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| Marg in Villach, Austria |
Leaving beautiful Bled, in Slovenia, we zoomed over the border
heading north into Austria.
We arrived in the picturesque village of Villach, and found a
campsite close to the town by the side of Ossiach See, which is a very pretty
lake.
Villach sits on the River Drau. It’s an interesting old town with
picturesque historic buildings, little shops hiding in alley-like streets, and
several lovely churches.
While there, we found a camping shop that had a whole section
devoted to campervans and caravans. It was a struggle to get Leigh out of
there!
We bought some items that we needed, including a sun shade which may not be used until next year, as we are now losing the sun.
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| Pretty well-kept village in Austria |
We had our empty gas bottle filled, which was great. European
countries all have different gas bottle connectors so finding a place that
could fill our German bottle was a bonus.
This is an area of many lakes, and well-kept, attractive villages
connected by cycling and walking tracks. Everyone appears to cycle here and age
does not seem to be a barrier. If they are not cycling, they are walking –
Austrians must be quite fit people.
Our next stop was in Klagenfurt, on Lake Wörthersee. It has a pretty
‘old town’ but with modern boutiques and trendy bars. We liked their lovely
city hall and cathedral.
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| Leigh in St Veit an der Glan |
Leaving there, we went on to St Veit an der Glan. This is another
pretty ‘old town’, with some amazing and decorative Medieval, Renaissance and
Baroque buildings.
Driving through some small villages to get here, we had seen many
people wearing, as well as shops devoted entirely to selling, traditional
Austrian clothing. St Viet was the same, with many men in lederhosen, and women
wearing dirndl.
Next, we moved on towards the Austrian Alps and reached
Heiligenblut, which is very small but charming mountain town that is the entry
to the Alps.
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| The Großglockner Alpine road |
This famous road runs right through the National Park Hohe Tauern, and you had to pay 29 Euros to drive it. But, what an amazing road!
It winds its way up and around very steep mountains, with the most
amazing views. It is the highest road in Austria, and climbs to an altitude of
2,504 m. It is 48 km long and had 36 switchbacks and bends.
We drove up to the visitor centre which was impressive. It had lots
of displays about the Alps and the glaciers.
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| Leigh at Pasterze Glacier |
We saw cute marmots there, grazing on the grass below the road. They look like a giant ground squirrel.
While we had absolutely no trouble driving up into the Alps, Marg
committed the cardinal sin of riding the brakes while coming down the very
steep and winding road out of the Alps. The result was a very unpleasant
burning smell - it was the brake pads.
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| Waiting for the brakes to cool descending Großglockner |
We had to stop for an hour or so to let them cool down before
proceeding down the mountain. While we were stopped, we had a few people wave
and check that we were ok, including one couple on a very large motorcycle who
stopped and asked if it was the brakes or clutch – luckily it was not the
clutch.
Understandably, the remaining drive down was fraught! We had to use
2nd and 3rd gears rather than the brakes.
Unfortunately, Vanni is so big and heavy and the road so steep that
in a very short time we were picking up tremendous speed and risked stripping
the gears. In the end, we relied upon short sharp braking rather than riding
the brake into a corner.
The down trip was very difficult and uncomfortable,
and we were glad to get to the bottom. On the way down we passed lots of signs
warning people to check their brakes!
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| Marg at Krimmler Falls |
Consequently, we were pretty tired by the time we got out of the
main Alps, so we stayed a night in Zell am See.
The next day, we drove west to see the Krimmler Falls which are
Austria’s highest waterfalls. The falls drop from an altitude of 1,460 m and
are quite spectacular.
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Marg in Radstadt
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We had some trouble finding a camping ground because quite a few
were closed for the year. Eventually we found one in St Johann am Pongau, on
the edge of the Alps.
The next day we did a circuit to see several old towns. One of these
was Radstadt, a charming Austrian mountain town with a Turkish history.
While there, we had a pub lunch. Marg had chicken schnitzel and
Leigh had Austrian blood sausage with sauerkraut. We both tasted the locally
brewed beer and it was particularly good. We enjoyed the meal, the sun, the
views, and the town – lovely.
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Marg in Werfen
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Our next place was Werfen, a lovely old village below the ruins of
the 11th century Fortress Hohenwerfen. Leaving there, we felt we’d had a great
day’s sightseeing, and we returned to our campground happy.
That night the weather changed, and bought in very heavy rain, and
snow to the hills, and it was oh-so-cold. The temperature dropped to around 6
degrees and more snow was forecast.
So, we decided that it would be better to
head to the slightly lower altitude of Salzburg, because we are not equipped
for driving in snow.
We were so pleased we came over the Alps when we did, as the snow
reached lower levels, and we might not have made it out of the mountains if
we’d stayed longer.
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Marg in Hallein
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It began
with soup and Marg had the local soup that included compressed local grains,
while Leigh had borsch. The next course was Austrian salad made out of various
cabbage varieties. Then we had lake fish and home-made potato chips, followed
by panna cotta made out of pumpkin!!
A great meal in a lovely place, with great service and ambience on a
cold day.
Tummy’s happy, we then went to Bad Durnberg to visit the salt mine
that dates back to Celtic times, and had a wonderful 90 minute tour. First, you
had to don white overalls over your clothes. We put ours over our coats because
of the cold, so we looked like little Michelin people.
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Astride the slide, Bad Durnberg Salt Mine
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Once down in the mine we had a guided tour that included some short
very well-made movies; descending to various levels via two steep wooden slides
that you sit astride (apparently, these were what the miners used to get down
the mine); and a wee trip on a boat in the underground lake.
The lake is
actually the water that they pump into the mine, to absorb the salt out of the
rock, before turning it into bricks of salt.
We really enjoyed this mine tour, as it was so well done and very
interesting.
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| Marg in Salzburg’s old town (UNESCO) |
We have now accepted that autumn here is very, very cold and are
glad to have efficient heating in the van. The cold, wet weather saw us
spending time in the van instead of sightseeing. But we got to sort our photos,
catch up on the blog, and clear emails. We also had lovely time Skyping
grandsons, Callum and Luke.
Once the weather improved, we had a couple of enjoyable days
wandering around the attractive ‘old town’ of Salzburg which is a UNESCO World
Heritage site.
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| Our campsite in Innsbruck |
We had a delicious lunch at the famous St Peter Monastery Restaurant
– the oldest restaurant in Europe. They served fantastic local food in a
traditional setting, although it was very, very expensive – more expensive than
Venice!
We decided that we really couldn’t cope with the cold for our last
few weeks in Europe, so we headed south to warmer climes instead of north as
originally planned. This saw us stopping
for a few nights in Innsbruck before heading down to Italy.
In Innsbruck, we stayed at a camping ground in the mountains above
the city which, while cold (8 degrees during the day and 2 degrees during the
night), was beautiful.
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| Leigh in Innsbruck |
The next day we headed over the Brenner Pass into Italy. We stopped
at Brenner on the way for lunch, and a spot of shopping at the Outlet Shopping
Centre which is right on the border – half in Austria and half in Italy.
We are now going back to Italy for a couple of weeks of, we hope,
warmer weather.