Day 19, Melk to Krems

Thank you Rob & Karen for an excellent tip from your Australian days: the only way I got to sleep in the heat of the room last night was to drape a large handkerchief, soaked in cold water, over my chest.  And when the school kids staying in the hostel had a midnight rumpus, it was recharged and worked perfectly again!  By the early hours we could here the rain pounding down and things were cooler.  After breakfast we realised the futility of waiting for the rain to stop so layered up and headed out.  The hills were cloaked with cloud and light rain persisted as we rode along. 2km out came the first confusion as we failed to make sense of signage at first until we realised that the road we were looking for was the bridge some 20m above us!  Having pushed up the 18% slope that led us to it, we crossed once more to the left bank and headed downstream.  At least the temperature was tolerable. We had a coffee break at a roadside cafe on the approach to Spitz and sampled the local marillen knodel, or apricot dumpling. Nice as they were, we could only eat one each ... and that sat heavy on the stomach. We were aghast when we noticed an elderly couple come in a few minutes later.  He had two, and she had three!  We continued in the rain through the prettiest section where the steep slopes come almost right down to the river and are covered with vines.  This is the Gruner Veltliner and Riesling wine producing area, known as the Wachau.  If there were no vines on a piece of land, then there were apricot trees.  With such a narrow strip by the river, the rail, cycle track, and busy road ran close together which was no fun.  The diversions through the villages were a pleasant respite from traffic (but not from tourists - this is a very touristy area). By the time we reached Dürnstein we were ready for another pause in the dry, and for a glass of the local wine. At this point the sky brightened a little and the rain largely stopped.  From here we finished the ride into Krems, shared a pizza and checked in to the gasthof. We had been leap-frogging another couple all yesterday and previously; we saw them in Melk when we wandered out for tea; and we leap-frogged them again today at coffee/wine  stops.  As we approached the gasthof it turned out they were staying in the same place.  They are a Dutch couple doing an organised bag-carried tour just from Passau.  And they are going to Tulln tomorrow like us.  This is the popular/tourist part of the Danube. Again the rain has now started so we are now waiting on a lull before heading out for tea ... probably the nearby Italian as it was the only place we saw open on a Sunday night.  Also, pasta is less risk to my wobbly crown, which happily is still staying put.  Famous last words.  

25.6 wet miles at 9.7 mph avg.  2 hrs 37 mins moving time to ascend 160m