Brno-Mikulov-Vienna.

Trip dist: 124 kms. Trip time: 7 hrs, 22 min. Tot dist: 5,647 kms.

Hmm...today's ride felt a little bit like being in one of those anime cartoon movies, a la Hayao Miyazaki. Intermittent rain and sun bathed the scenery in some rather eldritch light, and it got soaking wet and then completely dry only to get soaked again in a process that repeated itself several times, and once nearing Vienna I could actually literally measure the speed of the approaching rain cloud, for my front wheel was just behind its shadow, and could never quite catch up, so going back to the anime theme, it was as if I was literally racing the cloud and running away from the rain (or chasing the sun, for you optimistic types ;)), for it was raining behind me (and rain clouds brought with them strong winds and cold), but just 30 cms beyond from where my front wheel reached it was still sunny and warm. Very strange.

I had miscalculated the distance to Vienna, too. The 60 kms I had told you about before was not 60 kms from Brno, but it is 60 kms from Brno to the border. So the point is, thinking I had a short ride I started rather late. Still, I was happy approaching the border (in spite of the very dark ominous cloud chasing me, which was of course an interesting extra incentive, apart from the late start, to pedal faster). It is very comforting knowing that you will once more be able to speak again! Prospect of loneliness thus reduced, I couldn't stop humming "An der schönen blauen Donau" by Strauss all the way to Vienna. :)

I arrived, as it turns out, at the outskirts of Vienna at dusk and to get to the YH you need to traverse the whole city, so it soon fell into nighttime, and therefore I didn't see much during my approach to the center, though the building outlines looked pretty against the night sky.

The Vienese are nice, though. No one scolded me, even though I didn't bother to take out the front and back bike lights required by law for night biking, and at the roads during the day the cars would stop in the middle of the highway, just as in Germany, but not to scold me this time, but to offer me a "ride" instead (funny, ha ha. Or scary, depends. It was daytime, so it was more on the amusing side). But this, the "ride offerings", the "cloud from" fleeing, the capricious and changeable weather, the dusk-turned-to-night arrival, the Strauss soundtrack that wouldn't stop playing in my head, all contributed very peculiarly to the whole "anime" feel.

{shrug}.