Wednesday was unique - we went to the Krimml waterfall. This turns out to be the fifth tallest waterfall in the world, made up of three major cascades. By luck, we had hit it at the best time. It is glacier fed (yes, it was EXCEPTIONALLY cold) and it has the most melt in July and August. There is a flow year round, but it can be fairly small during the winter.
That was not the case on Wednesday. It was an amazing torrent of water that could be seen from quite a distance. We parked, then walked up along the path. This brought by some tourist shops, to the base of the waterfall. Very impressive, although from that angle, you can only see the bottom of the three cascades.
There are two ways up - the easy way (take the "waterfall taxi") or the hard way (hike). We chose to hike.
It was worth the hike.
It was very steep (we were working up the side of a waterfall, after all), but the various views were spectacular.
There is a restaurant at the top of the second cascade, and a hotel at the very top (we made it to the restaurant, but not to the top).
In typically Austrian style, there were free range cows, wearing cowbells, grazing within 60 yards of the falls. Anywhere there is grass in Austria, there is a chance there will be a cow somewhere nearby�.
The waterfall is inside an Austrian National Park. We drove around a bit and ended up coming into the park from the other end.
Amazing is the only word for it. It's all high alpine terrain and breathtakingly beautiful.
There was an extended village and ski slope in the park area (I'd like to go back and ski it). There was a north village and a south village, each of which had access down to the main road. I got curious and took us up the south entrance to look around (checked out the trail map, etc.).
To continue to look, I went down the dirt road. The dirt road turned into a track, then a cow path, complete with cows. Teresa was extremely surprised, but not delighted that you can herd cows with an Opel.
When I got to the other end, the gate was locked. Fortunately, someone was there and could undo the padlock for me (this was one of the few times that I could almost hear "Crazy American" being said).
We stopped at another geusthaus for a late afternoon dessert - some AMAZING ice cream for me, with a beautiful view just beyond our table out the window.
We then continued through the national park and came upon one of the most scenic views of the entire trip (and, on that trip, that is saying something).
We were climbing up to one of the passes in the park. At the top of the pass was the Panorama restaurant. We needed a break and Teresa wanted to take some pictures.
Several hiking trails (to some of those other Alpine Huts) came through the pass. I started walking a bit, and I heard bells. I fairly quickly realized that they were animal bells. They sounded like they were within about 100 yards, so I went to see.
I finally found them. It is amazing how far those sounds carry in high air. The cows and sheep were up in the high pastures: I could barely even seen them, they were so far away and so far up. For some reason, that memory sticks with me, of those bells sounding clearly over such a distance.
We then headed back and found our favorite place for dinner. This was the Wildenbranch restaurant in Maria Alm, beside one of the clearest mountain streams I've ever seen.
Absolutely superb, the best food we had on the entire trip. We ate there again on our last night in Maria Alm.