← Back to Articles | Original (German)
If you want to do more than “just” ride your bike to work, you have numerous options for exploring the surrounding area on smaller or larger tours. Two classics should be mentioned: the 48 kilometer long Großglockner High Alpine Road in the Hohe Tauern National Park (Salzburg and Carinthia) or the exploration of the Danube from the source to the mouth. If the alpine tour can be done in one day, the latter, which always leads downstream from Germany, via Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria to Romania, takes more than a month.
We stay with the Danube and follow the award-winning travel and cycling journalist Othmar Pruckner along the 2,811 kilometer long river always downstream to the Black Sea. He was looking for a challenge, wanted to know - "Do I still have to do this to myself at the age of 65?" (Page 89) – went through with his project and wrote it down. Now his personal Danube cycling experiences and adventures are available as a book.
Pruckner - he lives in Vienna - did not travel the long path, which was preceded by detailed planning, in one piece. “I completed the cycle trip from Vienna eastwards in the early summer of 2022, the tour from Donaueschingen to Passau in the spring of 2023,” he writes in the foreword “Experience the Danube”. Continuing in the original tone: “I have ridden the stages on the Austrian Danube several times, most recently in September 2023.” What was still missing was eight kilometers to the source of the Breg, which he completed in autumn 2023.
After the foreword, the "Portrait of a Special Body of Water" follows, a depiction of the river with its multicultural facets including impressive images. We meet Roman settlers and follow the once dangerous passages for shipping in the Strudengau and the Iron Gate towards the mouth.
Part 1 combines eleven stages, from Donaueschingen to Vienna. The stages are each day tours with precise information about the respective length including altitude. The cumulative length is also stated for each tour. At the end of stage eleven, Pruckner not only reached Vienna, but - starting from Donaueschingen - he completed a total of 902 kilometers. The tours are on average 70 to 80 kilometers long, the longest – from Regensburg to Passau, an impressive 146 kilometers. The exact information is probably due to Pruckner's geography studies. “Today the program is about driving and nothing else.” And why is he doing that? "Because I'm happy to drive longer." (page 62). Pruckner is not only a passionate cyclist, but also a culturally interested journalist who authentically brings his readers closer to all the details worth knowing along the entire route in a reportage style.
Part 2, which is stages twelve to 34, leads from Vienna to the finish in Sulina, where he ultimately has a total of 2,141 kilometers behind him. This part, which leads to the Balkans, contains many surprising moments. The clocks tick differently here. A look at Bulgaria, at Vidin (page 182): "Breakfast in the hotel in Vidin: Unfortunately there is no such thing. The search for an alternative takes time, but in the end I find it, the ideal bakery, with cappuccino, croissants and doughnuts. The day can come!" What more could you want? Here, on the lower Danube, he took a liking to the wildlife. "My dearest friends and the nicest change for a long time have been storks."
The return journey including bike and luggage took place on the ship MS Nestroy. From page 241 onwards he takes stock in the "Epilogue: ad fontes, the second": "As I said, I'm quite satisfied. I'm just wondering whether I shouldn't travel down the Danube a second time."
The Danube appears in variations in Vienna. The actual Danube, i.e. the navigable riverbed today including the Freudenau power plant, has existed since 1875, when the emperor opened the newly dug and straightened riverbed. A wide floodplain was created on the left bank to absorb flood masses. A wise measure, as it later turned out several times. The previous S-shaped course of the Danube in what is now Transdanubia became standing water, the Old Danube. Then there is the Danube Canal, which branches off in Nußdorf, leads into the middle of the city and flows back into the Danube at Praterspitz.
The Danube Island in question, which will be honored in the spring and summer of 2026 by the exhibition "The Danube Island - 21 Kilometers of Open Space" in the Vienna Museum, is the result of a river engineering measure from 1972 to 1988. At that time, a deep channel, the New Danube, was dredged in the aforementioned flood area, which could accommodate even larger flood masses. The excavated material was piled up along the Danube to form a 21 kilometer long island. While people were initially at a loss as to what to do with the new land they had gained, the Danube Island mutated into Vienna's largest local recreation area, which is now presented in all its diversity in a catalog book.
The two editors Martina Nußbaumer and Ulrike Krippner have brought together 34 authors from all areas for the 431-page book to present "A multi-faceted history and present" (title of the foreword) in words and pictures. The structure is chronologically divided into five sections, the titles of which are self-explanatory: "In front of the island", "Planning and construction", "Made nature", "Music and film" and from page 258: "Free space for everyone".
Three articles in section one are dedicated to the undeveloped, wild Danube, whose floods once threatened Vienna, and the flood area where planes to Munich and Budapest took off every day in the 1920s. Part two is about the making of. Contemporary witnesses such as Walter Redl (79 years old) have their say here. As a construction inspector, he accompanied the entire project, starting with the groundbreaking ceremony. "Looking back, I have to say that the population's acceptance of this large construction project was really, really great." (page 127).
Part three is dedicated to nature. In addition to six island animal portraits with beaver, pendulum tit, sterlet and spadefoot toad, there are also four plant portraits (e.g. black poplar and tree of heaven, an invasive neophyte, page 226f). In part four you read that the island is hardly sung about per se and we still have to wait for a Danube Island song.
Almost no topic was left out in the fifth and final section. The range extends from nudist zones to living by the water to numerous sports and the coolest skate park in Vienna (Copa from page 330). In Viennese Daubel stories you learn that the Danube in Vienna is almost of drinking water quality, but hardly any fish are caught anymore (page 358). The annual Danube Island Festival is paid homage to on pages 386 to 395 ("At some point I'll stay there").
Conclusion: "Down the Danube - from the Black Forest to the Black Sea by bike in 33 days" impresses with informative texts, authentic route descriptions and encourages you to master large projects in stages. "The Danube Island - 21 Kilometers of Open Space" impresses not only with its layout and book binding, but also with a colorful, wide-ranging collection of text and image contributions that paint a comprehensive picture of the Danube Island. (Thomas Hofmann, May 15, 2026)