Our last stop in Germany saw us in the far southeastern tip of Bavaria, a place called Berchtesgarten, and our first real taster of the Alps. A well chosen campsite with panoramic views of the mountains, but most importantly for our first proper sunny day in some time - an ice blue swimming pool. Very clean too after the grumbling chap in Lederhosen had finished swirling it clean of alpine twigs for what seemed like hours. At last, unadulterated swimming and a much-needed sunbathing afternoon. Bliss. The next day, prevailing sunshine saw us heading off on bikes for Konigssee Lake; the largest of the lakes in this area, the coldest - certainly not one for swimming in, but unfortunately the most popular...cue the usual tourist shops and ''gasthauses' attempting to loosen the purses of those that visit. We headed away from this, climbing our way to a viewing point some way up the mountain behind. Totally worth it, a completely peaceful spot which had such a beautiful silence. Until the rain started of course. It was a very long and wet cycle home...
And so we headed further into the Alps, to Austria, and a free night at a restaurant car park. It's actually the first time we have pulled up at an aire and found no other campers to share our space with, probably as there were no facilities to speak of (although Michael procured some water from a well-spotted outside tap) and it really was in the middle of nowhere. Rather unexpectedly the owner of the restaurant shot off home herself at 8pm leaving us completely alone. Now this is a completely manageable experience, in fact quite perfect, in most instances. Were it not for the weird behaviour of a few cars pulling into the car park and shining their lights directly on us, seemingly circling us. Obviously everything was fine, the cars left - it was most probably something very innocent and they were unaware we were even there (certainly not the heist, nor the dropping off a dead body we had convinced ourselves of!), however it was a quick reminder that we need to pick our free spots carefully.
The next morning brought a day we were both quite excited about - Eisriesenwelt caves. It's been on both our lists from the start of the trip, and is considered one of Europe's natural wonders - a 42km cave, discovered in 1879, of which the first kilometre is riddled with the most fantastic ice formations. This place is truly vast....and very high up. It required us to leave the van at the bottom of the hill - too much for him that's for sure, and catch a bus (which it's worth noting played the Benny Hill 'chasing girls' theme all the way up), hike for 40 minutes and get a cable car up the last 500 metres. It was really wonderful to be this high up in the mountains anyway, but the ice caves were the true incredible experience. They stay at a temperature of 0 degrees, whatever the weather outside, and some of the formations have been building and changing shape over the last 90 years. We were left a little speechless by it all - I was rather gutted that photo's were banned within the caves, so just have the eerie one of the entrance which is attached here. Go if you have the chance though. We ended this day staying on a campsite just north of the many toll roads/bridges/mountain passes that we needed to negotiate to reach the south of the country - we are starting to find that driving through the Alps can be very expensive! The campsite in question was quite literally our idea of hell; rows and rows of caravans looking in on each other, the oddest facilities that played music throughout your shower, and once again we were really mixing with the retired crowd! This prompted a bit of a 'moment' where we realised that so far we have not really found the kind of chilled out travelling experience we hoped for, none of the campsites seem to have likeminded people but we are hoping this will come. It's probably mainly to do with the time of year, or perhaps the countries we are in. Anyway, it was a good moment in re-focussing our minds on seeking out something different as we go forward...there are more real experiences out there, we must just find them.
Needless to say we stayed just the one night! We headed for south Austria, choosing to put the van on a train through a mountain tunnel. Yet another reason that our small van is perfect for a trip like this - you wont find any of the big touring vans fitting on this train! An extremely hairy drive down the other side of the mountain (brakes VERY hot and stinking!) found us in the kind of beautiful setting I had imagined Austria to be, really breathtaking. Onto a charming place called Granz for a few days of walking, cycling and beers, which is where you'll find us now - preparing to go into Slovenia tomorrow. So Austria - really quite the beauty and definitely expensive...you genuinely hear the sound of cow bells everywhere you go...but personally I'm a little disappointed not to have had a fondue.
nice posting.. thanks for sharing..
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