were stunned!   After that we visited Enns - Austria’s oldest town and then on to our accommodation at Malthausen, right on the river bank.

It was a sober start for the next day as we rode (and pushed) our bikes up a very steep hill to view the most notorious Nazis concentration camp in Austria just above Maulthausen. Here the prisoners were forced into slave labour at a granite quarry. 100,000 died or were executed. It was very moving and we rode away feeling stunned and shocked that so many people could be complicit in such atrocities.

That night we stayed in Grien where we toured the oldest rococo city theatre in Austria and were treated to a impromptu “concert” by two gorgeous Danish tourists.






The next overnight stop was at Marbach. Here we walked up the steep hill behind the town to visit the small village of Maria Taferl with it’s spectacular views and it’s church.