A glorious sunny autumn day in glorious alpine mountainscapes. It all made you want to don a gingham dress and romp through the meadows singing about the sound of music.
Instead I made do with M&S shorts and a donated T-shirt, and resisted the temptation to trill along to Nigel’s on-bike sound system broadcasting Julie Andrews at discreet volume.
After a quick bakery breakfast from Feldkirch we rode splendid wide, smooth, car-free paths busy with cyclists. This was classic Austrian stuff: broad flat green meadows with jagged grey mountains either side. Though the breakfast pastry and coffee were classic Austrian stuff, too.
Everything was flat until our picnic lunch at Bludenz, after which it was steady shallow climbing on a quiet evenly-graded road up to 1200m at Langen am Arlberg.
It’s hardly even a village, just a cluster of a few houses without restaurant or shop, but curiously it has a large train station with express services to Vienna and Stuttgart.
So we used our Interrail tickets creativelyo, hopping on a train to Bregenz and dining in the restaurant car, then enjoying dessert on the train back.
‘Dessert’ being another bottle of beer each.
Miles today: 34
Miles since Bangs: 37