Join us for a week in the beautiful Austrian Tyrol, taking in lakes, castles, mountains and the cities of Innsbruck, Kitzbühel and Salzburg.
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Friday 15 August 2003. It's our final night at the Harfenwirt Hotel in Niederau, Austria.
All ready for our last meal. It was taken by one of our waiters, who had taken to us after one night when I went to the bar to find him almost beside himself at a French lady who had bought a bottle of red wine and was demanding "Glass! Glass!" She was already holding four glasses and behind the bar the bemused waiter was shouting "You've got glasses!" "Non! Glass!" was the response. It twigged with me. "Glace?" (ice?) I said, "...pour la froid?" (for cold?) She turned with a dramatic gesture "Oui!" she said, drawing the word out to at least a dozen letters longer than it should have been. "Avec la vin rouge?" (with red wine?) I asked doubtfully. "Oui!"
Almost every night we had played a few games of rummy on the hotel veranda. After the event described above, the female members of the French party had taken to waving and cooing at me every time they passed. Very disconcerting... "Ah oui! Bon soir!" [nervous laugh]. Fran thought this hilarious...
Another of the British couples had thought playing cards a good idea to fill the night and bought a pack in Austria only to find there wasn't a single card with a value under seven... "Did the pack not feel thin?" I asked. "No," came the reply, "I just thought what a bargain they must be at the price!"
The waiters all made a fuss of Mum, possibly for the simple reason that her loud cackling laugh annoyed the French...
Night falls on Niederau and the Harfenwirt. It was a shame that there weren't more lights on in the bedrooms, it would have brightened the picture up a bit. Mum, Dad and Fran are standing near one of the lights but you can't see them. They are peering into the dark saying things like "Where's he gone???"
Friday 15 August 2003. We have travelled independently from Niederau to Kitzbühel by train and rain and before lunching have decided on a bold course of action...
This is the Hahnenkamm Bahn - the station for the cable car up the Hahnenkamm mountain. The obvious thing to do in pouring rain is to try to get above it, right? Mum is strangely reluctant. It turned out she was thinking more of a chair lift than a cable car...
Once inside the tiny cabin she calms down and starts to enjoy the views.
The Hahnenkamm reaches upwards to 1,712 metres (5,617 ft) above sea level. To get a decent photo of our ascent I need to open a window and lean out a bit. Or perhaps I just poked the camera out...
Without resorting to this, the view would have been somewhat different... Somehow I don't think we are going to get above the clouds and rain!
We reach the top, where hundreds of cyclists - with bikes - are waiting to go down again. We realise that some of the cable car pods have hooks on the outside and the bicycles can be hung out to get wet whilst going up or down.
From the summit we can look across Kitzbühel to the Kitzbühellerhorn - another mountain. The Alps are full of them! In winter the Hahnenkamm hosts a race meeting for people daft enough to strap planks to their feet and shove themselves off into the snow. There are both steep downhill and slalom courses to challenge skiers and the internet is full of videos of folks coming to grief on them. Just after the start of the downhill is a drop over which they free fall for 40 metres (100 feet) landing with care not to squish themselves to half their normal height before immediately being confronted by a sharp turn to the left which they enter at some 60 miles per hour.
And that, dear readers, is why I don't strap planks to my feet...
We leave the mountain and the other members of the family leisurely get onto the first available cable car. So leisurely in fact that the pod - which doesn't stop, but just trundles around a semi-circular platform - is about to launch into space again before I just manage to leap aboard at the last moment before it leaves. We get back to Kitzbühel to find that most people have folded their umbrellas and the rain has stopped - or at least, paused. It is now time for a bit of lunch.
After that we decide to squelch our way back to the station to get the train back to Wörgle. We are stopped by the train in question crossing our path. As it's a public holiday the next train isn't running so we have an hour to wait. We decide we might as well walk along to the next station but by some strange quirk of fate we don't reach it as quickly as I thought we should and, turning the map the upside down, I realise we have been going the wrong way... About turn!
Friday, 15 August 2003. It's our last day in Austria and it dawns both wet and misty.
We can see down the road, but the cows high up on the hills above us can only be located by the tinkle of their alpine cow bells. The Austrians were suffering the same sort of luck that we are used to in the north west of England. It was a public holiday and chucking it down!
We hadn't fancied the coach trip for today and instead we got a taxi to the station in Wörgle, (pronounced "Vurgle") the nearest large town, and then a train to Kitzbühel.
When we got to Kitzbühel, it was just as wet and miserable as Niederau had been. But worth a look round anyway, with its multi-coloured buildings, shops and pavement cafes.
After the train ride we started off with a warming coffee under awnings at one of the cafes. There seemed to be a lot of cyclists in town.
It being a public holiday, many of the locals had been to church in their best clothes and despite the umbrellas and the rain, gave big smiles for the camera.
Ah... We have found out why there are a lot of cyclists around the town as a loud siren heralds a fire service vehicle leading a crowd of peddling wet people charging at speed behind them!
Blimey! There's a lot of them! Excuse me... can I just cross...? That would be a "no" then...
Watching them racing round and round the town, following some sort of circuit is exhausting... we go for another brew.
The multi-coloured buildings as mentioned before. They do look a bit better in sunshine perhaps! We ponder on lunch but decide to do something daft before eating. Onto the next exciting (daft) episode...
Thursday 14 August 2003. Today is a highlight as we are off on the coach to visit the city of Salzburg.
We take the funicular train up to the castle and sit in a cafe with a drink, trying to avoid a few wasps that are hovering about and enjoying the view. Well, they are as entitled to it as we are I suppose... This is the city of Mozart's birth. He used to play one of the five organs in the cathdral which dominates the the right hand side of this photo. There are just the odd one or two other churches nearby. When the bells start to chime it's a mesmerising sound.
Our viewpoint for both this and the previous photograph is the famous Hohensalzburg castle. Easily recognisable, especially for any fans of The Sound of Music. The river is the Salzach, 227 kilometres long (141 miles), it rises somewhere near the Krimml Falls and flows into the River Inn, seen in Innsbruck earlier in the week. The Inn then flows into the Danube which flows eastwards before turning south through Hungary and east again through Serbia then forming the border between Bulgaria and Romania before entering the Black Sea.
Entry to the castle is by admission price and the easiest way to get there (and pay for inclusive tickets for both ascent, entry and descent) is via the funicular railway. The website states: Dogs are welcome in the outdoor areas of the fortress when kept on a leash. Dogs are not allowed indoors. The wearing of a muzzle is obligatory in the funicular. I'm hoping that the wearing of a muzzle just applies to the dogs...
Many visitors are surprised that, despite all the memorials, statues etc. to Mozart, you will find very little in the way of reminders of the von Trapps or the film in Salzburg. The Austrians have a somewhat different interpretation of events than the film portrays.
Inside the cathedral. Four of the organs are placed against the pillars of the crossing. The fifth - the largest - is at the back of the nave.
The inside of the dome. To get the perspective right for viewers who will be craning their necks backwards the figures have to painted probably twice their usual height but incredibly thin. Sort of how I draw figures all the time without meaning to...
The shopping streets of Salzburg have ornate ironwork hanging signs. We are heading towards Miss Franny's favourite Salzburg shopping experience...
The egg shop! Filled from floor to ceiling with blown and painted eggs with every conceivable design from portraits of Mozart through views of Salzburg to Christmas designs. We did a winter trip in 2002 and the coach drivers christened her the Egg Lady and for the rest of that week a broad Sottish accent hailed her every time she got on the coach: "Hey aigg lady! Don't be bringing any more aiggs on ma cooach unless ye've got bacon as waell!"
Wednesday 19 August 2003. We had spent the day going up and down the High Alpine Road and after our evening meal are bussed down to the Schonnchien Hotel for an evening's entertainment.
These nights are great fun. There are several traditional tunes and dances, some of which involve the ringing of hand bells - Glockenplattler and the mining-related Knappentanz which involves beating chime bars with hammers, followed by a small but loud explosion!
At some point they will probably come out into the audience and select suitable candidates and some unsuitable candidates for comic value. I came upon the latter experience in 2002 and (being an entertainer myself and almost impossible to embarrass on stage) made sure I got the audience on my side and in fact walked back to my seat afterwards to a standing ovation!
Expect lots of hand, foot and thigh slapping, shrieking, and a blooming good night!
Wednesday 19 August 2003. We are on a coach, heading for the Grossglockner glacier.
This is the morning coffee stop, already high up in the mountains, but without a great deal of snow...
Mum has recovered from her bit of sunstroke and is carrying a cardigan today, though she says it's too hot to put on.
The view opposite the roadside cafe. Tumbling waterfalls. The locals say all the snow has melted, leaving only the permafrost ice on the high peaks.
Fran and I have been to the glacier before and we are shocked when we see it. It seems a lot smaller than it was in 2000.
Grossglockner peaks at 3,798 metres (12,461 ft) above sea level - this being measured against the level of the Adriatic Sea. It's the highest mountain in Austria and the highest in the Alps east of the Brenner Pass. From it's peak you can see for 140 miles or 150 miles if you count atmospheric refraction. Personally I've made it a habit not to count atmospheric refraction... Anyway it's high up. The views to north, south, east and west reach as far as places I've never heard of in my life... It is the second largest mountain in the Alps (to Mont Blanc) when measured from peak to the foot of the mountain.
So... having come up, we'd better go down again. The covered road on the left of the photo is a protection against avalanches. The meltwater from the glacier is trapped in a dam on the far side of the lake, from where it runs down a gully that remained hidden from the road into the reservoir.
Back down the hairpin bends we go, swaying merrily from side to side, looking at times down long vertical drops!
