Wachau!!!!!

When they told me about it, I giggled desperately. How do you not giggle at a word that sounds like a shootout scene in a Rajnikanth movie? But then I was fascinated. The idea of a valley on the Danube, where fruit trees leaned over the road, their heavy heads meeting over secluded bicycle paths, was an alluring one. This valley had sustained life for more than 10,000 years, without a break. Not even forty kilometres long, the valley, they said, was peppered with medieval castles, roman ruins, stone age settlements, renaissance monasteries, baroque churches, early gothic shrines, 16th century houses with ancient wooden gables. And through it all flowed the Danube.
I've seen the Danube in several parts of its journey so far.
In Vienna this is a contented river, flowing happily along, supportive but not interfering, like a good friend you've known for years. When you go to see it, it is delighted to see you, but not effusive.
In Budapest this is a different river altogether. It is darker, broader. The city is defined by it, divided into two almost equal halves by it. Distances here are measured between bridges. The Danube in Budapest is ancient, cosmopolitan, and very non-messable-with.
In the Wachau the Danube sparkles its way around plump, low hills. The water is a soothing green, with none of the icy blue of the Rhine or the rushing white of the Alpine rivers. It is fringed on both sides by vineyards or forests, the forests growing so thick in parts that the lower reaches are colored a deep rust red from lack of sunlight.
The words 'the good life' take on a new meaning in the Wachau valley. Yes, the villages are every bit as charming as advertised, their old houses and cobbled streets were filled with the sound of church bells as I clattered by on my rented bicycle. We stopped in the bright white sunlight to eat apples and pears in the shade of vines laden with grapes. The bicycle paths were flat for the most part, with occasional steep inclines and declines into tiny villages, and the path was clearly marked for the whole fifty or so kilometres. We visited ancient ruins on wooded hills (unfortunately the ruins have been tourist-ed out of any of the atmospheric quality that ruins in India have; that undefinable quality of unknown hands having touched the rock where your hands rest, and of real lives having been lived there, with real fights, and jokes and quarrels) For instance, in this valley is Durnstein, where England's Richard Lionheart was imprisoned. On the way back home to England after the crusades, Richard seems to have thought that it was a good idea to insult the Austrian flag. He was promptly kidnapped and stayed, cooling his heels at Durnstein until England paid thirty kilograms of silver for his release. Richard was promptly sent home with a warning, and a few years later, Vienna Neustadt was mysteriously financed and built out of nothing.
We stopped for lunch in adorable villages, where we ate huge, delicious meals and drank cold beer, and four hours later were hungry again. We waved at other bikers, who waved back, mellowed by the incredible weather, the ridiculously good food, and perhaps by the unreality of it all.
Perhaps this incident will explain the 'unreality' part of it. As we pedalled through the fruit orchards, there were carts with a sign that said 'obstverkauf' (fruits for sale). On the cart were bags of bright red apples, bottles of homemade peach schnapps, grapes and marmalade. A price list (a euro for a kilo of apples) was tacked up to the cart. There was a box for the money. And there was not a human being around for miles. We could have taken the bottles, the apples, and the cart for good measure, if we had wanted. Or stolen enough fruit to feed a country by stretching out our hands as we cycled through the trees. But we paid, and bought more than we needed. Because when you're in Utopia, that's what you do.