Touring - touring Bavaria and Austria

I'm planning to bike from Paris to Vienna in april, going through Bavaria and then following the Danube to Vienna. Anybody has ever been around there? What is it like? It seems that the part in Austria will be quite flat, but how is it in Bavaria? Also, is there a good bike road for crossing Bavaria?

Claire, I have only cycled the section from Passau to Vienna, and that is flat and mostly traffic-free because it follows the river bike path. You can see my photos at http://webhome.idirect.com/~brown/austria1.htm

The Danube bike path starts much further west, at Donaueschingen. I suspect there are substantial hills between the Rhine and Donaueschingen, but I do not know for sure.

Between Paris and the Rhine are the Vosges mountains. On my second European tour I took a train from Metz to Savern to avoid them. You can see the photos of that trip at http://webhome.idirect.com/~brown/mosel1.html

One possibility: cycle from Paris to Metz, follow the Moselle / Mosel river to the Rhine at Koblenz, follow the Rhine path south (reverse of what I did), then find a way from the Rhine to Donaueschingen. It certainly would not be the shortest route, but it would maximize use of bike paths.

An excellent resource for Europe touring is Trento Bike pages at http://www-math.science.unitn.it/Bike/

Hope this helps. Let us know what you eventually do.

Ken

I second Ken's suggestion about the Mosel and the Rhein. Another option would be to cycle the French side of the Rhein until Strassbourg. One suggestion I'd make is unless the whole point of the ride is to ride at all cost then consider biking some and take the train along the busy/ugly routes. A great source for cycling routes in Germany is at: http://www.germany-tourism.de/biking/ It has links to the Euro Cycling routes and tons of other information.