Our last full day in Austria was Sunday (11 May). Just like the day before, we woke up to blue sky and sunshine.
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| View from our room just after 7:00 on Sunday morning |
Determined to make the most of this beautiful day, we left the hotel after breakfast and started our hike on the path leading through the meadow full of wild flowers at "our" end of the lake.
It was again a day of onwards and upwards, but nowhere near as challenging as the hike on Saturday. Also, at the height we reached today (just above 1,500 m), all snow was completely gone, and it was warm enough for me to soon unzip the legs of my hiking pants and walk in shorts and short sleeves, although I still wore my seeveless padded vest to keep the chilly wind out.
.HEIC)
.HEIC)
My new sunglasses came in very useful on this hike, which took us to the Krinnenalpe above the village of Nesselwängle, and from there along a trail called Meraner Steig to the Jausenstation Klein Meran where we had been on Wednesday on the guided walk.
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| Nesselwängle (which is at about 1,100 m), as seen from 1,500 m |
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| The dip leads to the entrance of the Alte Salzstraße and the deep gorge, where we had been walking on Friday. |
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| Private chapel at the entrance to the hamlet of Rauth |
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| Inside of the chapel in Rauth; the outside can be seen on my Wednesday post and below. |
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| Jausenstation Klein Meran, where we had already been on Wednesday, and the chapel next to it |
From there, we walked back to Haller (where our hotel was) but chose a slightly different route to the one we had done before.
The last bit of it was signposted as "Panorama-Weg" (panoramic path) but to be honest, there was little in terms of panorama - mostly, the path was lined by trees which allowed only glimpses of the valley. But of course, the mountains to our right were as impressive as ever.
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| That's as much panorama as we got :-) |
Back at the hotel after roughly 20 km of walking/hiking, we were happy to sit on our sunny balcony and resting until it was time to shower and change for dinner.
The food was excellent as usual, and we kept chatting to the friendly couple at the table next to us for a while after the meal. They were our age and came from an area not all that far from where I live, and we had some good conversations and shared a few laughs with them during the five days or so they had been our neighbours at meal times. But somehow, neither of us was inclined to share phone numbers or any other contact data - we didn't even tell each other our names (which seems a bit odd in hindsight). Anyway, it is likely we will never meet again, but it was nice to have met.
It is always a mix of being sad to say good-bye and looking forward to home on such occasions, and we were to leave the next morning, while they had another day ahead.
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| View from our balcony at precisely 21:21 (coincidence) on Sunday evening. |
I've enjoyed your photos of this trip so much! I have to wait until I'm at home and can look at them on my computer, because a phone screen just doesn't do them justice. Thank you for sharing your holiday with us. :)
ReplyDeleteThank YOU for reading and commenting, Jennifer!
DeleteI very much prefer to read blogs (and write my own) on the computer, too. The tiny screen of my mobile phone makes me squint, and although my ipad is of course much bigger than the phone, it doesn't have a proper keyboard, making typing slow and prone to errors.
Beautiful pictures! I enjoyed the overcast days (vicariously) but now I wish you had another week to be there in the sun.
ReplyDeletececi
Thank you, ceci. I didn't mind the overcast days so much, but it was good we had those two sunny days at the end of our holiday - and not at the start, and then only cold, rainy days to follow.
DeleteSo glad the sun came out for you. Your hikes are amazing and the photos so wonderful.
ReplyDeleteAre you back to work already? Or do you have a couple of days to relax at home, Meike?
The latter, Ellen. O.K. and I both like to get things sorted without stress when we return to our respective homes. I only start work tomorrow (Thursday), so will have a very short working week - good to ease back into my everyday life.
DeleteBeautiful scenery! And I love that little chapel at Rauth. I think there's something nice about having a "holiday friendship" with no ongoing attachments.
ReplyDeleteI have formed lasting friendships during my stays in Ripon, but that was knowing I was coming back year after year. Apart from that, the only time I have ever exchanged contact details with another hotel guest was when O.K. and I were on Jersey (our first holiday together in May 2016), where a single woman was at the same B&B and we got chatting over breakfast a few times, and bumped into each other during some of our walks on that beautiful island.
DeleteLovely skies in these photos! Glad for you that you got at least a couple of days like that to end your holiday.
DeleteYes, it was better this way round - had it been beautiful at the start, and then the rest of the holiday cold, grey and wet, we would have been more disappointed.
DeleteSchoene Bilder.
ReplyDeleteDanke :-)
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