Join us for a 9-day holiday trip by coach to Austria, staying at Schüttdorf, close to Zell-am-See, 12-20 August 2000. We'll be touring the sights and musical box chalets of both Austria and Germany as we venture into Bavaria and the Tyrol.
Each article can be accessed by clicking/tapping the fourteen photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.
Tuesday 15 August 2000. The train drops us off at Kitzbühel station and first thing we see is the coach in the car park. John and Keith are sitting in a nearby cafe waiting for us.
We have a couple of hours yet though to explore before we are due to get on the coach for the trip back to Schütdorff and our hotel. The main street is entered through this archway.
Ah good, we have arrived in time for the summer concert! A closer look at the banner reveals that we won't actually catch any of the music making apart from the old chap with a violin playing under the archway that we just passed through. I did drop a few coins in his hat. He nodded his thanks ... and they fell out again...
By now the pangs of hunger were starting to be felt! I'd had a half-hearted go at the hotdog on the train, but I 'm not a fan of hotdogs and donated most of it back to the waitress. We plonked ourselves down in a street cafe and I deep dig under for bestest mine German.
I didn't do so bad, we got what we wanted. We began to realise that the Austrians had a liking for tomato ketchup! It was served with just about everything.
In fact, not long after we left the cafe, we found a shop displaying a silver holder especially shaped to hold a Heinz bottle!
The buildings of Kitzbühel's main street are painted in startling colours.
It was without doubt one of the most beautiful towns we had ever visited.
The view as we approached the end of the main street.
Kitzbühel has its hills and we came to a spot where a bridge took one road over the top of another as a sort of two-level crossroads. A curved series of steps allowed us to walk down, traffic had to do a three-quarter circle to do the same.
Looking from the top of the bridge. A stream runs down via a channel cut at the side of the road beneath us.
From the lower road, looking back towards the bridge.
And once again but this time looking from the arched tunnel of the bridge.
Some of the hotels had painted facades, by which I mean painted scenes or pictures here and there, rather than an overall coat of paint. Wrought iron was used extensively for hanging signs and a local cemetery had graves with wrought iron crosses instead of gravestones.
Now and then we found small sculptures of a proud owner or past owner of a hotel, looking out over the entrance. We strolled back towards the coach, taking the back streets until we reached the small bar and cafe across from where Keith and John were standing after opening the coach to let the air-conditioning cool it down. Time for zwei kleine bier!
The coach struggled uphill on the way home. "You must have been eating a lot!" quipped Keith. That night the drivers stayed up until late waiting for a DAF mechanic to check the fuel feeds. After our meal we spent most of the night with the drivers in the lounge, talking and laughing with a few of the others. Keith leaned over, "Nick a bread roll in the morning and bring it with you," he said, "Just one will be enough, I'll tell you why when we get there..."
Join us for a most spectacular ride and learn why the entire coach laughed at Fran's bread roll...
Tuesday 29 January 2002. We have been up to the ski slopes above Kitzbühel but now we are back at ground level and walking from the cable car to the town.
We have to wait at the crossing for a goods train to cross before heading back down the hill into Kitzbühel itself. Kitzbühel is roughly equidistant from both Innsbruck and Salzburg, and there are direct trains to and from both. The main route between the two, though, tends to take a route well to the north. Kitzbühel is a popular ski destination and is mentioned in the James Bond book, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It also features briefly in the film of the same name.
The buildings along Kitzbühel's main street are painted in pastel colours. Very pretty in sunshine especially, but they are in shadow for us today.
There's a horse-drawn sleigh waiting for custom, but we have no time so must trot ourselves!
We make our way back to the coach. "Hey, aigg lady, I hope you've no' brought any more aiggs on ma coach?" comes a voice from the driving seat.
A last view as we pass over a bridge and look down on this view of a road within the town centre. To the right of the roadway a stream flows in a stone-lined channel with little footbridges allowing pedestrian access to cross the road.
The castle at Mariastein, seen from the coach window as we pass by the outcrop of rock upon which it sits. It looked splendid each time we passed it and this was the only time in daylight.
Diane had gone into it on the day the rest of us went to the silver mine. There was a church at the top reached by a spiral staircase. You would definitely be testing your legs and knees on such a climb!
The hotel. In the bar that night a local was drinking a very cloudy beer. "Ask him what it is," said Fran. It was called Whitebier or something like that. The next minute there was a tap on my shoulder and he handed me a half litre glass of this beer. Now, I'm not a beer drinker and I'd already had a bottle of wine inside me but... "Danke!" I said, "Prost!" after which we banged the bottoms - not the top - of the glasses together. Strong stuff that... I was ill that night...
Tuesday 29 January 2002. We are swanning around the Austrian Alps on a Leger Holidays coach tour. We have left a rather solid lake at Zell-am-See behind and are heading for Kitzbühel.
It's a glorious day, if somewhat parky (cold... my editor - that's me aswell - has just told me not to assume everyone knows my northwest English!) We arrive at Kitzbühel and Jock parks the coach in a part of the town we don't remember.
We head off to look for the cable car as we all fancy a look at the ski slopes. First we stop for a bite of lunch at a cafe and then find a cable car that, from the bottom station, seems to go a very long way up. Count us in!
Miss Franny and Sheila ignore any feelings of vertigo as we climb rapidly up the side of the mountain. They are facing backwards to the direction of travel and the mountain we are going up is in shadow.
We keep going up and the town becomes a toy in the distance below us. To the side the view is glorious.
We approach the top and somebody decides we would have to jump out quick because the car wouldn't stop so we all dive out like silly beggars, killing ourselves laughing and setting the car rocking away! There are a couple of shops for skiers and presumably some equipment for hire too. People are sunbathing on the bar terrace. To the right of the photo a tiny fence with just one or two cross bars stands between the level ground and a lo-o-o-ong drop. I wondered why it was so small but when I looked there were another three cross bars under the snow...
Photo for posterity - look folks, we are here! Me with Sheila and Diane. A constant stream of skiers came up and poled away. A couple of snowboarders were trying the gentler slopes. I was quite content to stand and watch.
It does look an exhilarating way of spending an afternoon, though up here at the top you don't see the ones who come to grief halfway down, spread-eagled with their ski tracks one each side of a careless tree...
Here James Bond makes a break for it, whilst an Eastern Bloc border guard chases him. Just to the front of us a snowboarder is tentatively falling down a gentle three-foot high slope towards the shops and bar complex. He slithers to a halt where a passing yeti dusts him off and takes him for lunch...
The view facing away from the bar and shops. The sun flares through clouds of ice crystals. Despite the height and all the snow it feels quite warm.
We watch the skiers for quite a while and then head back towards the cable car for the journey back down. They've done it again! Fran and Sheila get in a car that is just about to disappear throught the barrier and Diane and I have to run and dive in at the last moment! There's a real feeling of regret on starting the journey downwards. This afternoon would be thought the best of the holiday by most people on the coach.
Well, here we are at the bottom again. It cost us €14 (euros) for the round trip, each way taking approx ten minutes. The euro had only been adopted at the begnining of January and there was still a lot of confusion amongst the Austrians and Germans, never mind us Brits!
Join us for a week in the beautiful Austrian Tyrol, taking in lakes, castles, mountains and the cities of Innsbruck, Kitzbühel and Salzburg.
Each article is reached by clicking/tapping the photographs below. A link on each page will bring you back to this index page.
