Day 2 dawned bright and sunny. Another hot day in the saddle loomed ahead. An ‘all you can eat buffet breakfast’ was fully utilised and the peloton creaked into action.
We chose to ride the right bank in the morning which offered more shade but this still didn’t dissuade me from applying copious amounts of factor 50. After a few false starts for the obligatory team selfies in front of the Schlogen Loop, a magnificent hairpin bend in the river, we got underway setting a brisk pace.
Despite the fact it was a Monday morning there was a lot of cyclists undertaking a much brisker pace than us creating fairly constant bell ringing from behind to warn us to get out of the way or else…However no obscenities were exchanged – at least none that I could understand – and we ploughed on to Aschach for a much needed coffee and, in one case, a sneaky ice cream. It was here where I witnessed my first ever adult trying, not entirely successfully, to apply sun cream with gloves on. Well it made me laugh anyway.!
We crossed to the left bank via the Aschacher Strasse Brucke and struck out through the corn on the cob fields around Feldkirchen trying to keep pace with a family of four including 2 young kids who could more than match us for pace. It didn’t help that the the saddle on my hire bike was constantly sliding down slowly but surely to the frame ‘cos I can’t tighten the clamp around the stem tight enough and resulting in me almost sitting down at crossbar height.
We had read that there was a pedestrian/bike ferry that operates between Ottensheim and the centre of Linz. So we rolled swiftly towards the embarkation point and jammily rolled straight onto the departing ferry thus hiving off the last 10km of cycling. This reduction in cycling effort didn’t deter us from chomping our way through enormous ice creams in the Hauptplatz of Linz.
Linz by the way isn’t famed for its chocolate which came as a bit of a shock to me. Lindts chocolate is made in Kilchberg in Switzerland and has been since 1845 by Rudolf Lindt and David Sprüngli. Linz is famed for ‘basic oxygen steel making’ which really doesn’t have the same appeal.
Notwithstanding this fact it has some very fine churches and we visited a few in the afternoon. We went into the Urslinenkirche which was built in 1736 and dedicated to the Archangel Michael (?). When we entered two amazing things happened which I have never witnessed before. The first was a rehearsal that was underway for a woodwind performance trio which was absolutely fantastic and lending a real echoing atmosphere inside the church. The second was somewhat less inspiring. As just the two of sat enthralled by this ethereal medieval music a middle aged woman crept into the church, put a coin in the box and lit a candle but then proceeded to scoop up the remaining 100 or so unlit candles from the trays underneath and put them into her shopping bag. She then sneaked out of the church and disappeared. The church warden who had been prowling around earlier reappeared from somewhere else in the building and wandered over to the now completely depleted candle rack and gave me a bit of a suspicious glare but stopped short of coming over and accusing me of nicking her candles. We saw the candle miscreant later that afternoon in the town square looking like she was about to sell them some candles for profit! Archangel Michael would be suitably dismayed I’m sure.
The day finished in a Bavarian restaurant in a tree covered courtyard in which copious amounts of beer and meat were consumed. The peloton waddled slowly back to the hotel to sleep it all off.!
Velodyssee 
Certainly a very interesting day. I wonder if the middle aged lady did sell the candles!!
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