Tuesday 31st May 2022

The weather was nice this morning. We left Saalfelden and headed north west.

We travelled through some beautiful countryside.

The first part of our journey today was on wide fairly quiet roads.

After having stopped for a cup of tea we crossed from Austria into Germany.

After entering Germany we travelled west on a minor road through a hilly wooded area.

We could look back to the high alpine peaks which we were leaving behind us.  We came to a small town on a more major road and stopped briefly to buy a few groceries.

We stopped for the day at a very pleasant parking area next to a small river with a walking and cycling path next to it. We are near the village of Nauhaus. For the first time on this trip we got our bikes out from under the bed. We had to pump the bike tyres up as they had all lost some pressure since we last used them on our trip in the autumn last year.

We had only ridden for about a kilometre when Ann decided that her bike riding days were over. She just finds it all too stressful to be enjoyable.

Ann wants me to carry on riding my bike now she has given up riding, however we've always done things together and I have no wish to ride off on my own. Would anyone be interested in buying one or two folding bikes?

In contrast to the good weather earlier in the day it became showery as the afternoon went on and it's raining quite heavily this evening.

Today we travelled 69 miles (111 kilometres). We are at: N47.7014 E11.8955

Nauhaus   No street view available,

Monday 30th May 2022

We were very busy today so we unfortunately didn't take many photos. We went into Mittersill and visited two electrical goods shops to try to buy a 12 volt charger for our laptop. Neither had one but they thought a big shop in Zell am See might. We travelled the fairly short distance east to Zell. The big shop didn't have a suitable 12 volt charger so in desperation we bought a mains charger which we can use in the van with our inverter which transforms 12 volts to 230 volts. We also did some grocery shopping in Zell. We came on a short distance north to this nice rural parking place near Saarlfelden.

Nearby there are a couple of small woodland ponds.

100 metres further on you come to a lake.

It rained quite a lot this afternoon. This rented camper turned up and parked next to us.

It cleared up later on and we got this good view up the hill from our parking place. I'm busy this evening bringing this blog up to date now we can put charge into our laptop.

Today we travelled 33 miles (53 kilometres). We are at: N47.4169 E12.8438

Saalfelden  No street view available

Sunday 29th May 2022

It was cold and wet this morning in Hieligenblut. We paid for the camping and food. It came to 73 euros plus an extra 2 euros for garbage collection!? We decided not to continue north on the High Alpine (toll) Road to Zell am See as it was thoroughly clagged down and we wouldn't have got any views for our 30 euros ? toll. Instead we returned south to Lienz and then north west towards Mittersill. We stopped along the way for a cup of tea next to this wild river.

There is a high pass between Lienz and Mittersill which is negotiated by a long road tunnel. There was a long queue on the tunnel approach,

The queue was because everyone had to pay an 11 euro toll to go through the tunnel. When we emerged on the other side it was snowing heavily.

We stopped for the day at Uttendorf just to the east of Mittersill next to this nice lake.

It's a very pleasant spot.

There are some big fish in the lake.

The clouds cleared a bit to give some great mountain views.

Catching the fish or swimming in their part of the lake is forbidden.

I took a walk around the lake. This is the Boulder Park.

It's a lovely quiet spot with no passing traffic noise.

Today we travelled 77 miles (124 kilometres). we are at: N47.2851 E12.5783

Uttendorf  No street view avaiable

 

Saturday 28th May 2022

Today we went into Lienz to do a supermarket shop. There's a better view from this branch of Lidl than we get when we go to our local one in Newton Abbot!

From Lienz we headed north into the National Park surrounding Austria's highest peak the Grossglockner. We stopped to look at this fine waterfall.

We soon arrived at the village of Hieligenblut, this translates to Holy Blood. Here's the church.

There is some old painting on the outside wall of the church.

Inside there is this ornate high alter.

The bottom right panel depicts the ascension of christ to heaven as two bare feet disappearing upwards into a cloud!

Things just as bizarre and ridiculous lurk just to the left of the high alter. According to legend a vial of christ's blood was brought to the area from the middle east by St Briccius who was then killed in an avalanche! His rescuers were unable to save St Brick but did manage to recover the vial of blood which is now housed in the tall silver affair seen here. Hence the name of the village. Anyone who believes any  such nonsense frankly need their head tested!

Hieligenblut is a bit of a tourist trap. 

As followers of this blog, if there are any, will know we avoid campsites like the plague. However, as residents of one, we know National Parks are almost without exception extremely unfriendly territory for campervanners. We therefore reluctantly checked in at the campsite at Hieligenblut. The van on the right of the picture is British registered!

We perched our van elegantly on the edge of a steep drop.

We took a walk along the nearby river - another Danube tributary.

While we were here we though we might as well go the whole hog so we turned up at the campsite restaurant for an evening meal! We had some local beer.

We had some schnitzel.

Back at the van the evening ended on a really low note. When I tried to put our laptop on charge the charger died! I had left the mains charger in Widecombe which we could have used in the van via an inverter which we have with us which transforms 12 volts into 230 volts. I decided not to do anymore blogging until such time as we could put the laptop on charge.

Today we travelled 29 miles (47 kilometres). We are at: N47.0373 E12.8391

Hieligenblut   No street view available

Friday 27th May 2022

We bought some groceries before leaving Brixen. We then branched east off the main road leading north up to the Brenner Pass and travelled towards the Austrian border.

We stopped for a cup of tea just before the border. On one side we had a view of these majestic dolomite peaks.

On the other side of our parking place was this little river which is actually a tributary of the Danube.

You could hire a bike here is you so wished.

Soon after we got going again we crossed from Italy into Austria.

There are lots of churches with narrow pointy spires round here.

We stopped for the day close to the Austrian town of Lienz. We found a nice quiet rural spot.

We're next to what I think is some kind of waterworks. It makes an interesting humming sound from time to time..

A few metres away through a narrow strip of woodland is that same tributary of the Danube which we encountered at our cup of tea stop but by now it's grown much bigger.

There are fabulous mountain views from here.

Today we travelled 76 miles (122 kilometres). We are at: N46.8159 E12.8149

Near Lienz   No street view available

Thursday 26th May 2022

We left Male after buying some bread. We travelled north east passing through an area of intensive fruit growing.

We crossed a pass and made a long descent, seen here, towards the city of Bolzano where we planned to visit the archaeological museum which houses the body of the famous "iceman" who died in the Alps over 5000 years ago and was disgorged from a glacier in 1991perfectly preserved and along with all his belongings. Unfortunately despite ours and our sat nav's best efforts we failed to find the museum due to a combination of closed roads, dead ends and impassable barriers. The whole city seemed to be a massive road work! We felt relieved to get out in one piece. We headed north towards the Brenner Pass.

Our route followed the motorway here seen high above us. We were glad to stop for a cup of tea to untangle our nerves after the traumatic encounter with Bolzano.

We took on diesel at the town of Brixen and stopped for the day at a small parking area high above the town. Here's the view from the side door of our van,

This rather strange cross is nearby.

Soon after we arrived two German registered vans turned up. A little later on a man and a woman approached us. They said that we were on private property but it would be okay for us to stay for one night! They said that sometimes rubbish gets left here, I assured them that we never leave rubbish anywhere other than in waste bins.

As it got dark this evening the lights of the town came on.

Today we travelled 77 miles (124 kilometres). We are at: N46.7253 E11.6632

Brixen    Street View