FromSwamptoSummit

It does sound a bit like “I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew,” for those of you who remember the 1965 Dr. Seuss book…but Fuschl am See was our next destination after our couple of nights in Vienna. (“See” means lake; “am” means “at the”.) This entailed trains and buses and trails, oh my, and a few wrong turns along the way.

Actually, we were about to embark on the hiking phase of our trip — about a week exploring the hills surrounding the Salzburg Lake District. Our adventure started with the subway to the main train station in Vienna, a long wait, and then a train to Salzburg. Fortunately, it was easy to find the bus from Salzburg to Fuschl am See, although getting off the bus proved more difficult.

We bought tickets for the 2:15 bus and boarded almost immediately, except for the delay occasioned by some woman who insisted we put our suitcases in the cargo area below. I knew we must be in the right place, since one of the few passengers on board was wearing a native green Austrian hat, festooned with feathers and insignia. See photo above. We clearly weren’t in Kansas anymore.

We had looked at all the stops listed on the electronic display on the bus and there seemed to be only one Fuschl stop. Although this was not consistent with my previous research, we thought we better go with the real time indication on the bus and get off at that one. I should have relied on my research, as we ended up disembarking a full four stops too soon. It turns out that having Fuschl in the name of a place was not much of an indicator…there were multiple stops labeled Fuschl and the electronic display simply hadn’t shown them yet!

Anyway, we exited the bus at what was a suspiciously remote stop on the side of a highway, after making quite a production since the bus driver had to help us get the suitcases out from the cargo hold. The fact no one else got off should have been another hint. It didn’t take more that a couple of minutes before it was clear something was terribly wrong. I checked GPS (which, by the way, works without cell data or Wi-Fi) and realized we were a good three miles from our destination. Since pulling our luggage along the side of a two-lane highway without sidewalks didn’t seem like a very good idea we were happy to learn the next bus was only 20 minutes away. The bus driver rolled his eyes when we got back on but let us use the same tickets…clearly chalking it up to incompetent Americans. This time we did not put our suitcases in the cargo hold!

After three more stops, we arrived at the correct Fuschl stop and located the Hotel Jakob (which also seemed to have a moniker of the Triathlon hotel). And indeed it was aimed at triathletes and cyclists, with bikes on display and biking gear for sale. The town was quite small – on a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. J and I strolled through town and had a gin and tonic at a nice lakefront cafe, and made a dinner reservation for the attached restaurant, which was recommended for local fish.

The temperature dropped; we returned to the hotel to change. This is when we figured out that Austrians, at least in the country, eat early – between 6 and 7 p.m.! I can only describe the restaurant as staid, lots of older people (it was a weeknight in the off season), all seated at tables lined up around the sides of the room so we could all inspect everyone else as they ate their meals….I had three types of fish all from the lake – a filet whose name I didn’t catch, arctic char, and perch, served with carrots and leeks.

The next day we finally started the hike, but only after an amazing breakfast buffet featuring salmon, cold meats, cheeses, breads. I managed to mess up the coffee machine by using too small a cup for my latte (you can imagine what happened), but discovered that the coffee machines in Austria rivaled those in Spain. America needs these!

After we checked out of the hotel, we started to follow the “blue line” on our downloaded GPS map, just as we had done in the Yorkshire Dales. The first part, through a valley, was a trail themed around gnomes, with little signs up everywhere telling a story of some ill fated gnome. The landscape really does explain where the Brothers Grimm got their tales.

It was only about a five miles to our next stop, although there was a decent uphill and down, and I did miss my hiking poles – but there was no way to fit them into the luggage. One thing to get used to were all the Catholic shrines and chapels along the trails. Every couple of miles there would be a shrine with candles lit, typically for the Virgin Mary. I’m assuming the candles were battery operated.

After some good scrambling and beautiful views from Mozartblik, we descended into St. Gilgen, which is on Lake Wolfgang. It’s a very wealthy summer town, but many places were closed for the season, which had ended a couple of weeks before. It was almost too quaint, painted buildings and Austrian architecture.

We had lunch by the lake, followed by a power nap, since we still weren’t exactly on the right time zone. After a long walk through town, we capped off the day with a drink at a bar across the street, which featured someone wearing lederhosen along with many tattooed bikers. That theme continued at dinner – again, the restaurant was practically empty by 7 – where we enjoyed watching four very elderly men, clearly on their weekly outing, each wearing lederhosen with the appropriate jackets.

J and I retired early. The next day was going to introduce yet a new mode of transportation – a lake ferry.