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Stage 5 – St Gilgen to Gmunden 72km (07-May-2019)


What a difference a day makes? A sunny day with a blue sky for a change, but still with a chill in the air. After a hearty breakfast, made my way out of St Gilgen; uphill of course. Stopped a couple of times further up the hill to take a couple of last shots of St Gilgen.


What a day it turned out to be? Beautiful roads and cycle paths, stunning landscape of lakes and mountains even the uphill climbs were a breeze to ride. It was cycling heaven. Furthermore, met some lovely people along the way. Starting with this dude from Poland, fishing in Mondsee (Moon Lake). He hadn’t caught any yet, but assured me that he frequently goes home with a catch. After exchanging some fishing stories,

it was time to move on to the village of Mondsee on perfect cycling paths and stunning scenery; landscapes of lake and mountains, touring doesn’t get much better. (Can’t help but repeat what I said earlier. 

Visiting Mondsee wasn’t in the script but what the heck I decided to take a bit of detour to check out the cute little village where I ran into this dude (from Leicester as I later learned) who approached me seeking directions to the lake. I decided to walk them to the lake as I was heading that way to be on my way.  Along the way, we exchanged our backgrounds and learnt that he was originally from Tanzania, retired with 3 married daughters and thought it was time to split when he started getting quite emotional about giving them my time to walk them to the lake He meant well, I am sure but I had to get going anyway.

The next part of the route was on a bike path parallel to the lake.

The path finally took me away from the lake where I came across a golf course with a stunning backdrop of mountains still covered in snow. Of course I stopped to check out a couple of the greens.




My Garmin played up a bit and led me astray as I got closer to Gmunden; ended up rocking into a car dealership to ask for directions to my AirBnb lodgings for the night.  She offered to call the lady host for directions after her attempt to find it in Google Map failed. After the call, I learnt that my host would come and pick form dealership in 20 minutes; so in the meantime she suggested I go and help myself to coffee and biscuits normally reserved for clients. Happy days, I didn’t need to be asked twice.  We (the bike & I) got collected and I was really glad as I was feeling the effects of today’s long ride. For dinner, because she lived remotely, she not only drove me there and back she joined me and it was nice to have some company.
It was perfect end to a fabulous day as I watched my beloved Liverpool perform a miracle to beat Barcelona 4-0 to progress to the final of the Champions league 2nd year running.


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