Austria, so good we had to return

Innsbruck

Achensee, an emerald green lake with turquoise highlights, a cross between Lake Louise in Canada and Whakatipu. Anything with ‘See’ in the name indicated a lake to us. It had been recommended by a fellow traveller, and we parked in a ‘campervan park place’ next to the motorcamp with full access to facilities. Wow – bathrooms that would get a 5 star rating if they were in a hotel. Large individual shower rooms finished in granite.The loveliness was reflected in the price, the first night $NZ40 and subsequent nights $NZ70.

We took Howard and Hilda around Achensee as far as we could on the perfectly formed cycleway then headed back to camp-de-luxe, knees aching. We parked next to two English girls and we were pleased to be able to swap travel plans in our mother tongue. The next day broke grey and raining and it made the decision to move on an easy one.

Our early arrival at Hall in Tirol, near Innsbruck, was fortunate as there were only 10 places for motorhomes and we watched an endless stream of later arrivals drive in, only to reach a barrier which said ‘full’ and they had to back awkwardly out again. Why Herr Camp-man didn’t put the sign at the street was beyond us.

Hall in Tirol

Motorhomes were only supposed to have one nights stop but Herr Camp hinted at another day so give us an inch, ... and we were still there on day two. Gorgeous weather on day 3 and Stuart did some grovelling to allow a third day, Herr Camp-man said we were now ‘a problem’, but he let us stay. We used the time in Hall to explore the wonderful old fortified town area on our doorstep 

We took another day to cycle to Innsbruck and back. I wish I could bottle days like that; cycling alongside the Inn river promenade under the dappled shade of the trees with the warm dry air balmy on the skin.Innsbruck was ringed by high rocky mountains that were bathing in sunlight the day we were there, it had a lively feel with street performers and a traditional band playing.

'Giant' sculpture at Swarovski Crystal World

Swarovski factory

On our last day in Hall we pressed Howard and Hilda into action again and headed to Wattens, the home of Swarovski crystal. The factory and Crystal World weren’t our intended destination but we couldn’t find the entrance to the cyclepath and ended up following the signs to Crystal World. Oh well, might as well take a look while we are here. It was a hot cloudless day and by the time we cycled back we were hot and tired and sat outside under the silver birch trees that rained an endless shower of bran flakes on us and the truck. 

Our time was more than up and we headed off to a valley chosen on our map. Aire number one didn’t measure up – it was no less than an expensive lumpy paddock, so we set off for number two. Along the way the road divided and Mrs Satnav sent us left, while I tried to recall the road signs, the road was narrow and I thought I had seen a ‘max 2.5 tonne’ sign and we are 3.5 tonne. Stu turned around in a tricky place and we got back on the big road, within 2km there was a tollbooth – something like paying for parking. It was a national park road to Krimml waterfall but we didn’t take time to visit as there was traffic for Africa, it being a long weekend.

Aire number two looked very hopeful, as we wound our way up the narrow steep road we passed gnomes crouched in the moss and ferns. It was a good price, free wifi, panoromic views and free if you ate at the restaurant, and (believe it or not) schnitzel was on the menu. The aire had other personal touches like a small chapel, a children’s playhouse, antique caravan and a welcoming Austrian cook cum farmer. The sign on the kitchen read “I kiss better than I cook” - it didn’t raise expectations but the dinner was fine.

Krimml falls - highest in Austria with total height of 380 metres

We took Howard and Hilda on a 40 km challenge, cycling to nearby Mittersil following the river, stopping at a bakery for a bun that encased a sausage, and apfel studel. We didn’t have much time to spare before catching a train to the massive Krimml waterfall. The bikes paid child fares, the helpful conductor stowed the bikes for us. A thunderstorm broke while we were on the Krimml waterfall walk and we took shelter in a coffee shop, arriving home dry but dirty from the wet gravel splattering over us.

The fields in Europe generally don’t have fences as the animals are kept inside barns that are alongside farm houses in the villages and hamlets. When we cycle through the villages we get a close up view of farm workings. We stopped in a hamlet recently to watch cows demonstrate their back-scratchers. Cows had come out of the barn and were in the yard, one yard had the budget version back-scratcher which was the heads of yard brooms that the cows had to rub up against. The farm yard across the road had a motion-sensor which triggered an electric circular brush to rotate. The cows looked blissful as they positioned themselves underneath the brush, moving their faces across the brush to have a good old scratch.

If Italy can be regarded as a thigh-high boot we dipped our toes in the thigh part of the boot. We were unprepared for the volume of traffic, we must have picked the most popular time of year to enter Northern Italy and are re-scheduling our plans to head to Venice. Everywhere we looked was booked out and teeming with people.

We spent 3 nights in Brunico, Northern Italy. The highlight was a visit to Brunico castle that serves as the venue for one of Reinhold Messner’s museums. He is a famous mountaineer originating from the area who climbed Everest without oxygen. Nearby was a cemetery of war graves from WWI and WWII, the cemetery was designed to blend harmoniously into the forest. Soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army (669), plus 103 Russian, 13 Serb and 7 Romanian soldiers are laid to rest here in individual and mass graves.

Nineteen German soldiers from the Second World War who lost their lives in bombing raids also lie here, together with an Italian officer and five citizens of Brunico, who fell nearby in the final days of the war and were brought here. The war cemetery is taken care of by a ladies' committee, who give equal attention to every grave.

Brunico castle

War graves in forest setting

After an enjoyable three days in Brunico we took the old Brenner Pass road back into Austria, it was raining lightly and we could see the new toll road at a standstill, absolutely chocka with caravans, motorhomes and cars. We will do some more exploring in Austria before dipping our toes back into the boot of Italy.