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Our trip on the Austrian roads started by a first break at the town just after the border. We entered in the only café of the main street, for buying the licence allowing to drive on the highway.
We passed by the countryside at the speed of our vehicles. The asphalt followed the relief of the smooth Austrian hills. In the middle of a large field, the nice landscape had beautiful farms with wooden structures very topical of the region.
We are surprised, after a turn, to discover many vineyards along the hills. The East of Austria has actually some famous white wine vineyards.
The nice turns appeared one after another one until a new breakdown 80 kilometers before Prigglitz, on of the stop over town. On the side of the road, we had to change the gear on the rear well of one of the sidecars. The teeth were worn by the several kilometers drove since Columbia. Without any spare parts, Julien decided to switch the gear from the sidecar wheel to the rear one. This gaves us the possibility to reach the Ural importer workshop about 300kms further away. After less than an hour, the engine roared again and we reached Prigglitz just 2 hours later after the scheduled time.
We rode 200 kilometres on the straight highway to reach the Welz city, in the Linz suburbs. Nothing fancy, our aim was to reach the Ural workshop as quick as possible and without any mechanical issues. We needed new spare parts to fix our sidecars.
We reached the workshop at the time of their closing time. Magdalena, one of the managers, warmly welcomed us. We started to visit the office with many Urals in the main room plus Royal Enfield and Norton motorbikes. We were particularly surprised to discover a mini-caravan adapted to be fixed on our sidecars.
In the morning, while Magdalena and Harry were working in their offices, a customer arrived with a Norton motorbike. We shared with him a coffee on the picnic table in front of the showroom. Once the espresso finished, we started to work on our sidecars. We had the benefit to park our sidecars in the warehouse. Due to the 30,000 kilometres of the trip, we changed the gear between the final drive and the wheel with the advice of Günter, the mechanic of the workshop who was changing the oil of a sidecar for a customer. No troubles for changing the one of the wheel but it was more difficult for the final drive. To extract the part, Günter helped us and gave us a good advice: not to be afraid to use big tools! So we used one of the machines to extract the part.
We enjoyed to be in this place to replace also worn seals and rubbers. For not loosing our time, we did a quick break in the warehouse with a sandwich. We put tables and chairs out for the picnic which were used as a drawing table by the kids once the lunch finished. During the afternoon, we checked the valves and changed a rear wheel, hoping to do this kind of repair for the last time of the trip.
The following day and after a busy day of mechanics, our Ural sidecars were ready for leaving the warehouse. This time, we headed to the West of the country and the region of Tyrols in the Austrian Alps.
We crossed wide fiels at the beginning of our itinerary. We shared the road with many bicycles. We used nice little roads crossing many villages. We saw nice tower bells and beautiful houses with an architecture from Austria and Hungry: a coloured facade and decoration around the windows.
We walked along the Attersee lake with its clear waters and the first summits of the Alps. We followed the valley shaped by the Gasteiner Ache river. On the first heights of these wide green gorges, there were castles on the top of rocky peaks such as the Burg Klammstein.
By getting closer to the mountains, the rain was back. We found a shelter in a supermarket next to the Bad Hofgastein and we took this opportunity for some food shopping. At the end of lunch, no other choice than going back on the road under the rain.
A hundred of kilometres further and once we crossed the col of Brenner under thick fog, we headed to Italy and the delicious Mediterranean food.
