It is another icy cold day. The expected temperature is 2°-9°. We have decided to brave the cold on a 36km bike ride, 2hr hike and a bus ride back. The first port of call is to add a beanie to my wardrobe. I got a very nice one that even matched my scarf but not with my usual price tag. Oh well, at least I will be warm. Second port of call, rent some bikes. Finally set sail at about 11.45am riding alongside the Danube River from Melk to Krems. We went on the south side of the river as it was supposed to be more picturesque although in hindsight probably should have gone the north side so we went through the towns instead. The river was very murky as we discovered along the way the recent rain must have flooded the banks and the path was often covered with mud which slowed us down somewhat. We also realised that even though we have been walking a lot our legs were not very bike fit. We saw many towns from the opposite side of the river – Aggsbach Markt, Willendorf (known among art buffs as the town where the oldest piece of European art was found a  30,000-year-old fertility symbol, the Venus of Willendorf), Spitz, Weissenkirchen, Durnstein, Stein and Krems. None of the towns we went through had any options for lunch so at about 2.30pm when we passed through a little town we bought 2 apples from a box outside a house for 0.20 euro each. This was the first bit of food we had eaten since breakfast. DB was starving but that was the best we could manage. A decision not to cross the bridge at Stein probably added an extra hour or two on to our ride. We were to start our hike just outside Krems but by the time we got there it was about 4pm so had really run out of time for the hiking. Krems was a much bigger town than we were expecting so decided to continue back on the bikes to where we were to end our walk at Durnstein to catch the bus back. This was about another 15km or so. We refuelled at about 4.30 with a snickers each. Lucky for us there was a supermarket open at Stein. We then continued on our bikes for another hour or more. When we arrived at Durnstein the bike rack we were to leave our bikes at was full so we rode around to try and find another one. Unsuccessful so we had to jam our bikes in on the outside, this extra time meant we missed our bus. We had about 35mins to wait for the next one, so decided to walk through the town of Durnstein to the bus stop at the other side to stay warm as the temperature was on its way back down. This was a very quaint little winery town with tastings of wine and apricot jam along the way. We finally caught the bus about 6.30pm back to Melk and thought it best to stay there again tonight. We were on our bikes for over 5.5hrs today with only stops for photos and one 30 second sit down for me. It was a great day with many picturesque sights. We topped this day off with a lovely 3 course meal as we were both very very hungry.