3 May 2025
– The Bohemian Forest Road
Miles
driven today = 169
Total Miles
to date = 4,948
I had a bit
of a fuzzy head this morning.
We usually
try to be on the road by 9am on our driving days but we missed that by a margin
this morning.
I did get to play with the
automatic toilet emptying machine though.
I wasn’t displeased with the results but it does seem to put a lot more
fresh water in than seems entirely necessary and which of course means it needs
to be emptied more frequently.
Once we did
manage to get ourselves underway we crossed the Danube and headed North East
towards Horn. On the way we passed
Maissau which has the alternative name of Amethyststadt due to the fact that it
has the largest known exposed seam of the purple crystals anywhere in the
World. Even the roadside railings are
painted purple.
Horn marks
the starting point of the B38 Bohmerwald Strasse or Bohemian Forest Road. A 175km route which tracks East to West
across northern Austria, roughly parallel to the Czech border until it reaches
Germany shortly after the town of Kollerschlag.
I’d been
looking forward to this and it didn’t disappoint with mile after mile of well
surfaced roads taking us through dense forest, lush green meadows filled with dandelions
and quaint little chalet villages.
The only
slight downer was the lack of places to stop and take in the fabulous
scenery. In the first 100km we only saw
two laybys and one of those at the Ottensteiner Stausee reservoir had big signs
apparently banning motorhomes from even briefly stopping.
When we did
finally find somewhere to pull in for some camembert and crackers the views
weren’t particularly up to scratch I’m afraid but take my word for it, it was a
road worth travelling.
Once we had
crossed the international boundary into Germany we continued for a further 30
minutes to Passau. Our intended stopover
was at a paid aire on the banks of the River Ilz, very close to its 3-way confluence
with the Danube and the Inn. But the
aire only has a dozen spaces and they were all spoken for so we studied
Park4Night for a Plan B.
We admired
the old buildings of Passau from the north bank of the Danube before crossing
the river and finding our way to a free parking area a further couple of
kilometers upstream.
It also seems to be very
popular on a Saturday night.
Predominantly with German vans although we did spot Czech, Polish and
Dutch neighbours too.
We’re a
little too far up the river to easliy walk back into town so we will leave that for another
time but we did take a stroll down towards the end of the spit of land we are
parked on.
It mainly serves as an
embarkation point for the huge river cruisers who head downstream to Vienna,
Bratislava, Budapest and beyond from here.
We wanted to get to the point for a view downstream of the Passau
skyline but it was blocked off with heras fencing so we had to make do with
clambering up an embankment for a rather underwhelming view of the river.
It looked so much more attractive in Tulln.
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