Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

I come to you this month from a little hotel in the Tirolean Alps, where I am currently sitting on a terrace having a beer and watching the mountains all around me. Or perhaps they’re watching me, with their austerity and grandeur from up high. The hotel I’ve booked into is in a tiny little one horse town that has several pensions, I assume for ski season, two restaurants, a fuel station and a supermarket. It does have beautiful family homes surrounded barns and piles of firewood, gardens of flowering flowers and vegetabling vegetables, and even some goats and donkeys. There’s a woodsman, and a rather large barn filled with hay, and a bakery with a smiling kindly lady who locked up at 6pm, a school, a police station, a clinic, and friendly children wandering around greeting everyone as family. Around the hotel is a grassy meadow and it is pristine. There’s a little chapel up a little way the mountain behind me, and I know that beyond the meadow and 3 streets of houses in front of me is the Lech River.

It’s the Lech River that drew me to booking here. I’d spent hours pouring over Google Maps after I’d expressed the desire to drive down here for a few days. Turned out the lure of a wide drifting river that came across as being grey-blue on Google maps was hard to ignore. Alas, access to the river is (rightfully) difficult to navigate so swimming there is hors de question -there is an actual current and it’s not a lazy stream- but sadly with rainfall that came on my day of travel, the normal blue-grey waters were churning and muddy.

I took these few days away on my own. Both my children have travelled over their summer holidays so when I finally decided to take leave in the dying days of Toques existence, my Beth told me to go away on my own. She had no intention of spending her days walking around the Tirolean mountains, and Alex’s residency permit doesn’t allow her move across borders (she actually could have come with, but we erred on the side of caution). Of course I needed to find somewhere that I could navigate a motor car journey to, so Austria was the winner.

It really is a short stay: 2 full days on either side of a 5-6 hour drive. But let’s be honest: hotel accommodation is more expensive than being at home. So I’d bookmarked a few reasonable touristic things to do, all within a 15 minute drive of Weißenbach [on the Lech]. Actually, just over the hill or a few of them anyway, is the Neuschwanstein Castle. To the average social media traveller, it’s the “Disney Castle”, or also Mad King Ludwigs Castle, but I see that it’s a typical tourist hotspot with tickets being sold out a fortnight ago (for my time here), and at 25€ a pop, I decided against actually going there. I could have queued perhaps, at 8 in the morning, but when time is limited, I have no patience nor that much intention to visit a castle. Besides, you know how I abhor jostling for photo space with tourists (yes. I know. That’s me too). Now my current dilemma is whether I can find somewhere on my drive home tomorrow to see about pulling over at a viewpoint and taking a pic from afar- but that also screams irresponsible tourist plus I may end up jostling for road space equally, and THAT is not something I relish the idea of.

But my goodness, these mountains are something quite else. I realised something about myself this week: I’m a mountain girl. Yes, the ocean is beautiful. Water in any form is peaceful. But being in the mountains is my place of comfort. Or maybe it’s anywhere that isn’t surrounded by buildings and people. And people in summer tend to veer to places filled with water. So I’m not a beach person. Perhaps in winter these mountains won’t be the safe tranquil place that I am experiencing today.

This mornings activity was to visit the Plansee and Heiterwang Lakes, a 15 minute drive from my hotel. Photos in various brochures highlight crystal clear blue waters nestled between the mountains and they weren’t lying. There are lakes aplenty in this part of Europe, I guess this being quite common in the high mountains where alpine waters need to tumble to as the snow melts. These two lakes are linked by a body of water that isn’t an inlet, nor is a river, but I guess where one lakes narrows through the feet of a mountain, it opens back up to another lake.

Having parked my car, I went to the reception area of the hotel and campsite that adorned the smaller section of the lakes. I’d read that I could take a boat ride across the lakes, but there were also hiking and biking routes in the area, so I made enquiries.

Yes indeed, I was free to walk the routes around the lakes. It was a 6 hour/11km walk to the other side of the lake. This was feasible enough, but I wasn’t going to be able to return – I was definitely underprepared for that! The kind receptionist suggested to take their boat for the return trip, which sounded quite reasonable so armed with a map and a bottle of water, plus a swimming costume, I headed off.

The brochures were not lying about the colour of the lake waters. Azure and turquoise reflected back at me as I walked at the foothill of a mountain alongside the clear waters. Covered by a canopy of forest, the route at my feet was a network of roots and rocks and every few hundred metres I’d see a couple – girls, women, partners, kids- sunbathing on the tiny lakeside beach: nothing more than a pocket of space between the waters and the hillside but perfectly private and sunny.

As I meandered along, I pondered over what the receptionist had told me: take the boat back from Forelle, but you’ll need to pay for your ticket with cash. I suspected I had spent a bulk of my actual cash paying for a fridge magnet and an apple strudel the day before: it turned out I did not have the full amount required for the boat rip return. Oh well.

Arriving at the 4km mark around the lake, I decided to return on foot, while trying to find a quiet ‘beach’ where I could somehow change into my costume and indulge in an alpine lake swim.

Alas, by this time in the day, there was little privacy left. Perhaps if I hadn’t cared about nudity I would have stripped down, but generations of what I assumed was respect for peoples space meant that I couldn’t invade someone else’s space and change into a costume. Instead I removed my shoes and socks and stood knee deep in the lake, having a quiet moment while watching 4 French tourists doing the exact same thing.

By the time I returned to the hotel grounds, the isolated sunbathing spots along the path had all been taken up, and it struck me that even here, at the lower parts of the Austrian Alps, people will find a way to flock to water.

However, this leads me on to me taking stock of a moment- actually two- of disappointment.

Yesterday evening these mountains had rain clouds racing around. It meant that it wouldn’t serve me to try take a walk alongside the Lech River so I turned to the brochures and decided I could head to the public bathes and indulge in an evening at the sauna. Arriving at the Alpentherme, I waited patiently to speak to the cashier about a session. Thank goodness the couple ahead of me had moved off (I admit to feeling shame not being able to speak the language), but when the kindly lady at the desk acknowledged my tourist angle and then mentioned the sauna was a space for nudity, I had to fold my cards and sheepishly walk away: I don’t mind nudity, and at public pools here in France, I’ve grown to accept walking around in a swimming costume with nothing else to cover flabby buttocks and cushioned waistlines. but there was no way I was going to walk in to an unknown situation on my own. Naked.

It came at the end of a day in which I had spent investigating medieval fortresses and the remnants of a castle atop a koppie. The taunting Highline 179 suspension bridge that straddled two fortresses over Route 179, and thus named after the route and not the length of the suspension bridge. Nope, this thing of beauty – this piece of metal ropes that has the Guinness World record status of being the longest pedestrian suspension bridge built in the Tibetan style at 408 metres long, 114metres above the road below- fully floored me to the point I could not cross it. I stood behind the ticket barrier for 10 minutes, watching various tourists walking across the swaying bridge and realised that no amount of money or fearlessness was going to allow me on to the bridge. Instead I approached someone about to buy a ticket, and I offered him mine. I was prepared to give it away, but when he paid me for it, I timidly thanked him, and set off back up the koppie for a cup of coffee and a piece of Austrian apfelstrudel.

The views from the top of the koppie were incredible. Pointy mountain tops appeared to rise like canine teeth from the green river valley, and the remains of the 18th century fortress on the very summit of this koppie have been cleverly preserved amid art of ironwork and a wild garden. I could have happily stayed longer if I wasn’t starving and worried about how long it would take me to walk downhill.

In a moment of introspection when I had a glass of wine later back at my hotel, I felt guilty that I had not achieved 2 things that I fear, namely heights, and looking like an idiot in an uncomfortable position. It seemed to me that I was hyper focused on my failures, which is my Go To Place. And while my Beth was disappointed in me for not crossing the bridge, something of a failure to be brave and a good role model in itself, I realised that Alex was impressed that I was eating alone in a restaurant.

So here IS something true: this journey-the emotional one and not the physical trip- is about learning to be on my own.

There is beauty, I believe, in being able to be on your own. There’s an inherent strength therein, but not being able to ask for help comes with it. Perhaps this is also a much-needed learning curve.

I’ve returned home by now. It’s Friday, and it’s blissfully wet and cool here in brown France. I drove back home yesterday, during what should have been a 4 hour journey. Instead road works turned the trip into a 5 and a half hour journey. Part of the going-solo learning curve is how to undergo a long drive without a companion. I miss being able to look at the scenery, and try to figure out where a good view point might be while out driving. I don’t miss car snacks but having to plan a route to take a break and have lunch is all the job of the navigator. Trying to do all that while driving had become stressful. Remind me: how did I ever achieve those solo 900 kilometre journeys between Netherby Farm and Madikwe River Lodge, circa 1997-2000? Those days when I used to drive with my window wound down, where I’d get a suntan on one arm, where I’d have to choose a different cd every 45 minutes, from a pouch filled with Music For The Trip.

Instead I lined up Google Maps on my phone, set a stop point for 2 hours later, and I also lined up a string of podcasts (how grown up?) that would play for 5 hours without me needing to think about that. I’ve become a weary driver, you see. Or have I simply matured and realised the true danger of a lost focus?

My stay in Austria was 20 minutes away from the German border, so it didn’t take me long to arrive there. Mind you, this is Europe, so there was no indication of my departure from Austria. One minute I was driving into a tunnel, and as I emerged on the other side, about 1kilometre away, I was in Germany. Notably the Germans have policing at their borders, but my white skin saves me from being stopped. As I drove passed their guard hut (a gazebo really, that’s all it is) I saw the sharp Austrian mountain teeth fade away in my side mirrors, as if in a puff of magic smoke, that which defined the country just disappeared. How was it possible two countries could look so different across an imaginary line?

I never did get around to finding a way to see the Neuschwanstein Castle from a roadside viewpoint, but I love to go back to the Tirol region again, so I’ll try next time. Maybe even during ski season.