Month: August 2023 (Page 4 of 4)

Unfortunately, dinner last night matched all the terrible Google reviews.  Our room was OK, and breakfast was alright but not worth the price.

It was 4.5C as we headed for the start of the trail, both wearing two fleeces, a woolly hat and gloves.  The sun was out and the weather looked much better than yesterday.  The first part of the trail led down to the lake, with lots of hairpins and partial steps.  We made it slowly to the bottom and took a photo from the point where the glacier had been in 1980.  There was no glacier at all 16000 years ago, and it has been growing and shrinking ever since.

We continued round the lakes, then enjoyed a walk through woods, but with some big descents as we dropped from one valley to another.  We stopped for a short rest and removed our fleeces and swapped our woolly hats for sunhats.  There was a huge waterfall where we stopped for photos and I noticed that the flow over the top had suddenly increased.  We retreated higher up the path and watched as the water rose under the bridge that we had just crossed.  A further few kms through pasture land and we stopped at a small café in the middle of nowhere.  We had a good coffee with cream, and apple strudel with cream.  Revived, we carried on to where we joined a small road and followed it to our hotel in Heiligenblut.

Our driver picked us up to take us to Gatwick.  This was (hopefully) the most dangerous part of the trip, as he regularly took both hands off the steering wheel, would drive up behind another vehicle and then slam the brakes on…  It was just like being back in the Middle East.  As we drove, the BBC announced a complete failure in UK air traffic control, and there were no planes in the sky as we approached Gatwick.  We checked into the hotel and then walked to the terminal to investigate the bag wrapping.  It was a bit like the fall of Saigon, with queues everywhere, and not a single BA desk manned.  We found the bag wrapping service, and decided to get them wrapped the next morning as they opened at 4am.

Dinner in the hotel, then up early and over to the terminal.  Sleeping bodies everywhere, but our check-in was easy using the bag drop.  We arrived in the lounge, then were told that our 7:20 flight was delayed until 10:15.  There was panic in the lounge when the board went from no information to showing that the gate had closed.  We finally boarded and took off at 10:00.  Landing at Salzburg was weird as we were the only plane in the entire airport.  Our bags arrived and we removed the tens of metres of plastic wrapping.  The customs officers had disappeared by the time we went through the green channel.

There was a very unfriendly ticket machine and we got our tickets about a minute before the tram arrived; several passengers didn’t bother with tickets.

We reached the main railway station to find more chaos; the train route we wanted to take was closed due to massive rainfall and there was a bus operating instead.  We bought rail tickets and went outside where one of the organisers pointed us in the direction of a replacement bus.  This left a couple of minutes after we boarded and we had about an hour’s drive down the motorway to another town.  We filled in our waiting time with a coffee and cake, before heading back for the train.  There were another four people on the platform and they suddenly all started off down the stairs.  Someone had spotted that our train was now due to depart from a different platform.  We made it, and had about an hour’s journey to Bruck, mostly alongside the incredibly swollen river.  At Bruck it was a short walk to our hotel.

Two days of chaos; we hope that things improve!

Woke to an overcast day with low cloud but no rain.  We had a good breakfast with a big choice of freshly made bread.  We walked 1km to the bus stop and found another family there when we arrived.  The bus came early, complete with a national park tour guide who provided commentary in both English and German.  The guide told us there was another person also travelling on the bus who is starting the walk tomorrow.  (We chatted to Susan later.)  We were shocked to see that the toll for the road was 40 euros for a car!  The road climbed up and we had a stop for coffee and an exhibition of various minerals found in the area.  Further up and there was fresh snow lying, which was a bit worrying for our walk tomorrow.  This route had been used by the Romans, and throughout Medieval times for trade between Italy and the Salzburg region.  We drove through a number of tunnels, with the last one taking us onto the south side of the mountains.  The weather immediately improved with glimpses of sunshine and no more snow.  The road dropped down before climbing back up to the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Hohe where the road ended.  There was a view of the glacier in the distance and we were lucky to see the top of Grossglockner, the highest mountain in Austria.  The guide said that it was usually covered in cloud, despite the cloud everywhere else.  It was easy to spot marmots and ibex in the valley below.  We visited the start of the Alpe-Adria trail, had a look round the exhibitions of Porsche cars, the history of women mountaineering, and flora in the mountains.  We then went off to explore our accommodation for the night, passing some very tame marmots on the way.  We had left our rucksacks in the bus while we explored and were able to take a lift down to the bus and back up directly from the hotel.  We checked in to a nice room.  Online reviews of the food don’t look too good; we will shortly find out for ourselves.  (The other restaurant gets even worse reviews)