Weather: ☁️🌤️🌤️⛈️⛈️☁️
Picnic: 🥪🥪 (2 out 5, disappointed to eat wraps on a spot in the shade too close to Vienna to not find a café)
Track: 🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹 (overall 3 out of 5, nice forest track with great views over Vienna, boring long walk along the Donau towards the city. Cool to walk into Vienna)
Milestone: Vienna!!
Hotel: 🛌🛌🛌 (3 out of 5, nice room with good shower and washing machine next to the Naschmarkt)
Name of followed trail: Grenzlandweg (07)
Special mention: Gregory packs for sending a brand new backpack to Vienna because of their lifetime warranty. Thank you Gregory for the great service!
We have a warm night, even just in our inner tent we sleep without sleeping bags. In the morning it has cooled down a bit, but it’ll be another hot day. We start our walk in the shaded forest. We find a stag beetle, which makes Mark really happy.
We pass through a few villages and get back into the forest up a hill with good views over the Donau river.
After a steep walk down the hill, we get into the suburban outskirts of Vienna. From there we walk to the Donau. Before we go across to the island I. the middle of the river, we first get a cool soda and a glas of Raspberry Sturm. Sturm is a fruit juice that just started to ferment and build alcohol. Bright and pink, nice and refreshing drink. We bring a toast to arriving in Vienna!
From here we cross part of the Donau and walk about 10 km on the island in tfe middle of the river. It’s narrow and there isn’t much to see, so the walk is t very interesting, for longer than expected. We have our wraps for lunch somewhere in the shade. We both had hoped for a nice little café with sandwiches, but unfortunately we had to make do with whatever is in the backpacks. Wraps it is then.
The last few kilometers are more interesting, because this area is used by the people of Vienna as a bathing and swimming spot.
From here we cross the other half of the Donau into Vienna, quarter Leopoldstadt.
The city is a busy place to be after all these weeks of forest, fields and quiet villages and relaxed towns! Traffic comes from everywhere, and everyone seems in a rush, so we really need to watch out for ourselves.
The sky is growing dark and we soon deel the first drops fall. Then heaven opens itself and it pours down on us for about 30-45 minutes, with rain and thunder. We are drenched after 30 seconds, so there is no use in seeking shelter. We continue our walk, which sometimes becomes a wade, towards the city centre. By the time we get there, the roads are flooded with 5 cm of water and people taking shelter under every roof they can find. A few people decide to walk on, like us. We grin at each other as a recognition of the same happy crazy energy that made us decide to walk instead of take shelter.
And to be honest: it’s fun! It’s nice and cool after so many hot days, it’s like the world’s gone mad and we decide to just go for it. We laugh, wade through the streets, jump and splash in the deeper puddles and enjoy the child like fun this thunderstorm brings.
We reach the city centre and walk to the Samsonite store, where I drip through the store in ieder to get my new backpack. And I deed, I get a free, brand new Gregory Maven 58 backpack!
The rain finally ceases and we walk the last 20 minutes to our hotel.
Our room is a bit small, which is a disadvantage since we want to hang out all our wet things, but everything we need is there and we’re right on the Naschmarkt in the city centre.
After a good shower and a gear explosion we relax a little and go for dinner at a ramen place across the street. Back at home we do our first round of laundry, and take some time to let it sink in that we reached Vienna!
Congratulations for reaching this milestone and finding the stag beetle!