Becoming an Elite Austrian Mountaineer

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Okay so I got this bike so I could get around the city. The last couple of times that I was here I was told that the hike up to the church on the hill was pretty nice. Since I don’t really have much to do right now, I thought that I would bike up and see the view. Biking around the city isn’t bad as there are lanes for bicycles everywhere. There was some kind of Nature Festival going on or something so the streets were crowded.

Nature festival?

Crazy bungee ride

They were playing concerts all day and night so it was pretty nice to see. They had this crazy bungee jumping ride for kids. I was just waiting for one of the cables to snap or something. 

So I made it 3/4 of the way to the church when I just couldn’t bike it anymore. I know that I’m out of shape, but there is just no way that I could bike this hill. I was dying just pushing the bike up the hill – it was that freakin’ steep. I would love to see my sister try and run up this puppy – it was that ridiculous. It honestly felt like it was a greater than 40 degree angle way worse than Deerhorn Lane where I grew up on Grouse Mountain in Vancouver. If my dad had let me go down on this hill when I was learning to ride a bike, I probably wouldn’t be here today.    

Rest station every 100m

Luckily they had rest stations every 100 meters. There were huts with little benches. In the huts were little drawings with pictures of the various stations of the cross … boy are there strong catholics here.

There was one point where the trail opened up with a pretty nice view of the hills.

Nice view of the hills

I also found this old round citadel or something covered with trees. I later learned that this was where Mozart kept his harem of concubines. Each window in the building represented one of their rooms….wow! That’s a lot of girls! The building reminded me of something from a Myst game.

Round citadel

Reminds me of a Myst game

I started going back up the hill again when the damn trail got even steeper. I was trying to figure out a way to demonstrate how ridiculous it was so I took this picture of one of the rest stations.

Rest station

Crazy ass Austrian runner

Notice the angle of the trail? As I was taking my break, I saw this crazy ass Austrian running up the hill. He really put me to shame… I guess they have good strong breeding stock in Austria eh Arnold? Ja! This was the steepest point of the trip where they even had a railing to help you climb up the hill. 

Mosaic

These Austrians are extremely catholic. I found this mosaic on the way up the trail. I think it was a culmination of Christ carrying the cross. I haven’t seen many mosaics in my life and after reading Guy Gavriel Kay’s book, I definitely appreciate them more.

Schloss

Well here’s a closer picture of the whole reason why I’m climbing this damn hill. At this point I’m swearing an awful lot and can hardly breathe. But I keep thinking “do it for the children – my peeps are counting on me.”

Exhausted

I tried to capture the exhausting moment with this picture. I’m almost at the top and having a hard time breathing. I brought up a 2L container of iced tea which was luke warm (not tasty). The cleaning lady took my bottle of water when I left the hotel room briefly this morning. I must say it’s weird living in a hotel. I don’t have a fridge nor can I cook. So I have to buy sandwich meats, buns and fruits/vegetables to eat around here if I don’t want to blow like $30/day on food.

Nice little gnome

City of Linz

Up near the very top there’s this nice little gnome that was mocking me. I would have thrown eggs at him if I had any. Instead I yelled out Rumpelstiltskin and he ran away screaming. Ha ha works every time… what you don’t believe that I’ve used this on gnomes before? I’ll have you know they’re all over the place in Austria. I actually have another picture of another gnome in another album! Anyway, I made it to the top and took a really nice picture of the city. You can see the Danube running through the centre. I marked where the Schloss (castle) is on the water with a red asterisk. Jeni and I took a couple of pictures up there last time we were here. My starting point is the location of the other asterisk in the middle of the city.

Tags: bicycle, Danube (Donau), nature festival