Day 2

We were shooting for an early start (as rain was prognosed for the afternoon) - so the plan was to have breakfast at 7:30 and leave around 8:30. Similar to the dinner, breakfast was quite amazing!

With about 20 minutes delay vs. plan (not all too bad), we left and the road was once again scenic and pleasant. Soon we had our first break. Here you see Florian sniffing on the flowers.

"Our" kids held together, they rode in a large group and believe they were enjoying themselves.

The weather was not really on our side, it even started drizzling, but eventually we reached Lunz am See. Again, the bike path from Hollenstein was really scenic, I can recommend it nice weather.

So, let us see (den See...), here is what Lunz am See looked like. Not all too friendly, is it?

All the more was I surprised that not less then four or our heroes changed into their bathing suits and jumped in! I believe I'd never have done that (OK, maybe as a kid...). IIt was me who pushed Jakob in, but he wasn't all too mad at me, at least the decision to get wet was made on his behalf.

OK, here is one more pic:

After the lake, we were on our way to Scheibbs - in order to get there, we had our first (and pretty much only) ascent. This again led our group of bikers to spread out, with the first ones waiting for the others on the summit. From there on, it was a looong, pleasant descent to Gaming, where the Kartause (or Charter House) is located, which is a formerCarthusian monastery.

As with a lot of places in Austria (with some exceptions...), there was an excellent restaurant within the walls of the monastery. Georg and I had not less than two portions of an excellent sweet potato/curry soup, then there was a coffee cake, which Bernhard the Green can be seen enjoying. As always, the kids formed their own fraction.

After lunch, the main group set off towards our final destination of the day, Scheibbs, which was about 15 km away. Four stayed behind (Verena, Georg, Florian and myself) and attended a guided tour of the monastery. It turned out that this was the first tour since October - they were closed for the winter, then came the Corona lock-down. So we were privileged! Especially Verena asked a lot of questions, she was very happy with the tour.

The remaining 15 km's flew by fast, it was raining, so I just decided to take a dash for it, next to the river Erlauf. I was soaking wet when I got there (guess the others, too). Here we were split into three different hotels - Florian, on a first come, first served basis, assigned the best one to the early bookers - and I was fortunate to be one of them. It was a meticulously clean and well-kept little place, the best-rated in entire Lower Austria (the only one to have 5 "suns" - similar to the stars of a hotel). The host family was very friendly, I told them I was a bit cold, within a minute, an electric radiator arrived - it was great getting my stuff dried. I took a quick shower and joined the others at "Pizzeria Giovanni" right in the middle of town.

Well, let's just say this did not turn out to be a culinary highlight. It had an atmosphere, according to Jakob, of a Gulag and most of us, especially the kids, were not pleased at all, with their pizzas. I was still quite full with the lunch in Gaming, so ordered a Greek salad, what I got was a few green leaves swimming in a yogurt bath. Some of the others had better luck - after all, one cannot do all too poor with a Pizza Margarita. Anyway, all the kids left after only having a few bites and they had a nice kids-only party in the hallway of one of the hotels. When we returned from our "delicious" dinner, they were anything but pleased to see the grown-ups.

We were not all too tired and four of us, Michi, both Bernhards (green and yellow) and myself found the one and only pub in town, which was