Phil and Anne Cycle the Danube: Day 18, Grein to Melk

It was a pleasant start to the day (apart from the traffic on the bridge across from our room which started building from 6am). We headed off, over said bridge, under cloudy skies and with pleasant 21C temperature. First stop was a meander around the village of Grein, just a kilometre away, too close for a coffee stop. We then wandered down to the cycle ferry point to find we'd just missed it. No matter, he turned round and came back for us with a cheery grin ... and even took our photo as we sailed across. It was a totally flat day today, all on velvet tarmac, and passed another gorge section which was quite pretty. It was not a long day, and we couldn't check in to the YH in Melk until 16:00, so there was plenty of time for: a coffee stop at a track-side gasthof; then a coffee and apricot cake stop at Ybbs; and a lunch and beer stop at Pochlarn. You can see where the priorities lie on this trip. The latter stop was extended as the black clouds gathered, lightning flashed and rain started. Eventually, with not many kilometres to go, we donned waterproofs and headed out into the rain with thunder rolling, not in discreet thunder claps, but 20 minutes of continuous rumbling! The temperature had built to crazy heights again, so the rain was a welcome relief as it sucked a bit of heat out if the air and then steamed up from the tarmac reducing vis to 150m for a while! The rain had stopped by the time we reached Melk, so a glass of wine (locally produced grunerweltliner) was imbibed in the town square whilst we waited for the clock to strike 4. The YH room is baking hot, so after a shower it was a relief to get back outside and into town for some tea. A summer festival was well underway with street food stalls, buskers, oompah band, accordion players, traditional dancers and more leder-hosen than you can shake a stick at. There was quite a buzz about town. Returning to the hostel we were shocked to find that the room was no cooler even with window left wide, so it's gonna be tough sleeping tonight!

32.3 easy miles at 10.8mph avg. 2 hrs 58 mins moving time to climb just 89m!