Sunday, 11 May 2025

A Week in Austria: Friday

Still chilly, still grey - Friday (9 May) did not present itself much different from the previous days, but no rain was forecast.

View from our room on Friday morning

Everywhere we could see, the mountain tops were shrouded in thick grey clouds - a hike to the top would not make sense with no views to expect, and so we did the opposite and went down a deep gorge instead.

Starting straight from the hotel, we followed the by now familiar path to the village of Nesselwängle. From there, we reached Gaicht, a small but rather picturesque hamlet.



An old pass way starts (or ends) just outside Gaicht, the Alte Salzstraße (Old Salt Road). It winds constantly down the steep walls of a deep gorge, reaching a stream at the bottom. Already in Roman times, people carried goods (mainly salt, hence the name) up from the Lechtal (river Lech valley) to the Tannheimertal and on.







In its heyday, an average of 300 packhorses trudged up and down this road, which was constantly in need of repair. Nowadays, it is only used by walkers and cyclists, and in winter for sleighing.

A chapel at its bottom and the entrance to an abandoned ore mine are reminders of a time when the packhorse business gave the village of Weissenbach a modest wealth.





There isn‘t that much to see in Weissenbach itself, but we found the village hall open and made use of its public toilet while we still had more than half an hour to wait for the bus back (there was no circuit path; we would have had to climb up the Old Salt Road the same way we had come, and weren‘t keen on that).

Village school with 1950s mural

Inside the village church

Never before have I had a more picturesque view directly from the toilet seat, as you can see here:

The bus was on time and took us in serpentines up the new pass road and all the way back to Haller, where our hotel is - a journey of 15 minutes which had taken us several hours on foot, but at a very leisurely pace.

10 comments:

  1. It seems that your holiday weather was not as bright as you would have wished but you and OK tried to make the most of things anyway. Strangely you would have enjoyed lovely weather in Ripon recently. Were you singing songs from "The Sound of Music" as you sat on that toilet?

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    1. I am not in the habit of singing on the toilet, but The Sound of Music would certainly have fitted there.
      We were equipped for almost all kind of weather and went for walks and hikes every day, and the last two days (Saturday and Sunday) were sunny and much warmer, as I will show in my next two posts.

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  2. Well that took a whole mug of coffee to catch up on your Austrian sojourn. I haven't commented on individual posts. Apart from anything else the comment would be very repetitive. I loved the little chapels and the incredible ornate churches too. Indeed I went back after the first catchup and had a re-cap. I've never been to Austria. Now that I don't travel I get special enjoyment out of 'living' other places vicariously.

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    1. Thank you, Graham, for taking the time to read and comment. There are two more days to cover, then things will be back to normal.
      Like you, I enjoy reading about places and seeing pictures of places I most likely will never visit.

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  3. In spite of the clouds hanging low, you managed to get some impressive views! ... I've only been into Austria once, for a few days, it was on the same bus trip where the main goal was the passion play in Oberammergau 1990 (which I've probably mentioned before). We were lucky enough to get one sunny day for going up in the Alps (with fantastic views), but I also remember us driving through clouds on another day.

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    1. I remember you mentioning that bus trip. Yes, the weather in the mountains can change very quickly and quite dramatically. It is why one has to pack clothes for nearly all kinds of weather if the idea is to go walking/hiking and not just hang out at the hotel 😊

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  4. The views are amazing whether you are heading up or down! Thanks for taking me along with you as I will never get to Austria, Meike!

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    1. Thank you for coming along, Ellen!
      Some of those views were breathtaking; my pictures can only give an idea of what it‘s truly like, with the clear fresh air, the birdsong and scents.

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  5. What a wonderful place to visit! Amazing views :)

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    1. Wonderful and amazing are fitting words to describe this small part of the world!

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