Page 164 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SUMMER 2022 DISCOVERING MADRID

My guide, Luba, led a small group over the
Charles Bridge, into the Infant Jesus Museum
with its diminutive bedazzled robes and through
the imposing Prague Castle. On my own, I found
a museum dedicated to Antonin Dvorak, one of
my favorite composers.
I left my digs near the Prague town square
early the next morning and walked a half mile to
the Hotel Klarov on the banks of the Vltava
River near the Franz Kafka museum. There, I
met up with the 20 cyclists who comprised my
Backroads (Backroads.com) cycling group and
our guides, Wojciechowski from Poland and
Karem Gamil of Vienna.
We shuttled three hours to the Fursteneck
Castle in Germany for a lunch orientation, our
bike fittings and introductions to our fellow rid-
ers, which included 10 friendly cyclists from
North Carolina.
Then we pedaled 32 miles on an old rail trail -
which during World War II carried freight cars
of Jews to their deaths in concentration camps -
through the lush Bavarian Forest down into the
Danube Valley. A few of them managed to es-
cape, aided in some cases by locals. A display of
placards told the grisly story of the railway.
On arrival at the port town of Vilshofen -
where the Amalea was berthed - we were
greeted with enthusiastic oom pah pah music,
lederhosen-clad musicians and "bier."
The contrast between the stop on the rails-to-
trails line and the greeting at Vilshofen was jar-
ring and still has me pondering how cruel people
can be. In part because the Danube River enters
the Black Sea south of Odessa which has been
bombed repeatedly by the Russian military dur-
ing its current invasion of Ukraine. At one point
on our trip, we were less than 200 miles from
that beleaguered country. It felt strange to be so
close to war, yet so far away.

Backroads cyclist chow down on a
break from riding along the Danube
River in Austria.

164 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE SUMMER 2022