Doubilet-Benson Orient Express Bike Trip 2014: We Reached the Danube River and Will be Travelling Close to it for the Next Several Days

On Sunday 8/24, we biked from Stuttgart to Ulm, the birthplace of Albert Einstein and the location of Ulm Minster, a Lutheran church notable for its great height. With a steeple measuring 530 feet and containing 768 steps, it is the tallest church in the world and the 4th tallest structure built before the 20th century.

Ulm is located on the Danube River, and much our ride on Monday followed the river. For the next 9 days, in Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary, we will stay fairly close to the Danube until we leave it when we leave Budapest. We will see the river again several days later, when we spend a night in Ruse, Bulgaria. Ruse is just south of the Romania-Bulgaria border, and that border is formed largely by the Danube.

The Danube is the European Union’s longest river. It begins in the Black Forest in the southwestern corner of Germany and travels east to the Black Sea. It is a major Pan-European transport corridor. At its eastern end, large ocean ships can navigate from the Black Sea up the river into Romania, while river transport boats can travel upriver to Germany. With the opening of the Rhine-Main-Danube canal in 1992, river transport boats can now travel all the way from the Ukraine and Romania on the Black Sea to Rotterdam, on the North Sea. A popular bicycle path runs along the river in Germany, Austria, and part of Hungary, which we will be on at times.