day 45 - 55 km
Vlasatice - Gnadendorf
Cécelle and Sanne bike along with the tree bike, it is beautifully sunny this Sunday morning. We are crossing the border into Austria today. The fifth country we visit, at about 1,700 kilometers we are. Along the way, of course, we hand out birthday trees, but it’s not much today. We see few people; the villages are remarkably quiet on Sunday. The forty or so kilometers to the border go fine, in the gently rolling and more open landscape we see deer, hares and birds of prey. We also see many wheat and potato fields, in a nice alternation with woods and villages. Very pleasant. Just before the border we have lunch on the shoulder. And at the border, where, for the first time this trip, we have to show our passports, we give the customs officer a tree because it is her birthday tomorrow! We cycle into Laa an der Thaya to the center where the town hall is. It is nice that we understand the language again and can read the signs well. The weather turns somewhat, it becomes cloudy and somewhat windy. Not weather to explain the map here. After handing out some leaflets, we cycle into Austria. We stop in Gnadendorf where we park the tree bike in Zwettendorf, and we finally spend the night in Pottenhofen. That was quite a hassle because the owner of the cottage where we were supposed to sleep turned out to be unreachable, so we had to find another location. That luckily worked out, within an hour we could be in Pottenhoven, a ten-minute drive away, where we could cook. By now we have gotten an appetite. We are happy to be seated and we toast to the fact that we have cycled into Austria after forty-five days. Good night. Tomorrow morning Daan takes his daughter Cécelle to Vienna. She enjoyed it very much and now has a good idea of what it’s like to cycle around Europe with a tree. What positive reactions it evokes and how people react happily when they receive a birthday tree.
Mon May 26 - day 46 - 57 km
Gnadendorf - Greifenstein/Hintersdorf
From Pottenhofen we drive via Laa an der Thaya, where we entered Austria yesterday afternoon, to Zwettendorf where the tree bike is located. We stop at the town hall in Laa an der Thaya and walk inside where we speak to the “Stadtambtsdirektor” Reinhold Russ. He responds enthusiastically and says he will present it to the mayor (v), and expects the municipality to join in. Top. The first municipality in Austria is in, i.e. we are now in contact with them. Richard cycles with us today and so we ride the tree bike towards Vienna. It is again a beautiful route with occasional climbs and beautiful views. We pass the town hall in the village of Niederhollabrunn and go in here too, who knows. We speak to Christian Lachmann, who gives us his contact and that of the mayor Jürgen Duffek and indicates that he thinks it is a wonderful project. We take pictures at the tree and agree to keep in touch and he is going to present it to the mayor, who is not here today. A little later, we hear from two Dutch-speaking residents, who came to watch during our sandwich on a lawn, that the mayor just drove by on his tractor. Nice anyway. We get close to the Danube and try to cross the lock by bike while the cars have to make a detour. In one of the little towns we cycle through before the Danube, we see another town hall and of course we stop there. It is closed. We put down a flyer with a little tree and cycle on. At the lock Richard takes drone shots of the crossing over the wide Danube with threatening skies in the background. Quite a special moment crossing the Danube. After that we have to climb quite a bit until we reach Hintersdorf, about fifteen kilometers from Vienna. Tomorrow we cycle to Vienna via Purkersdorf, an extra ten kilometers because we would also like to see Purkersdorf as a partner town. We ride to Baumgarterstrasse in Vienna where we will stay for four nights. Some rest, very nice and also necessary. I get another call from Vincent Tiel Groenestege for a live intervention, he holds the story of Circle4Change for a Rotary-Club in the Green Exit. An enthusiastic response follows. We have another delicious dinner in Sanne’s kitchen and go to bed on time. I am aware that much of the information in this report is not very interesting to the reader, but for us it is necessary to be able to recall afterwards what happened where and especially where we met whom. Hence the many details.