Day 17 – Vöcklamarkt

Schwanenstadt to Vöcklamarkt, 31Km

Pension Riedl, 65 euros

Another pleasant guest house last night, it was also a bar and a restaurant and only 44 euros including breakfast. Also, it was right on the Jakobsweg, assuming it’s where I think it is. It’s difficult to be sure now that they’ve stopped signing it.

Actually that’s unfair; there are some occasional stickers (one pointing the wrong way) but sometimes you’d be better off without them. Today, for example, I was walking along my favourite No 6 cycle way greeting all the cyclists. Sometimes they’d stop and tell me about their own Camino wanderings. It’s quite friendly. Then all of a sudden a Jakobsweg sticker pointed away from the good path into a dark and dank, insect infested wood. “You go that way if you want”, I’d say, “I’m happy on the straight and easy way”.

If I lived in Austria I’d get one of those electric bikes. I lust after them in the bike shop windows. Everyone seems to have one. The country is made for cycling. In England the cyclist is either struggling against traffic or other cyclists.

I’d almost forgotten about the shower gel problems of the early days. After those first soapless guesthouses, I’d arrive and enquire about the availability of soap and the proprietor would look at me as if I’d never stayed in a hotel before. Sadly the missing soap saga returned today despite the high price of my extremely dull Pension Riedl.