The final day knows exactly what it is doing. It gives you landscape first, then the city. From Ybbs to Vienna, the Danube stays with you for most of the ride – sometimes close, sometimes at a little distance, but always as a calm line running through the stage. For a long time, it feels almost effortless: riverbanks, villages, open fields, then more and more vineyards and that particular light big valleys seem to hold. There are a few short climbs along the way, and in the final third one longer rise adds a last note of seriousness – not savage, but enough to make the finish feel earned. That suits Vienna. It should not arrive too easily. And then, suddenly, it is there: more traffic, more buildings, more speed. A big arrival, and a proper ending.
