Western Austria 4 - June 2010

Sunday morning, we roamed about Salzburg and took a lot of photos. It is really a gorgeous city. But you will have to wait for the pics which I will try to send once we get to Israel.

We left Salzburg at about noon and began our drive in the direction of Innsbruck. It was a very overcast and much cooler day than any we had had since we arrived. We drove to a section of Austria which borders the southern part of Germany near a town called Lofer.

 There is a very famous gorge there, and when we arrived, the rain had held off and we decided to try the hike out. We asked the lady at the ticket office about the hike and she said that it was not difficult and was only 350 steps to the top and that a round trip walk would be 40 minutes or so.

We decided to give it a try and we began the walk up the steep slope. Once we got about half way up and had not yet hit any "steps" we realized that her description of 350 steps was still ahead of us; and given that we are in top shape at this stage of our trip and were already exhausted and given that we have done a couple of gorges already on this trip, we almost threw in the towel. 

We passed a couple who told us that we should push ahead...and that it would only take another 25 minutes to the top (all very steep uphill) so we said let's go for it. And we were very happy that we did. It was an amazing and breathtaking gorge...there was a narrow walkway of wooden steps anchored between the two face of the gorge. Each side must have been hundreds of meters high and the width was enough for a little more than one person to pass through. Looking up you saw a small opening of the sky and looking down there was a steel waterfall and rushing waters of the river below. 

On the way up, I (David) tripped and saw my camera fall between the steps and at the last moment I lunged for the strap which was on its way down to the canyon below and I guess all those years as a goalie saved the day...otherwise, we'd have to do the entire trip over again to get the pics that I hope to send all of you.

It was an amazing and tiring hike...but well worth it.

Once we finished our hike, we continued on to our destination for the night and had a delicious vegetarian meal in our apartment in the small ski village of Soll.

 This morning, we journeyed to Kitzbuhel which is a quaint picturesque village nearby and spent the morning walking around and enjoying the vistas. 

 

 We left there at about 11 AM and went to Innsbruck, site of the Winter Olympics (twice) which is a relatively large city with an old town that has a large pedestrian midrachov with beautiful, colorful, old architecture and lots of shopping. We hadn't really done any shopping till now and really have not spent any time in urban areas till today.

So there was no hiking today, just a casual stroll thru Innsbruck. We spent a few hours and it is really a beautiful place. By this time, the sun was out and the day was a very pleasant one.

We are staying tonight in a small ski village, called See, halfway between Innsbruck and Zurich. Tomorrow, we are going to Schaffhausen in Switzerland (which is only about 30 minutes from the Zurich airport). It is supposed to be another beautiful old town with amazing waterfalls in the town. We will hopefully file our last report for this trip once we get to Israel very early Wednesday morning (we arrive in Tel Aviv at about 3 AM), so we will let you know then what this city was like.

Thanks for traveling with us...hope you enjoyed this trip...we certainly did and we would recommend this area to anyone who loves great vistas, fresh air and the great outdoors!

Hope you are all doing well

Best regards

Fran and David