Damüls

Our last day in Austria was Tuesday, 8 September. We wanted to mark it with a "Grande Finale" as our good-bye hike and chose the Damüls round tour we'd done three years ago. Click here if you want to read my post from back then and see the pictures.

It was once more a sunny and warm day at 29C/84F, but most of the hike was going to be at around 2,000 m above sea level, where it was going to be a bit cooler.

The view from our balcony at 7:42 that morning

To get to the start of the tour, we opted for the car; it is possible to reach Damüls by bus, but it would have involved changes with longish waits in between. 

From the parking lot, a funicular took us up to 1,800 m.

The path leads up and down several hills and covers two peaks rising above 2,000 m, the Hochblanken and Ragazer Blanken, not far apart. 

The landscape has many more features apart from the rugged peaks; there is also a water reservoir (man-made) and a natural lake further on. Alpine plants, some of them rare, line the way; there are butterflies and birds, and somewhere in the distance you nearly always hear cow bells, even though we didn't come close to their pastures this time.

As always, I found the uphill bits challenging, and some paths required me to use not just my feet but also my hands, they were so steep and rocky.

Naturally, the views made it all worth while, and the fresh air and sunshine felt so good.

O.K.'s shadow hovering over me as I use my hands to climb Ragazer Blanken :-D

We walked for about 3 hours and 45 minutes, climbed 500 m up and more than 800 down (which presented its own challenges). It truly was the grand final we had wanted!

I remembered this small private chapel from 2023.

Dinner at the hotel seemed even more delicious than usual, but maybe it was us knowing that we'd have to leave the next day after breakfast. An evening walk after the meal allowed us to take in the sunset and say "good-bye" to Bizau.