We usually fly into Munich in Bavaria, Southern Germany, because it has more flight options and can be considerably cheaper than Salzburg or Innsbruck, car hire is also much less expensive than in Austria.
An hour’s drive (VW Golf tdi this time and don’t forget to buy your motorway toll card as soon as you cross the border!) will get you down to the Austrian border, and a further half hour into magical Salzburg. The contrast of rolling green meadows, huge lakes and quirky, stunning castles set against a backdrop of grey snow capped Alps is mesmerising! That’s why we often combine a stay in Austria with a second week, or at least a few days in Bavaria, best of both worlds.
June 2003 saw us booked into Diessen at a lakeside hotel, followed by a week in Oberstaufen, close to lake Constance (beautiful) before crossing into Austria, for a week by Lake Grundlsee. This was our main holiday and we wanted a good long break.
A 90 minute drive south from Salzburg, we headed for Grundlsee on good roads alongside scenic blue or green lakes encased for eons by towering crags. The deep clean waters change colour with the angle of the sun, pretty colourful villages perch on the precious stretches of level land before the rolling alpine meadows start. And the air, wow! You realise you can actually taste real fresh air.
Our accommodation was a very plush timeshare resort complex (not as expensive as you might think, see our website for travel hints and tips). The complex sat on a small hillock at the western end of the crooked finger shaped lake. Imagine looking along a banana, so that from our resort we could not see the far end of the lake around the bend.
After a bit of haggling with the receptionist, at first they offered us a studio with a sofa bed (no good when you are 17 stone + like me), we ended up with the best view in town!
As always in these features we like to find the A (ahh) spot in town to best describe the view, well this time it was from our lounge picture window. We looked out to the east, through to the bend in the lake, at about 150 metres above the lake surface we could survey our surroundings unobserved. The village of Grundlsee sat on the left foreground, rising away to the meadows and mountains behind. A road ran the length of the crystal lake to the small settlement and campsite at Gossl, unseen around the bend at the eastern end.
The apartment, lovely as it was, did not lend itself to be cool, so it was a couple of days later I purchased the last electric fan in the area for the exorbitant price of £35 (never have told Linda the true price to this day!). Of course the next day the heavens opened and temperatures plummeted, right now, sitting here by my computer I am looking at the worlds dearest fan, awaiting our English summer heat, I’ll get my moneys worth!
Anyhow, the pictures show our beautiful view better than I can ever describe, so I’ll let them speak. You will understand why most of our evenings were spent sitting in our lounge, a bottle or two of wine, watching the changing shadows and hues of this inspiring lake.
Our second day, Sunday, we drove to Gossl for a wander around, a leisurely lunch and of course a sample of the excellent Austrian beer. We found that a large glass of ‘Radler’ (shandy) slipped down a treat. The village was a lot busier than expected, a display by the local model flying club was in progress. These wonderful smooth lakes make for a variety of water based flying machines, lifelike flying boats, seaplanes and float equipped helicopters. Buzzed and hummed over the lake in aerial ballet as we sipped (well gulped actually) our lager shandies in the shimmering heat.
There is, as usual, not enough space here to go into great detail, but we try to give you a ‘feel’ for the area and Austria in general. Our greatest impression of the country is that it is so, well, civilised, the way 1950s Britain used to be. No litter, little if any graffiti, civic pride may sum it up, we love it. Even when shopping, minimal wrapping on everything, all plastic bottles have a deposit on them, and the thing is, people do return them! We didn’t see one abandoned car wreck, or witness a single ‘incident’. Maybe we were lucky, all I can relate is what we actually experienced and our views, so please bear that in mind.