European Vacation - 2013

Summary:  Theo and Jeff flew into Zurich, Switzerland on July 10, 2013.  We rented a car and drove to Austria, where we spent three nights in Gargellen (gar GEHL len), three nights in Neustift im Stubaital (NOI shtift) and five nights in Soelden.  We hiked a lot and ate a lot in all three places.   We then drove to Konstanz, Germany, on the Bodensee (Lake Constance to foreigners), where we did a lot of sightseeing and shopped 'til we dropped most of the euros we had.  Our last day was in Zurich, with more shopping and sightseeing.   The weather was absolutely perfect for all 14 days of this vacation!

Gargellen is a small town up in the mountains in Montafon in western Austria.  We did a simple hike the first day, while we adjusted to the new times (i.e., got over our jet lag.)  The second day we took a gondola up a mountain and hiked some small trails to various lakes.  Here are some pictures of Gargellen.  You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.



Alpenhotel Heimspitze in Gargellen



A view from our hotel room

 

 

Theo on the way to a small lake up in the mountains

 



Another lake toward which we hiked

 



Elton John up in a mountain huette above Gargellen.  This kid had a lot of fun being pulled around the terrace on this little cart by his brother and sister, who were on bikes.

 



Theo (in pink in  the white chair) basking in the sun at the huette

 



A view of Gargellen from the gondola (the "bahn")

 

 

Best incident of these three days in Gargellen:  Watching from the gondola on its way up the mountain as a woman, two border collies and a honking Jeep attempted to drive four horses up a grassy ski slope to a mountain pasture.  As we watched, one of the horses broke away.  The jeep and the lady and the dogs all went after it, whereupon the other three horses turned and raced back down the mountain, closely followed by the fourth.  Our last image was of the woman with her hands on her hips, the dogs and the guy in the jeep all looking back down the mountain at the fleeing horses.   Wish I'd had a video camera - it would have been a YouTube sensation!

 

The Alpenhotel Heimspitze in Gargellen had great food, very, very friendly staff and owners and really nice suites.  We may go back in future years and stay a little longer.  Don't come to Gargellen in the summer, though, if you don't like hiking, because there is nothing else to do.

 

On our third day, we drove 10 miles or so to Partenen and took a bahn halfway up a mountain.  [We could have taken the Europatreppe stairway with 4000 steps, but we chose not to do so.  The town has a race every summer up those steps.  The winner usually breaks 20 minutes!]  We then walked 1.6 miles through the mountain, by way of a dark 10' by 8' tunnel which opened out onto a wonderful view on the other side of the mountain.  There was a beautiful lake (Vermuntsee) which we hiked around.  The path crossed five small streams, which Theo negotiated with no difficulty.  Our practice on rocks in our backyard, along with strong efforts during the year to improve muscle strength and balance (working with Jennie Meharg, our personal trainer), allowed Theo to overcome situations that would have stopped her a year or two ago.   We finished the hike by going back through the tunnel and taking the bahn back down.

 

 

Here are some pictures of that hike:

 

A blurry picture of the 1.6 mile tunnel through which we walked (both ways)

 

 

The Vermuntsee and the mountains at the other end of the tunnel

 



Theo walking across the dam that held the lake

 

 



The hike around the lake

 



A view of some of the 4000 steps leading up the mountain from Partenen

 

 

After three days in Gargellen, we took the scenic Hoch Alpen Strasse (High Alpine Road) as it wound its way through the mountains toward Ischgl and Innsbruck.  The road had lots of switchbacks.  It took us over an hour to go about 30 miles, but we got some great views of the mountains.

 

A view along the High Alpine Road

After three hours or so, we arrived in the beautiful Stubaital (Stubai Valley) and the town of Neustift.  The windy drafts off the mountains make the valley one of the best spots in the world for paragliding.  We were tempted to do some tandem gliding with the pros, but the cost for 15 minutes worth could practically pay for our next vacation, so we chose not to do so. 

Paragliders taking off from a mountain pasture above Neustift

Elisabeth and Thom, our friends from Austria

Theo, Elisabeth and Thom hiking a trail above Neustift



Jeff and Theo taking a break during our hike.



Our trail took us to the base of that rocky summit.  Note the alpine roses to the left of Theo.



A slightly smudged view of Neustift and the Stubaital from our hotel apartment window



Another view of paragliders - zoomed from our hotel balcony 

On our second full day in Neustift, we took a train about twenty miles into the old town area of Innsbruck and spent the day shopping.

After our last night in Neustift, we got up early and drove to Soelden, to catch an 8:00 a.m. hike up the mountain for a hotel-sponsored breakfast at Gampe Thaya.  It was our third time breakfasting at that huette.  The owners are so nice and the food, all of it grown on the Gampe Thaya farm, is so good!


Approaching Gampe Thaya with other hotel guests



Our outdoor breakfast at Gampe Thaya

Later we checked into our hotel and each of us had a massage, then spent time in the spa's pool and Jacuzzi.

 

The second day in Soelden, Theo rested and Jeff climbed a wicked mountain with our perennial guide, Christoph, and a 16-year-old Belgian girl, Lois, who had climbing a mountain on her bucket list.  She did great!   The climb was four and a half hours up through rocks, across mountain ridges, up to a cross on a mountain peak and then back down slightly to a mountain huette at about 9000 feet.   We had pancakes and cranberries at the huette and then took about an hour and a half to climb down far enough to meet the hotel van that had come to get us.  Lois and Jeff were pooped.  Christoph went off to run up another mountain in preparation for his triathlon.

 

Here are some pictures from that hike, which I consider the toughest I've ever done.

 

Christoph and Lois at the start of our hike



Negotiating rocks, which we had to do the whole hike

Preparing to cross some snow;  tough footing

Resting on the way up a particularly tough set of rocks.   Christoph, of course, wasn't even breathing hard

Looking back at where we'd started - somewhere beyond the second hill on the left

Lois and Jeff on the peak, before we headed over and down to the huette.

A view from the peak - you can see the huette just to the right of the middle of this picture.  We had to follow the ridgeline to get there.  You can see some of the path above the snow - just below the peak of the mountain in the middle.

Climbing straight up a rocky wall, with the help of the chain

At Brunnenkoglhaus, the mountain huette

Having survived the tough hike, we spent the next day on an easier one, with Lois and her father, Frankie, along with Christoph.   On this hike we climbed a mountain road out of Obergurgl up to a high alpine valley, then traversed a path along a river for a mile or two, before eating lunch at a mountain huette.  Here are some pictures.

Shorts and a shirt, with Obergurgl in the background.  Note the start of the potbelly - that Austrian food is so good!

Frankie, Lois, Christoph and Lois' dog coming up the road above Obergurgl

Theo, Christoph, Frankie and Lois along the mountain river.

On our fourth day in Soelden, we headed over to Laengenfeld to hike up to a new suspension bridge in the mountains.  Christoph, Christoph's daughter, Alena, Frankie, Lois and her mother, Marianna, were on this hike (along with many other people checking out the bridge.)   None of us much liked the sensations as we crossed the bridge, but we all did it without much effort.

Marianna, politely waiting for Jeff to catch up

Resting at a farm on the way up

Posing before crossing the bridge

Posing on the bridge  (Note: the bridge wobbled and swung a lot)

Looking back up at the bridge, as we were heading down the mountain

On our last day in Soelden, Theo and Jeff took a four and a half hour hike up from Soelden to the Edelweiss Huette, then almost all the way up to a glacier, then across a mountain to the middle station of the bahn, which we then took down.  It was a great finish to a terrific eleven days in Austria.

The view of Soelden from the terrace at Edelweiss Huette

Theo swinging around the hill to head up toward the glacier

On Sunday morning, when we left to head toward Konstanz, we bumped into a parade of some sort in Oetz.  We followed a phalanx of cars trying to circumvent the parade - and were hung up for about twenty minutes with lots of other cars - when the parade turned into our escape route.

Temporarily stranded in Oetz

We got a little bit lost in Konstanz, trying to find our hotel, but eventually succeeded.  The hotel was converted from an old monastery and was really beautiful, both outside and in.  It also had a fantastic breakfast spread as well as a view to die for.   We spent two days in Konstanz, mostly in the old town, shopping.  We liked the pedestrian-friendly streets of Konstanz even better than those in Munich and Innsbruck.   And just about every block had gelato for sale....

A view from our hotel.  The water on the right is Lake Constance (Bodensee).  The bridge on the left is where the Rhein River starts, flowing out of the Bodensee.

A view across the lake of our hotel - Steigenberger Inselhotel

A view from the hotel of Konstanz harbor on the Bodensee

Theo gyrating somehow in front of the Bodensee



One of the pedestrian-friendly streets of the "altstadt" in Konstanz

We finished our trip with a day of shopping in Zurich. 
This was an almost perfect vacation trip - perfect weather, great hikes, great hotels, helpful people, reuniting with Austrian and Belgian friends, excellent and plentiful food, good shopping, beautiful locations.  Probably our best European vacation ever.   It will be hard to top next year.




2012 Vacation to Austria

Theo and Jeff visited Austria again, from July 5th to July 19th, 2012.  We flew into Munich, then drove about three hours to Matrei in Osttirol.  We stayed in that small town for three nights, then drove to Soelden, in  the Oetztal valley, southwest of Innsbruck.  On the way to Soelden, we stopped at Krimmler Wasserfaelle, along which we hiked up and down.  We spent eight nights in Soelden, then drove to the very small town of Alpbach, east of Innsbruck.  We stayed there three nights and then drove back to Munich for the flight home to Virginia. 

Our intent was to hike, and hike we did. Some hikes were tough, some easier.  The weather was mostly okay, with the occasional rain shower.  Only one shower was bad enough to limit our hike - and that was our first hike in Matrei.   No hikes in the snow this year! 

Below are pictures and notes from the trip.  You can click on the pictures to make them bigger, then escape to come back to the blog.

Above is a view from our apartment balcony in Matrei on the first morning (July 6th.)  We had a modern, two-bedroom apartment with kitchen and sitting room.  We booked it through bookings.com and got it for less than $100.00 per night.  The apartment was five minutes walk from a good restaurant, five minutes from a grocery, ten minutes from a cable car up the mountain, and about ten minutes from the middle of town.  It was a great location at a really good price.







There are waterfalls throughout Austria, most of them uncommercialized.  We passed this one on a road above Matrei.  Theo is standing there, proving that she was actually at the site.   Note the wildflowers behind her.

Matrei lies near the base of Austria's highest mountain, Gross Glockner.  We got the view below on our second day in Matrei, as we drove up to a small town called Kals.  This was the only time in three days that the mountain was not obscured by clouds.   We took a cable car up the mountain you see in the foreground and then hiked across and up to a restaurant called Blauspitz.  We had our first excessive plate of Kaiserschmarren there.  Kaiserschmarren, as you know from previous blogs, is sugar-coated pancakes, fried in a pan, with berries or applesauce or both added.  Delicious.  Fattening as hell.

Austria also has wildflowers, and rocks, everywhere.  Here's a picture from our hike above Matrei of wild azaleas - and rocks. 

This is a view across a dropoff of the winding path we took to Blauspitz.   All along the path, we were whistled at by marmots (like our groundhogs, only smarter).  We took pictures of the marmots, but who wants to see pictures of groundhogs?

Because Theo has balance issues when climbing down mountains, we usually took roads or cable cars down.  Here she is on the road down from Blauspitz.

After we left Matrei, we drove through the Gerlos pass and on to the Krimml Waterfalls.  They are a series of three falls coming down the mountain.  The three collectively are Austria's highest.  We had hiked the falls once before in 2005 or so, but we did it again this time in good weather.  Beautiful as always.  We spent some time with an Israeli father and son who were doing the falls for the first time.  Nice people.

Above the falls is a beautiful valley that works back about four miles to a glacier.  We love the valley and have had some good food at a farm in that valley.

We continued on to Soelden, where we stayed for the fourth year in a row at the Castello Falkner hotel.  We love the people there and the service is fantastic. 

We took our first hike in Soelden, with Christoph Holzknecht, who has guided us in past hikes.  He's a great guy.  He drove us to Obergurgl and then we took a grueling hike to Hohe Mut, a restaurant high up in the mountains.  Although it was a chilly day, it was warm up on the mountain when the sun came out.  Here are Theo and Jeff, working their way through some glasses of Spezi, which is a combination of Coke or Pepsi and orange soda.  Pretty refreshing, unless you really wanted a beer.   (Note that, despite a lot of hikes during which we sweated like marmots, both Theo and Jeff gained several pounds on the trip.  Most of our food was farm-fresh, including eggs, bacon, bread, butter, vegetables and fruit.  We couldn't seem to stop eating, a condition that was worsened by the huge portions we seemed to be served everytime.) 

Below is the view from the table you see above. 

We took a second hike with Christoph and were joined by Jonah and Joerg Roesenmeier (above) from Germany.  These guys were pretty fit and a lot of fun.  The next day, Jeff joined the Roesenmeiers in climbing Stuiben Falls in Umhausen.  This was true rock climbing, including ropes, helmets, safety equipment and a guide.  We crossed a river on a cable, scaled some mountain walls, hung out over the dropoff on numerous occasions, and finished by crossing the waterfall on another cable.  The guide took some pictures, which I'll share if I ever get them.  This was the first true rock climbing Jeff has done.  Wasn't too tough.  Wasn't scary at all.  But, once was probably enough.

Our third hike near Soelden involved following the river to Zwiesselstein, then hiking up the valley toward Vent, then hiking straight up a mountain to Gaislach Alm (where we had some Spezi and struedel), then continuing on to the Middle Station of the Gaislachkoglbahn, then taking the cable car down the mountain.  This was about five hours of effort, in sun and rain,  but it turned out to be a very refreshing hike.  Below are pictures of Theo along the river and following a mountain path.

We did some other hikes in Soelden that were fairly easy.  But, Jeff also climbed alone up Gaislachkogl to the top, which is at 3057 meters, or just over 10,000 feet.  The climb was mostly straight up over rocks, but fortunately, it was pretty chilly up there.  Although Jeff sweated a lot, he didn't get exhausted - and he took the cable car back down.   He didn't have his camera with him, but you can see pictures of the views from Gaislachkogl in last year's blog.

Our last hike was about four hours and ended up again at the middle station of the cable car bahn.  Due to a mistake on our service cards from the hotel, Jeff's card didn't work to allow him to take the cable car down, so he ran most of the 12 kilometers of zigzagging road that brings one down the mountain.  It was hard pavement and after a while, Jeff's ankles, shins, knees and thighs were screaming.  Not too bright a move, but good to see that he could still run at age 64. 



After eight days in Soelden, we went east to a small town named Alpbach, which is described on the Internet as the town voted most beautiful in Austria.  It was pretty, with lots of flowers on every house and beautiful, wooden homes and businesses.   The views were spectacularly green, with lots of forests and pastures.  Below is a view from a cafe in Alpbach.