Self Guided Cycling Along The Danube - Passau To Vienna, Austria

Our Clients’ Reviews

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Average Review Rating: from 7 reviews.

Brigitte Schneeloch

CYCLING THE DANUBE - PASSAU TO VIENNA

Written September 2012
We had a lovely week cycling the iconic Danube bike trail, had wonderful weather, enjoyed the little villages and towns set in the most beautiful countryside, sampled the local food and wine, and still had time to visit the numerous baroque churches and monastaries on the way. A perfect week!
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What was the most inspirational moment of your trip?

arriving in Vienna and doing our own sight seeing tour by bike through the city, ending with a piece of Sacher Torte at the Sacher Hotel / Cafe (behind the Opera House)
Do you have any advice for potential travellers?
Read the trip notes, travel instructions and cycling guide several times beforehand. We found all the information thrown at us on arrival by the hotel receptionist very scant and confusing. We had to return several times to reception before getting to grips with it. Exodus should remember that a receptionist is not a tour guide or group leader and does not necessarily have any local knowledge
The bikes were very good and comfortable. Unfortunately it was quite complex to get to the bike hire place and back into Passau
There are many opportunities to catch the local trains for short rides to your destination which we did a couple of times. The trains are all very bike-friendly.

The Exodus and Radundreisen tripnotes differ slightly, but crucially at important points (pick up point for one of the hotel transport in Grein, and hotel facilities description)

Is there anything else you would like to add?
Overall, we had a wonderful week!

Having previously been so impressed by Exodus organisation, we were disappointed with this one. 3 hotels (out of 7) were "out of town"; for 2 of them we needed to be picked up by the hotel as they were 6-8 km up in the hills, and one even wanted to to be paid for return transport the next day! The third one was miles out of town in Vienna at the end of a most unpleasant ride to it in a huge shopping complex. With all 3 it was most disappointing that we were unable to enjoy the localities in the evening and had to simply stay in the hotels.(the one in Vienna did not even have a restaurant despite the trip notes referring to one)
Jane Loughridge

CYCLING THE DANUBE - PASSAU TO VIENNA

Written September 2012
Thoroughly enjoyed this holiday . In general the accommodation was good and staff were friendly.
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What was the most inspirational moment of your trip?
Cycling through the Wachau wine growing area. Lovely scenery and saw some of the grape harvest! Arriving in Traismauer we were given a friendly welcome and the best traditional Austrian meal.
Do you have any advice for potential travellers?
I think going bed and breakfast is better and more flexible than half board. There are plenty of places to eat en route. Bring a gel seat cover!
Margaret Edwards

CYCLING THE DANUBE - PASSAU TO VIENNA

Written September 2012
My partner and I did the self guided ride and enjoyed it very much. It gave us the chance to feel we really experienced the lovely Austrian scenery, pretty villages and towns with a sense of achievment to have done a 300 +km ride. My partner is 79!
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What was the most inspirational moment of your trip?
We loved riding through the fields of corn, through the vineyards with the vines laden with grapes and through the dappled light in the forests. The Danube was always a source of activity and interest and we crossed it many times on the quaint little wooden ferries .
The towns of Grien and Melk were particularly lovely places to stay overnight.
There were some interesting side trips offered. Luggage transfers went smoothly. All the hotels were of a good standard and Hotel Nibelungenhof in Traismaure was really excellent with wonderful warm hospitality and superb food.
Do you have any advice for potential travellers?
If you can google the map on your phone Im sure it would be a big help as the Trip notes let us down on several occasions. Dont worry about the bikes, they are excellent and almost ride themselves. Stefan who set us up with the bikes in Passau was most helpful and accomodating.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
We were only given one set of trip notes and one bag and we found this difficult. Please issue these to all riders. We would have preferreed to be accomodated in a smaller town than Linz. It was the small towns that were an important part of our enjoyment of the trip, Grien, Melk and Traismauer were lovely.
The trip notes were obscure at times and this combined with our not so hot navigational talents meant we rode many more kms than necessary.
For example Linz- Grien We could not find Werksstrasse after the Mittenkirk Bridge.Pg 21 of trip notes. says "take care" re the branching road.. It would have been simpler to say follow the Donauradweg signs turning right on the path before the fork in the road. This lead us to do 8 extra km on out longest day.
Melk - Krems Traismauer. The trip notes say simply "continue" to Hotle Nibelungenhof. We needed to know which way to continue. We got lost again.
Traismauer- Vienna. We had been given train tickets from Traismauer to Tulln but when we got to the station at 9.30am we were told there are no trains, we gathered they only depart at peak hour. This was frustratiing as we had anticipated riding 40km, not 80 that day.
Arriving in Vienna. This turned into a nightmare and we took 2 hours from the outskirst to our hotel. Pg 34 says "turn right at the JV Schemmeri Bruche" It is very hard to see the name on this brige- and we missed it- however there are 2 huge lions on it. It would have been helpful if we were looking for the lions not an small obscure name. Try and simplify the directions to hotel Donauzentrum. We took nearly 8 hrs to ride that leg and were exhausted at the end.
It would be helpful if you gave the full addresses of the hotels, at the end of the day you want all the help you can get to arrive there!
We felt that the trip was maybe a lillte pricey when we discovered the accomodation costs.
Helene Berman

CYCLING THE DANUBE - PASSAU TO VIENNA

Written August 2012
Our bicycling trip (Passau to Vienna) was a wonderful family adventure for myself, my husband, and our adult son and daughter (ages 28 and 26). Everything was extremely well-organized by Exodus, and the staff there quickly responded to any questions or issues that arose, both before our travels and during. We had some difficulty locating the place where we were to pick up the bikes despite following the instructions provided, and few people in the area seemed to know of them. We eventually found it, but as it was raining hard, we were all somewhat sleep-deprived, and the distance from our hotel was longer than we had expected with only major roads on which to travel, we asked the bike rental company for a ride back to our hotel, which they did for 60 Euros. That process felt more stressful than necessary, but once we started out the next morning from Passau, everything was perfect. We loved biking along the Danube - the paths are well marked, the scenery is stunning, and the information provided by Exodus was extremely useful. We would definitely book again with Exodus and look forward to our next adventure!
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What was the most inspirational moment of your trip?
There were so many special moments - the sheer beauty of the Wachau Valley and the area around the Schlogener loop, the many stops for beer in the charming villages along the route, the visit to Mauthausen -not exactly inspirational, but powerful, moving, and meaningful - and the opportunity to spend special time with family.
Rod Williams

CYCLING THE DANUBE - PASSAU TO VIENNA

Written August 2011
We did Vienna to Budapset last year and everyone we met said Passau to Vienna was better - it was. The cycling, scenary and towns on the way exceeded our expectations
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What was the most inspirational moment of your trip?
The Bishops palace at Melk.
Do you have any advice for potential travellers?
We joined the tour via Nuremberg (rather than Vienna as suggested). A city well worth visiting.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
One small problem we had was on arriving at our first hotel they could not find our reservation. This took 45 mins to resolve.
Julian Chadwick

CYCLING THE DANUBE - PASSAU TO VIENNA

Written July 2011
Very well set up and organised tour. Everything on the Exodus side ran like clockwork!
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What was the most inspirational moment of your trip?
Pedalling beside the Danube through spectacular scenery on perfectly smooth cycle paths.
Do you have any advice for potential travellers?
The cycling is as easy as it gets - anyone could do this!
Is there anything else you would like to add?
We plan to do the next stage in a year's time.
Francis Somerset

CYCLING THE DANUBE - PASSAU TO VIENNA

Written July 2008
Beautiful surroundings and an amazing experience. Not as supported as our previous exodus trip though, which was a little disappointing.
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What was the most inspirational moment of your trip?
The tranquility of cycling down the danube surrounded by green lush land!
Do you have any advice for potential travellers?
Take a German translation book!
Is there anything else you would like to add?
We had arranged our flights ourself, and transferring to the first hotel was easy, but on arrival at our first hotel the information we had been given about the pick up of our bags, and transfer to the bikes was sparse and what was relayed to us ended up being inaccurate and therefore detrimental. The receptionist had told us we would have to be downstairs at 9am to leave our bags, have a welcome meeting and be collected to pick up our bikes. Unfortunately this was inaccurate and we were actually supposed to be downstairs at 830am for collection to be taken to our bikes. As we were late we had to wait for the hotel driver to come back and pick us up again. Other than our welcome pack, we had no official welcoming from Rad and Reissen. The pack was surely self explanatory but a lot of the information was in German, so it would have been helpful to have had a rep on arrival just to clarify some points.
At the end of the trip it was not clear where we would leave our bikes. When we called the Rad and Reissen reps, they were happy for us to leave our bikes in the parking of the hotel without our locks on, which we did not feel was the safest option, as if anything happened to the bikes after leaving them, we did not want to be held liable.
The hotels at the beginning of the week were great ie St Agatha and Linz, but unfortunately the quality of them seemed to deteriorate towards the end of the week. They were definitely adequate but as the standard in the aforementioned places was so high it was slightly disappointing. In Grein although the hotel was lovely, it was a shame it was so far up a steep hill from Grein, making visiting Grein in the evening impracticable- it may have been helpful to mntio the hotel would no provide transport down to the town in the evening-so make the mst of it in the afternoon, before retiring to the hotel.
Overall, despite the above issues we had a wonderful time, as it was a beautiful part of the country. We were just disappointed the organisation was not what we had come to expect from Exodus.
Exodus Response
Dear Mr Somerset,
I'm glad you enjoyed the trip and i completely agree the Danube and it's surroundings have some spectacular scenery to offer. I cycled the route myself last year and had an excellent time - although i crammed 2 days into 1 going into Vienna which was a little tiring!
Apologies for the couple of glitches you had along the way. With regards to our self-guided trips, they are different to our group trips in that the support we give you comes through our comprehensive route notes and maps and the ease of having your luggage transferred daily. On certain trips we do have a local representative meet our clients and discuss the trip ahead if it is a particularly complicated route.
I'm sorry you were given the wrong time for the meeting at the bike station by the hotel staff (we do state 0830hrs in our route notes) and i will make sure they are aware of the correct timings. The reason that it is unnecessary to lock the bikes up in Vienna at the hotel is simply that our operator Rad and Reisen sends many people along the route daily and there wouldn't be enough spaces to lock every bike therefore the hotel security looks after them.
The hotels along the route do vary depending upon the size of a town or village however i completely accept your point about Grein and will be taking note of this for future departures.
Hope to see you on the second leg of the Danube next year!
Andy Buswell (Trip Manager)

- Exodus Staff