As predicted, rain, rain and even more rain!!!!!!! Blimin heck it was wet today. We only had to ride 5 k this morning to get from the hotel into the bus station in Salzburg. It was pretty solid rain all the way.
The plan originally was for Fraser to cycle up to St Wolfgang from Salzburg which is about 50k but due to the horrendous weather he opted to join Di on the 🚌. The ride up took us 50 minutes through ever increasing heavy rain.
Once in St Gilgen which is at the north end of Lake Wolgangsee we got on a boat to go to St Wolfgang – lots of “saints” going on here.
Lake Wolfgangsee it not a large lake but none of them are in the Salzkammergut region. This area is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Austria and we can certainly see why and that is even in the pissing rain.
It really is picture postcard stuff.
It only took us about 50 minutes and four stops on the ferry which got us half way down the lake. When choosing where to stay in the region before we set off from home over three months ago, we didn’t know anything about this area and the reason we ended up in St Wolfgang for the first two nights was purely because of the fact that this is where we could get a reasonably priced hotel. Well we really lucked out when it comes to scenic beauty.
On our arrival we discover that after the little town of Hallstatt (will be there in two days) it was the most scenic town in the area and hence full of Tommy the Tourists. Even the rain couldn’t keep them away!!!
It is great in that they have put a tunnel around the town which has taken the cars off the road so it is predominantly a pedestrian town.
After freeing ourselves of our sodden rain gear and drying out a bit, we hit the streets for a bit of a squizz around. You know, after you have travelled a bit these tourist areas all start to look the same with trinket shop after trinket shop with the same stuff in all of them. It is the scenery that is the real catcher.
The amount of work they put into their flower arrangements is their window boxes is great and sometimes you just catch that one little novelty that does it for you.
Not a lot we can do for the remainder of the day except to pray the better weather forecast for tomorrow is going to eventuate. We are here for two nights and then bike across to Obertraun on Friday for three nights and all going well courtesy of “Uncle Hughie” we might get warm enough weather over there to go for a swim. The colour of the lakes is very inviting and also very clear. We are told the water temperature is about 23c so fingers crossed we will be able to get in.
Rowkin Rovings Blog 