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Austria: June 2022

Finally off to Austria after a delay of 2-years!

Back in 2019, before Covid-19, before the pandemic, Julie and I had decided to book a walking holiday with the company Inntravel. The previus year, 2018, we had a great holiday in Italy organised by Inntravel, and we decided to use them again for 2020 – little did we know what was about to befall the planet!

After 13-hours of travel (a serious rail accident in Bavaria resulted in our having to change route) we arrived late in Hotel Inntaler Hof, Mosern.

Day-1: we did a walk from the hotel to explore the hills around Mosern.

Day-2: With our luggage being transported ahead of us, we walked from Mosern to Hotel Kristall, Oberweidach.

Hotel Kristall has an ‘infinity’ pool on its roof, and at 32degC was just warm enough for me!

The following day, three, was to be an exploration of the hills, but rain stopped play. The wet did bring out giant snails: its shell was 50mm across!

Day-4: With our luggage moved on to our next hotel, we walked between Oberweidach and Hotel Hubertushof, Reindlau.

This was a day of Alpine meadows. After the rain the day before, our walk was warm, sunny and dry! Day-5: More rain! However, as this is one of the highlights of the holiday, rain or no rain we were going to explore the Leutaschklamm. A ‘klamm’ is a gorge, and in the Alps gorges are often made accessible by some amazing engineering. Leutaschklamm is no exception, although rather later than other klamms, it was only in 2006 when Leutaschklamm was finally open to the public. We used the free bus along the valley to save a drenching. And by the time we reached the klamm the rain had subsided.

Built for 1.4-million euro, with support from the EU, the gorge is free to visit. It’s one of the longest klamms in the Alps at just over 1-mile in length.

As you descend the klamm, eventually, near the end of the gorge, you cross into Germany. There is a charge of a few euros to walk the last 200m to complete the traverse of the Leutaschklamm. Day-6: we leave Reindlau and head back to Hotel Inntaler Hof, where we started the holiday. The weather had improved considerably over that of the previous day, and the cloud was high enough to allow us to use a chairlift for the first time on the holiday.

We spent two nights at Hotel Inntaler Hof, and the day in-between we climbed a popular hill with fabulous views!

Although a rather demure hill, the summit has a 360-degree view of the Tyrol – and full advantage of this has been taken!

Immediately adjacent to the hotel is an enormous bell – The Peace Bell. At over 10-tonnes, it is the largest bell in the Tyrol. It chimes at 5pm each evening, and can be heard across three national boundaries.

For the second week of our holiday we headed off to Pertisau, in the Leutasch Valley, where we spent 6-nights at Hotel Wiesenhof.

We used the train to get from Mosern, Seefeld, to Pertisau, Jenbach. When we arrived at Jenbach we were in good time to see the Jenbach/Pertisau tourist train. A steam-driven rack and pinion locomotive: the world’s oldest!

The day of our travel to Pertisau the weather was fabulous. The following day, the rain returned. We took the ferry up the lake and walked back.

The weather improved within 30-minutes of us starting the walk. Just as well: the path is ‘interesting’ in places!

The route did have all the conveniences: waterfall shelters and café. The following day the weather forecast, and reality, was fabulous. We took the Rofanseilbahn gondola and then climbed Rofanspitze.

From the top-station of the gondola, left image, the footpath takes you through high meadows, right image.

The high altitude meadows are the preferred habitat for gentian – and they were in vast abundance!

It was a glorious day – absolutely delightful walking and climbing! Approaching the summit of Rofanspitze.

The summit of Rofanspitze, and, inevitably, alpine cuff.

A truly spectacular location! The following day was another great weather day. What else could we do – another summit, of course: Barenkopf.

We started by taking the cable car, conveniently located a couple of hundred metres from our hotel, removing a lot of climbing for the day.

Unlike the previous day, this summit needed use of hands. The right image is a lot steeper than it appears in this picture – Julie wasn’t very happy!

The view is worth all the effort: looking down to Pertisau and lake Achensee.

The decent was full of interest: tunnels and very friendly butterflies. The next day we decided to take it easy: a nice 9-miles valley walk. Unfortunately the rain returned.

It all started so well: walking along the Falzthurnbach valley. It then started to rain. The on-off rain did provide some fabulous cloudscapes. The following day, the last of our holiday, we climbed another summit.

It was a lovely day and a splendid viewpoint: a nice walk for the end of the holiday. Cheers!