SINGING IN THE RAIN, OR RIDING IN THE RAIN! We left our zimmer in the morning and made a stop at the local bike shop to buy some chain lube.  While we were there we picked up some fenders for our bikes, only $7.50 a pair.  BikeFriday wants $35, so we felt we got a good deal, even though we don’t need them YET. The skies were gray as we set out on our ride, but the route is very good, paved, flat, very well marked.  The route is quite busy, with several bike tours and many individual riders as well.  Usually on our bike trips we are the oldies, but we are finding that most of the cyclists on the route are older than we are.  We met a nice group of Dutch riders, all retired and in their late 60s and 70s, and we even stopped to help one couple with a flat tire.  The gentleman was 78!  Don and I are starting to talk about what route we will take to celebrate our 80th birthday. As we were riding along I developed some trouble with my rear chainrings and Don ended up having to take it apart and reassemble it.  About that time we started to have some misty dampness, so we put on our rain jackets.  We continued on in the drizzle.  At one point we had to wave a flag to get the ferry boat to come across the river and get us.  On the other side of the river we stopped for lunch and it started to actually rain.  We dragged a park bench under a tree and munched our brot, fleisch, kase and apfels.  There was a building there that had very pretty doors decorated in a religious theme. It didn’t look like a church, though.  It was raining too hard by that time to spend any time trying to figure out what it was.  We put on full rain gear and proceeded on in steady rain.  We rode on for several miles, seeing no one and facing a strong downpour.  Finally we came to a bicycling rest stop and found 3 other parties stopping there.  We stopped too and looked at the maps, filled up our water and waited a bit for the rain to stop or at least diminish.  No luck, so we got on our bikes and headed out for some more rain-riding. About 15 minutes later we decided to stop for the day in Mitterkirchen, even though we had only done 58k.  We spotted a nice zimmer that caters to cyclists, so we went in the gate and knocked on the door.  No answer, so we knocked some more.  Then we called out and Don whistled. Still no answer, so we were just starting to head back out on the road again, when a fellow came to the door.  We were very lucky, because this zimmer, run by the Familie Langeder, is one of the nicest places we have stayed.  Josef, our host, showed us the very nice bicycle garage he provides, and had us hang our wet clothing near the furnace to dry, and took us up to our rooms.  We had a very comfortable bedroom, bathroom, and shower, plus a kitchen/sitting room with a TV.  Everything was clean and modern and looked new.  We were very comfortable.  Thank goodness we decided to stop when we did and thank goodness that Josef finally did answer the door, because it really started to pour as we put our bikes away and carried our luggage upstairs to our rooms. After showering and getting warm and dry it took a walk around the town to see if I could find a grocery store and what dinner options we might have.  I picked up a couple of apples and a couple of pears for our lunch tomorrow.  When Don was ready we went out to the local gasthaus for dinner.  On the way we spotted a fellow marching along, dressed in a fancy brown uniform, looking very official.  We asked him if he was a policeman, but no, he was in the volunteer fire department and there was a big shindig going on in the town that night and all of the firemen would be there. We found that this party had an impact on our dinner, because the chef was too busy preparing food for the locals party, and we could only get very simple things.  Don had his old standby, weinerschnitzel, and I had soup and a salad. There was only one other party in the gasthaus, one fellow and 8 women.  Don was speculating and making up stories to explain this, and eventually we started up a conversation with them.  It turns out the fellow was a priest and he and the women went to Vienna for some church meeting and had stopped in Mittlekirchen for dinner on the way back to Vienna.  We visited back and forth during the meal and gave him our card to look up our website, but the priest claimed to be computer incompetent. The next morning at breakfast we chatted with Wolfgang Schwanke Exec VP Sales, VATECH, who was visiting the house because his company had helped restore the local kindergarten after the big floods of August 2002.  That is when it dawned on us that all of these houses along the Danube had be flooded in 10 feet of water and that is why there is so much construction going on and there are so many new looking houses.  I thought it was a very good program that his company promoted.  Instead of giving corporate Christmas gifts the company donated the money to help restore the kindergarten. http://www.sat-automation.com Also during breakfast a large family group came into the breakfast room.  They had a little girl, Julia, who was about 2 ½.  Of course she was wiggly and full of energy in the morning and she was bored while the grownups were having their breakfast.  So, I was talking to here and entertaining her and I got out my photos of the kids.  I put them out one by one, Isabella, Ryan, Chayton, Bryce and Aidan.  Julia glommed onto Chayton’s photo without hesitation.  She laughed and giggled as she held the picture and she showed it to her mama and told her all about Chayton in her 2 year old chatter.  She is in love.  When it was time to leave she wanted to keep it, but mama said no. Don and I enjoyed looking at the scrapbook of the restoration of the house.  Josef worked on every phase of the construction.  His wife, Christine, is a musical artist, and Don and I think that Josef is an artist too.  He did a beautiful job on “Kraglhof”.  We highly recommend this home to anyone who travels this way. Check their website at kraglhof@yahoo.de. Josef let us check our email on his computer, and we bought some home-baked bread and a cd of Christine’s music.  Then we packed up and headed on down the road on a nice sunny day. Very shortly we stopped to visit the Freilichtmuseum, a recreation of a prehistoric village, the remains of which were found near Mitterkirchen.  The museum society has recreated a small village of a 700 BC community.  Everything was built in the prehistoric method with correct materials.  The displays were very interesting and the carving on some of the furniture was wonderful. It is so nice to have a good, sunny day.  We had a good ride on the Danube route, which continues to be excellent, paved, well-marked.  We finished up the day in Melks, with 68k under our belts.  Poor Don, his cycling shorts are rather worse for the wear, with the chamois padding almost entirely split out.  Tonight I am going to try sewing it up so he will be more comfortable, hopefully.  We figure that we have 3 or 4 more days of riding to Vienna, depending on the weather.  We are enjoying the ride very much and can give a strong recommendation to anyone who is interested in a European cycling tour.