Danube Waltz, days 2 - 3

Day 2 - Punctures, levees and grandparents

Distance: 20 km

Start: Lobau

End: Orth an der Donau (pronounced 'OrtndnDOu')

Strange fish eaten: 3

We got up early, bolted a big breakfast, rushed over the U-Bahn...and reached the bus stop just in time to see the 92B pull gloomily away. Great. So we whiled away half an hour applying sunblock and teaching Tova how to scoot. We got walking at 9AM, dodging refinery trucks and playing Count the Storage Vats. Soon our trail turned into a levee, and stayed that way all day. We told stories, played various word games, saw a snake, ate candy, one unnamed Teitelbaum lost his pants button peeing in the Vienna National Forest and has no belt, plus we got popsicles at a busy bike station in Schonau. 

Shortly afterwards, though, eagle-eyed Aurora pointed and said, "That tire's flat...really flat!" Turns out inner tubes are hard to patch when you only have 300 mL of water in a Tupperware bowl to find leaks with. We patched it, it went flat again right away, we repatched it...and it held until Orth, which was only an hour away thankfully. Our poor stroller is having a hard time dealing with its load of up to ~80lbs and creaks grumpily. Maybe we'll call it Rocinante. 

Jakob's parents Peter and Kristin have come to visit for a couple of days, and met us at the Schloss Orth. Kisses were exchanged, more ice cream was had, then came a magnificent dinner including Serbian baked carp, pike and zander (which I'd only seen on a Scrabble board until now), a lovely end to a somewhat challenging day. We made do with a small gasthaus room (Aurora and Tova shared a bed, Sophia slept on the floor and got her head stuck under the radiator) and slept. 

Day 3 - Crossing the Donau

Distance: 21 km

Start: Orth an der Donau

End: Hainburg

Ice creams eaten: 7

Times our Austrian waiter sneered at us: 26

Marchfelder Gasthaus was amazing. The owner kept adding to our breakfast - juice! Nutella! Cheese! - until our table and the nearby sideboard were both full. Our tire was again totally flat (goody goody gumdrops) so he raced Jakob over to the town hardware store where the octogenarian shopowner had just the right inner tube. Meanwhile the girls pet the cat and played on the swings. It was 10AM by the time we finally hit the road, but it worked out perfectly, since Kristin and Peter arrived at Eckertsau trailhead only minutes after we did. The girls instantly descended on their saba for more Little Cloud stories, Kristin pushed Zadie in the stroller, and we got on with chatting and walking. 

And it was just a glorious, smooth day. It was sunny and warm, the trail was smooth and puncture-free, we threw stones in the Donau, there was beer over lunch at yet another playground followed by still more popsicles, and we breezed into Hainburg at 5PM. (Well, not quite breezed. Jakob's back is stiff and achy, but in a breezy sort of way). The day ended with a waterside meal of asparagus and trout (eyeballs bravely eaten by Peter, Sophia and Jakob) and a fond farewell to Kristin and Peter who leave at dawn. 

Three generations, one river

Crossing the Donau

Tamar and her not-so-beloved Buggy