Theo and Jeff's 2006 Austrian Trip

In July of 2006, Theo and Jeff flew to Frankfurt, Germany, then drove south to Bezau, which is in the far western region of Vorarlberg in Austria. We stayed for a few days at the very fancy Post Hotel in Bezau, then drove back north and east, through a section of Germany, into a small valley called the Klein Walsertal. Although it's in Austria, it's only accessible from the northeast through Germany, since the valley is surrounded on three sides by mountains. During the trip, we did a lot of hiking, had some really good food and, of course, enjoyed the fabulous scenery.

Below are some pictures and descriptions of our trip. Hope you enjoy seeing what we experienced!

Our first stop was Bezau, which you see below, and the Post Hotel in the center of town.

The Hotel probably had the best food we've experienced in Austria, although we've never had bad food anywhere in Austria.

The hotel manager suggested an "easy" hike for us. It started with a tram ride halfway up a mountain.

While we were on the mountain, we spent some time watching some hang gliders who were floating across the mountains, sometimes landing in Bezau and sometimes crossing over into Germany.

We then followed farm roads up further into the mountain hinterlands - for four or five miles. (You can see Theo on one of those roads below. This is one of Jeff's favorite pictures.)

The trail then left the road, followed the crest of a cliff for a while (on the far side of the mountain you see in the upper righthand corner of the picture above), then shot straight up a few hundred yards through a narrow, dry creek bed full of rocks and insects, then sort of disappeared among wild flowers and many, contented cows in some farmer's field three quarters of the way up a mountain. Traversing the creek bed, practically straight up, was grueling for Theo and interesting for Jeff. For most of it, all he could see was her butt - fortunately, she was in shape.

Although we had lost the path in the wildflowers and pastures, we could see our destination (the restaurant at Sonderdach that you see below) in the distance, so we wandered around in the fields until we found a way to cross a small creek and then followed a road to the restaurant. Having hiked for five hours or so, and not overly inclined to go back down that creekbed - assuming we could even have found it again - we ate a snack at the restaurant and then caught a series of buses back down to Bezau.

On a second trip up the mountain on the tram, we ate a meal at a "hutte" where the tram stops. It was a very expensive meal, but only because Theo discovered that the cute little red Croc-like shoes the waitress was wearing were available for sale in Bezau.

HIRSCHEGG

After a few days in Bezau, we drove over to Hirschegg in the Klein Walsertal. We stayed at the Hotel Birkenhoehe. We were allowed to park our car in the hotel's indoor garage, but it took skills beyond those we had to negotiate the car into a tiny space (with clearance 12 inches either side - try getting out the door after you've parked!)the first time. One of the hotel's employees backed it in for us, while no doubt thinking these Americans sure are a useless lot.

Below is a picture of the view from our hotel room balcony.

Our first full day in Hirschegg, we stopped at a drug store to get insect spray. There the druggist suggested a hiking route up to Kanzelwand, which was a restaurant at the top of a mountain. The route was truly gorgeous. The lower portion of the hike consisted of a half hour of fields and wild flowers to get to the woods, then a couple hours of switchback trails up through some heavy forests, then an hour or so of narrow footpaths through a long, gentle unforested trough, also full of wild flowers.

While in the forests, a forest worker showed us how to properly adjust our trekking poles for the steepness of the trail. His guidance helped a lot - even though he obviously thought we were ignorant.

The picture above is of Jeff in the trough on the upper part of the climb. He's turned around in the picture. We were actually heading up toward the mountain peak in the distance at the top of the picture.

We barely beat a storm to the restaurant at the top, then took a gondola back down. Some great views of the valley. Here's one out the gondola window while it was still raining.

The next day we hiked along the ridges that form the valley. These hikes were less strenuous and took us to the little town of Baad at the end of the valley. Here's Theo just outside Baad.

Baad was a really cute town. We had a nice lunch on the outside patio at a gasthaus and then caught a bus back to Hirschegg. Here's a look at Baad from the bus stop.

On our last full day in the Klein Walsertal, we drove just over the border into Germany and took a hike up through the Breitach Klamm, then up and over it and then back around to our car. The Klamm is a tight gorge through which runs the Breitach River. It is similar to Watkins Glen in New York state or Johnston Canyon north of Banff, Alberta.

However, Breitach Klamm also has a bridge that crosses the gorge way above the walkways. This picture is of the gorge, looking down from that higher bridge to a lower one.

After Brietach Klamm, we drove around the valley a bit and then headed back to Frankfurt, staying the last night in a Marriott hotel near the airport - and hiking around a big park and gardens that were close to the hotel.

This trip gave us a lot of good hiking and a large variety of different types of hikes. Aside from the view of Theo walking down that farm road toward Sonderdach, our other lasting image of this trip may be Theo's final contemplation of the bovine buddies we often met along the way:

That's it for 2006.