Bike Tour Lednice - with AZUB Recumbent and BTurtle

Friday, 28 September 2018 00:00
Written by Portal Editor

Lednice Castle, which is one of the most visited monuments in the Czech Republic, is located in Okres Břeclav near the Austrian border.

Lednice is well known to many under the old name Eisgrub. The chateau there is even part of the cultural landscape Lednice-Valtice, which is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Although more than 300,000 people visit the castle and chateau in Český Krumlov every year, we had other plans during the current visit, which should bring us closer to the Thaya River, its meandering foot paths and the cycle paths of this magnificent region.

The background of this excursion was a meeting with the manager of the recumbent manufacturer AZUB, Honza Galup, with whom we wanted to meet in Lednice, halfway between Brno and Vienna for a trial tour with Trike recumbent and BTurtle. Always interested in discovering new regions and developments in outdoor and camping, we were happy to follow the suggestion Honza's and drove to the meeting to Lednice in the early morning. Even the approach to the agreed meeting point brought us together again and again with the river Thaya or its altars, which in Czech is called with Dyje. The severely winding course, to a large extent on the state border between Austria (Lower Austria) and the Czech Republic (Moravia), rarely forms exactly the boundary line. No wonder, then, that nature could preserve its true originality here.

The meandering waterways of the Thaya form the backdrop

In the middle course, the waters of the Thaya dug deep into the landscape, so there is a height difference of the slopes of about 100 meters in height. This striking profile has favored the construction of numerous castles and palaces high above their banks, as examples here are Karlstein Castle, the castle ruins Kollmitz, the Drosendorf, the castle Hardegg, the ruin Kaja and the castle Raabs. Near Frain there is a large dam called Vranovská přehrada (Frainer dam). In the area around Hardegg, both on the Austrian and on the Czech side, the Thaya Valley National Park was established.

In the lower reaches of the river, from Znojmo (Znojmo), the river is dammed up in several places, the largest ones being the reservoirs of Nové Mlýny (Neumühl) between Dolní Dunajovice and Hustopeče, in which Svratka and Jihlava immediately after their confluence with Ivaň flow into. In Znojmo, the river is crossed by the Znojmo railway bridge, known as a technical monument. Shortly after Znaim the Thayamühlbach is branched off, which leads back to Laa on the Thaya back to the Thaya. The park of Lednice Castle was created by diverting the River Thaya, creating another large lake with many islands.

The bike path 5066 follows the waterways and not just them

In the relevant travel literature you often find the term "old trench", which means the former riverbed of the Thaya. In the course of straightening the Thaya, their course was relocated to the Czech Republic. Since the Thaya also represented the state border, now her former riverbed took this function, which is named after one of their tributaries "Old Bockgraben". At the same time, the "Alte Bockgraben" also includes right tributaries of the Thaya, including the Wildendürnbach, and leads them downstream to the Thaya. This on the Austrian side running land sink is flooded so far about the hundred-yearly recurring flood of the Thaya.

We used parts of the bike path 5066, which runs here in the region along the different lakes and streams on the flood dike, then on the outside, then again directly along the shore. So there was a variety of beautiful photo opportunities, especially in the early morning sunsets fog clouds pulled along over the water. Wonderful to look at and like ordered for our test tours.

In addition to the beautiful landscape, we were also extremely enthusiastic about the technique of the AZUB trike, which was presented and tested in detail. More on that later. We were also very pleased with the well-developed and well-signposted cycle path network in the region around Lednice, especially as the connection to the Austrian cycle path network is available, which also allows Vienna to be reached well away from heavily traveled roads.

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