Self-Guided Cycling on the Danube from Passau to Vienna

A wonderful trip on perfectly manicured cycle path and very very flat, short hops each day and its an ideal beginners trip, a couple of bike ferry crossings which break the day up and the ferry goes when you get there and if you miss it then its back in ten minutes. Hotels were of a good standard and a real mix and match and you just never sure what you going to get or if any of the people whos on your trip will be there or not as they seem to put everyone in different hotels if possible. weather wasn't great when we were there and some nasty wind and rain, and i imagine this would have been even better in nice weather, Please note its self guided and not run by the tour operator and the company werent even to sure who the operator was, but it still all went smooth.

The vast majority of this trip is in cycle paths separated from road traffic with some lightly trafficked roads and only very occasional roads with significant traffic, and even then you are usually separated from them by a barrier of some type: in fact, if none of the above applies, you're probably 'lost' although that, too, is really difficult to do as the river is hard to lose and the signage is excellent! A large proportion is on a Euro cycle path from the Black Sea to the Atlantic and it is very well maintained: UK councils could learn a thing or two about maintaining safe cycling environments from the Austrians. The scenery is at times spectacular and varies from day to day as the river meanders across Austria. The accommodation we got was generally very good and there was usually somewhere good to have dinner in the evening. Lunch stops were a bit thin on the ground but we usually found somewhere. The bicycles were heavy but in very good nick: the route is mostly flat and any slight downhills outnumber the uphills - which often related to gaining the altitude required to cross over the bridges over the river rather than anything else. There are churches in abundance, from big to small and most towns have a schloss (castle). There are some spectacular monasteries and when you get to Vienna, it is clear that it was the centre of the world for quite a long time with monuments and buildings to show for it! The distances are manageable - on the last day, you can get a train to cut the distance down to about 50 km but we decided to cycle from Krems to Vienna (about 90 km) and we survived!

This is an easy ride; and the route is varied and very attractive. Virtually none of the cycling is along roads with motor traffic; and I appreciated how the sign-posted Danube cycle path diverted, from time to time, away from the river bank to go through fields, woods and quiet villages. The hotels, baggage transfers and logistics worked very well. I was impressed by the quality of the accommodation -- and its variety.

The organisation worked well. Trip notes and maps together made route finding easy. The route was varied and interesting; opportunities for eating and drinking were many. The quality of hotels was good, though only two provided tea or coffee making facilities in the room. The bikes were well-maintained, but are rather heavy, so it was a good job the route was mostly flat. There were no bottle cages provided, which made stopping for water a bit of a faff! Overall, a very enjoyable week.

My wife has been keen on a trip through vienna for a while. We chose the passau to vienna trip as other reviewers rated it higher than the similar vienna to Budapest. Both follow the danube. The best thing about this trip is that being relatively gentle paced it allows time to visit places on the way, which is really the whole point. We saw a WW II concentration camp (utterly horrific) , visited a trappist monastery and tasted their beer and spirits, saw an awful lot of other churches, monasteries and gardens. The whole cycling route is dotted with pleasant cafes. The route plan recommends good restaurants and we were not disappointed. Austria is accustomed to vegetarian and vegan diets. The palaces and museums of vienna are spectacular, the kaisers crypt is worth a visit. We recommend a great veggie restaurant in vienna called Tian. The guide notes are very simple but in a good way. I recommend having a phone with Google maps or similar when you get to the cities though... Much easier to navigate the busy streets. The bikes on hire are a good standard, though we like to bring our own saddles and pedals.We took the option of an extra few days in vienna, I knocked a star off because the information on this part was not so well organised. We were given turn by turn instructions but no accompanying map and there was some confusion about whether we were supposed to have a vienna pass. (this would have saved us a lot of money it turned out later)