Nordburgenland

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The train ride to North Burgenland took us two transfers to do as the service is mostly one train car. North Burgenland had several train routes which have a one car service which we were often stopping for on the next two days. The train conductors on our trip to Mattersburg (formerly Mattersdorf) were very friendly and helpful. If you like friendly people, go to Burgenland. Friendliness can have its drawbacks as we were very hungry in Jennersdorf having waited to near 2 p.m. to have lunch and the lunch specials always end at 2 p.m. An older guy enthusiastically talked about cycling in Burgenland and Vienna and our bicycles, especially Ray´s new touring bicycle. As we sat down, we ordered the lunch special just as the church bells for 2 p.m. sounded.

We had some time and energy to cylcle around Mattersburg and have an ice cream before continuing on by bicycle to the Neusiedlersee - a large and shallow lake between Austria and Hungary, where we planned to camp.

As we crossed a field leaving Mattersburg for Poettersdorf, we took a video of a ridge of black thunder clouds. Perhaps ten seconds after putting away the camera, while in the same field, the wind broke loose. No rain, just wind. Dust everywhere, we proceeded into the village of Poettersdorf where at least the houses would provide some protection from the wind. We asked a few locals about a place to stay, but were told it would be best to return to Mattersdorf. The only hotel in the Bike Guide we had cycled by on our sight seeing tour of Mattersdorf, so in incredible timing, we arrived at the hotel just in time to park our bikes as a huge downpour let loose. Andrew had walked the last bit of the way because of the strong winds and dust in our contact lenses. We took some pictures of the storm from our hotel window. This was an older grand hotel which had perhaps been built or refurbished in the 1920´s, when Mattersdorf had pretentions of being the capital city. Very spacious rooms. (ed. note - Mattersdorf should read Mattersburg)

The television advised that two people were killed in Vienna from the wind - a worker in a crane on a fire station roof had not had time to get down before the gusts started - and a tree falling on someone else - the gusts in Vienna measured up to 120 km an hour.

For safety reasons we took no videos of the windstorm while we were experiencing it.

The travel blog is only beta testing the use of videos. When we tried to put some videos on the blog we were unsuccessful. Perhaps we will try at a later date.

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Photos

Rainbow after the storm
From hotel window

Cycle map on panel in front of our hotel
Mattersburg

Fire Hydrant
Many decorated fire hydrants in rural Austria.