Wobbling Winos: Day 32 - Spital am Semmering to Wiener Neustadt.

Day 32. Spital am Semmering to Wiener Neustadt. 61km, 3h30.

In spite of being the first day of summer, it was cold and cloudy as we climbed for 7km amongst the ski slopes to the top of the Semmering pass. The R46 cycle path had withered to a gravel single track so we were back on a normal road. We had 3 layers of kit and double gloves on but still froze on the long descent through Gloggnitz and other Alpine villages into Burgenland or Lower Austria. So now we are around and north of the Alps, the great hurdle of European cycle touring!

This route to Lower Austria follows the railway line that now has Unesco World Heritage status. This amazing construction has 16 tunnels, 15 viaducts and numerous switchbacks, rises 455m in 42 km, and was completed in 1854. That's the year before the first ether anaesthetic.

After thawing in a coffee shop, we had a long, flat and straight cycle through forests and wheat fields to Wiener Neustadt, meaning new town. It was founded in 1184! After some muddled map reading by the navigator and adding a few extra kilometers to the odometer, we found our gasthaus just outside the old town. Wiener Neustadt was severely damaged in World War 2 - only 18 houses were left completely intact. The rebuild has been effectively done, and we enjoyed exploring the lanes around the cathedral. This is a simple but impressive Gothic building where the central aisle swings strangely to one side - perhaps an aberration of bygone project management.

With their magnificent buildings and long history of things cultural, one would have thought the Austrians could design a decent bathroom. The basins have those ridiculous plugs that are operated by a flimsy lever on the tap. They never work and the whole plug mechanism collects all kinds of gunk. There is usually a glass shelf just above the basin, so you can't get your head in to wash your face without cracking your forehead. The showers never have anywhere to put soap and shampoo except on the floor. The toilet seats are not designed to accommodate a normal posterior, and, in spite of being a new building, the toilet in this gasthaus is so high that my feet are still about 3 inches off the ground when sitting down. I feel like a 3 year-old again. Invariably the toilet paper is only accessible to rubber-man. There is definitely an opportunity for a good ergonomist in the Austrian building trade.

I had to have a good old nitpick just because my butt is sore and because most things here are really great, except that - to whinge a bit more - the coffee served in the coffee shops is too cold, everything dies at midday on Saturday and you can't buy bread or anything else until Monday, and I've used up a bottle of Spersallerg coping with the cigarette smoke. Tomorrow we hit Vienna.