Austria and Germany April 2002 Exploring the Salzkammergut Region
Obertraun... I Stayed at Mario's Sportpension in Obertraun - right in the heart of the Salzkammergut region. He operates a cafe for breakfast and dinner, rents out 7 rooms and a couple apartments and leads excursions. He even has five Llama for carrying gear during the summer and this full size chess set in the backyard. Oh yes, and by the way, its gorgeous here!
Above Hallstatt... One day I borrowed a mountain bike and climbed up the ravine above Hallstatt with view of Obertraun across the lake. The little road across this bridge just keeps on going up and over a pass all the way to Salzburg eventually - so the signs said.
While snowboarding for the day up at Krippenstein, Mario brought me to this cave which you can snowboard down into, hike though a bit over the rocks and then come out the other side. That's Mario at the entrance. It was quite steep to get down though (almost like sliding down a wall) - I had to punch my fists into the snow to keep the brakes on. Altausee.. Another day, Mario and I strapped a canoe on top of his car, headed out to one of the more remote lakes, paddled to the end and back. The wind picked up at one point and almost blew us over, but we made it through without the cool dip.
Near Donnersbach... From the beautiful scenery of the lake, we drove over to a popular climbing area, and made the relatively easy ascent. At the top, mario pulled out his handy/mobile/cell phone (funny how many names it has around the world) and text messaged back home that we would be picking up some fresh fish from a stocked pond on the way home to cook up for dinner... mmm mmm good!
Salzkammergut! One night we went to dinner up on Loser peak with a panoramic view over all the valleys and lakes of the region. It was a couple of days before they closed, so it was quite empty and many of the entrees on the menu were not available. We were able to get the last of the Kasebocken - smelly cheese egg gnoccis and the kaiserschmerrel - pancakes with a plum/cherry sauce. The next shot is from the cafe in Gosau and the final one is along the Traunsee from the train on the way back towards Germany.
