It rained pretty much all the last night I was in Salzburg. As I woke up periodically, I could hear the rain falling on the leaves of the big walnut tree right outside my window. The breeze was cool, and I was warm and dry in my hotel room, so it was a super good idea to stop and see this beautiful city and get some rest. I’m not much of a tourist, but I really enjoy just watching people from cafés and looking at the exterior of beautiful old architecture.
When I first arrived to Salzburg, I just happened to stop at a Middle Eastern restaurant that served me a very wonderful lunch. And so I decided to treat myself to dinner at the same restaurant  on my last night. The waiter recommended a rabbit and lamb skewer, and I mistakenly thought it would be a real skewer with grilled meat on it. But it was all the meat removed and put into a toasted wrap that was delicious with a garlic cream sauce and some sort of spicy tomato paste on the side, accompanied with a Austrian Merlot that I thought was really special so I had two glasses. That probably didn’t help my sleep that much to eat that giant meal and have two glass of wine just before I went to bed but whatever sleep I lost was definitely worth it.
The next morning, I enjoyed the amazing breakfast buffet at the hotel for the second time, and then got on my bike to head north towards Passau. I stopped at the supermarket to get a sandwich to eat along the way, and ate the sandwich on a wooden bench in the middle of a forest.
The temperature was cool, and the streets were wet, but I didn’t get any rain on me all day. I was planning to do about 50 miles and stop at a campground that I had identified. But I got there a bit early and the campground looked a little sketchy, so I decided to put in a few more miles since I found a nice campground about 20 miles further on.
I had a flat tire at about mile 62, unfortunately at a place where they were millions of mosquitoes. But luckily, I had thought of that and packed a little packet with mosquito repellent in a handy place, knowing that if I needed the mosquito repellent, I probably would need it in a hurry! And, swabbing myself with repellent I was able to fix the pretty large hole in my tire without the additional aggravation of being eaten alive. When I stopped as I noticed my tire was flat, I bet that I had 60 to 80 mosquitoes on me within 5 seconds. If I had a presence of mind and didn’t mind being eaten alive, I would have taken a picture for this blog.
I spent a lot of time today cycling on small paths/roads right next to the river. I’d say it was a mix of crushed gravel and kind of rough concrete roads, so I was happy to have a bit wider tires to cushion the rough surfaces. There was not that much elevation gain today, but there were a few steep climbs over hills as I had to get away from the river. I think probably bluffs come down too steep to the river in certain places for there to be a bike path, and so they route you over these fairly steep hills. you can see that in the elevation profiles above.
It was extremely nice for it to be cool!
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