Theo and Jeff's 2005 Swiss / Austrian Vacation

In July 2005, Theo and Jeff flew into Zurich and then drove to Elm, in eastern Switzerland. Elm is at the end of a long valley about thirty kilometers southeast of Lake Zurich. We stayed at a very nice hotel that didn't often see Americans. Although they didn't speak much English, the hotel personnel were very helpful and Jeff's German was passable. The food was great and the scenery was fabulous. Here are a few pictures of the views from our hotel room balcony:

On our first full day, we took a bahn half way up the mountain behind the hotel and then hiked for three hours further up the mountain. One possible objective was to hike over the mountain and take a bus back around to Elm. But, we were tired from the flight and jet lag and the hike up was very strenuous. When we saw the pass over the mountains, we decided just to hike our way back down rather than going through the pass. The picture below was part of our view when we stopped hiking upward. Jeff climbed out almost to the point you see, but there was nothing out there and nowhere to go, so he came back.

At our stopping point, we found this small lake, whose name we could not pronounce. We sat on its banks and ate lunch. The water was perfectly clear, but we saw no fish or plant life in the water.

About the time we decided the pass would be too rough for us, along came a whole bunch of school kids and teachers, coming down the mountain, having come through the pass. Nonetheless, we chose to head on back down the mountain, choosing a different path, rather than go through the pass. Still, if the kids could do it, we should have been able ....

On the way down, we saw way off in the distance what we thought were some wild goats - the rare sighting of some wildlife in the Alps! But, when we later looked close up at the pictures back in the States, we could clearly see the bells around their necks.

Here's Jeff taking a rest on the way down. Note the rockiness of the path. It was just as tough a climb down as it had been up.

After a couple of days in Elm, we drove through Liechtenstein to the town of Brand - another little village at the end of a long valley in the Vorarlberg region of Austria.

Below a view of Brand from our hotel room:

While we were walking in Brand to find a restaurant, a bus drove by on which a weird looking man dressed in a ratty robe was standing, seemingly ready to get off. Up the street a ways, the bus stopped, he got off and his luggage was literally thrown off into the street behind him by the bus driver. Then the bus drove on. The dishevelled man mumbled something to passersby, but they ignored him. Theo and I, as we approached him, discussed whether we might be able to help him, since he certainly looked in need of it. We thought my German might be insufficient, but we decided to try anyway. However, as we got closer, we noticed a film crew and were informed that this was all part of the filming of a very popular German television series. We found an outdoor restaurant across the street and watched the filming for an hour or so while we ate. The actor did the bus scene and another several times - and continuously flubbed his lines such that the crew finally started using large cue cards to help him. (Unfortunately, we didn't have our camera with us.)

The next day, we hiked up to the Luenersee (Moon Lake), which is up in the mountains above Brand. Below is a picture of the lake, and you can see how it got its name.

The hike up the mountain was very strenuous. About three quarters of the way up, we had to cross on flat rocks a small, shallow stream, where there were only about five feet of clearance between a waterfall on our right and a 2000 foot drop off on our left. Theo, afraid to risk slipping on the flat stones and doing a Greg Louganis over the edge, finally just waded through the stream pretty much under the waterfall, because she wasn't about to climb back down the mountain. Here she is sitting on some rocks while she endeavored to regain her composure after that little adventure.

We took a bahn down from the lake.

After a couple of days in Brand, we drove on and eventually stayed in a hotel up the mountainside in Bartholomaeberg, above Schruns. We had planned to stay at a different hotel at the end of another valley, but the road was impassable due to some recent floods. Fortunately, the Hotel Fernblick in Bartholomaeberg turned out to be our favorite hotel in all of our trips to Austria. It had very good food, very friendly owners, a great masseur and fantastic views.

Below are some of the views that we had from our balcony and the hotel grounds!

The last picture above is of "Zimba", Austria's equivalent of the Matterhorn. We could see it nicely from our hotel window.

While at Bartolomaeberg, we took an easy hike across the northern part of the village, up through some fields, past a salt mine and then through some forests to a small gasthaus/hutte in Rellseck, where Theo became acquainted with Kaiserschmeren. That's not a political figure but in fact a very tasty dish of small pancakes with applesauce. In each subsequent trip to Europe, Theo has asked for Kaiserschmeren at least once. Below is Theo on the way to Rellseck.

On the next day, we took a tram up the mountain from Silbertal (just below Bartolomaeberg) and then a long, circuitous hike around the mountains and back down to Silbertal again. The picture below is Silbertal from halfway through our hike.

Along this hike, we cut away from the beaten path for a while to check out a waterfall. You can see some of the aftermath of the floods.

After Bartolomaeberg, we drove through the mountains to the village of Lech, which is a world famous ski town. On the way we had to drive through the tunnel complex you see below. It's a tunnel built into/carved out of the side of the mountain. Traffic was one way, so we were stopped at the site of this picture for about half an hour while we waited for traffic to come the other way.

Lech itself is a very charming town and a very popular tourist site. However, many of the properties next to the river had been flooded just a few weeks earlier and were closed, so there weren't many tourists when we visited. We found a room at the Hotel Berghof, a couple of streets up the mountain from the river. It's a four-star hotel and we got a suite for about half price because of the absence of demand resulting from the flooding.

Below is a picture of the town, as seen from our hotel room on Saturday morning. Note that the river goes right through town and it had crested quite a few feet above street level.

Upon arrival in Lech on Friday, we took a bahn up the mountain behind the hotel with the intent of walking down to Zurs, which is about six kilometers away from Lech. But, a storm blew in very quickly, so we only hiked a short distance and then retreated back to the tram and the hotel. Below is the route we would have taken (see the little people - i.e., black dots - on the trail to the left of the lake?)

On Saturday morning, there was some sort of sports car rally just below our hotel. Here are a couple of pictures of the event. Note how rough the water in the river, seen in the second picture, still is.

Later Saturday morning, we left Lech, went back through Liechenstein, with a little traffic adventure, detouring through the mountainsides when the autobahn was blocked and accidentally coming out exactly where we wanted to be. We stayed in a small hotel in Rapperswil, Switzerland (see below), at the east end of Lake Zurich, before heading back on Sunday to the States.

All in all, this was one of our very best trips, with fantastic scenery, great food, great hotel rooms, and very friendly and helpful hosts. We may do this one again - when the euro and the dollar get back closer to parity.

Hope you enjoyed this pictorial tour.

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.