Es gibt keinen Weg zum Glück, Glück ist der Weg
(There is no path to happiness; happiness is the path)
- written on the wall at our hotel
This morning we walked across the border into Austria. A new country to walk over!! Though we will be crossing it at the narrowest part, a bit only a hundred kilometres wide, squeezed between Germany and Italy.
We began our day walking out of Mittenwald and through pastureland along the left bank of the Isar, the same river as runs through Munich.
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| Nosy cow! |
There were no signs at all to mark the border on our gravel road by the river, so we couldn't even be sure exactly when we had stepped out of Germany and into Austria. But we sat down and took a picture on the first bench in Austria, which happened to be at a paintball establishment. We emerged out of the trees at Gießenbach, where we had a view of an immense wall of rock, with humans crawling up the wall, like ants in brightly coloured clothing, making very slow progress on the very lowest part of the rock. A vision of the insignificance of humanity in the face of nature!
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| Climbing wall outside Gießenbach |
Ready for a break, we left the trail to stop at Gasthaus Ramona in Gießenbach for coffee and our first Austrian Apfelstrudel.
To get out of Genießen, we had to walk around a small industrial estate and then along the side of a highway for a few hundred metres; but then the trail turned off into the forest, in an idyllic green setting with a stream running beside it.
We sat down for sandwiches just outside the grounds of the Calibri Festival, which seemed to be winding down on the Sunday afternoon of a long weekend, though we could still hear the rhythm of dance music among the trees.
We climbed up a hill, stopped at the top for a brief rest, and continued down into Seefeld, a clean, orderly, modern ski resort town with a population of only around 3000 but plenty of hotels. Ours was, as usual, at the far end of town 😅. But after walking "only" 19 kilometres, on a cloudy day with the temperature a few degrees lower than the previous two days, we were not as exhausted as usual! After a shower and a rest at our hotel, the Olympia, we went back intk the town centre to visit the Gothic church dedicated to St Oswald; it was refreshing to see a church free of Bavarian Baroque plasterwork, gilding and wood carvings!
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| Beer from the world's oldest brewery (established in 1040) |
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| The Olympia hotel |
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| The view from the hotel balcony |
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| The hotel lounge where we enjoyed drinks after dinner |
Mittenwald - Seefeld 19 km
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