Leaving the Bodensee to Konigsee and heading for Austria - 20th September 2013
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| Grassau - nice place for a coffee stop |
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| Neubeuern to Furstenbrunn |
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| Valley cycling |
My Neubeuern Hotel was a bit upside down with a breakfast room up on the top floor. Good views of the mountains from up there though. A decent Breakfast Buffet but the bears had been at the honey pot and it was empty. It was to be the last day on the Bo-Ko and a course that took me through Rohrdorf, Frasdorf, Grassau, Bergen and Traunstein to Piding. It was not that it was a bad route, it just did not quite match up to what had gone before. It was a far busier area and often on the 'road to somewhere'. Chiemsee was today's Lake, and was just to the North of my route. It's a familiar stop for the train from Munich to Salzburg and Bad Hofgastein. One of my Plan B's before I left home was to hop on the train here if I was running late or perhaps fed up with pedalling. In practice, I was still enjoying being on the bike and I was nicely on schedule for my Saturday arrival in Bad Hofgastein.
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| Sheltering under a tree |
Quite a bit of the route was on a busy valley road and although I was perfectly secure, on a separate track alongside, it was very noisy. It was also fairly wet and I made a dive into a nice Backerei in Grassau for elevenses.
The Coffee and Cake were very much up to standard but the Lady serving was very heavily pregnant and there was nobody else around. I was a bit worried I would have to rush for help or maybe look for towels and hot water. Also made a late lunch stop for a chicken salad in Traunstein. Setting myself up nicely for the ride into Austria. My probable route was still to turn off at Piding for Salzburg but I was still considering continuing to Berchtesgaden and then swinging off for the descent to Hallein. When I got to Piding the decision was made for me as it was raining and the cloud base was very low. I would have found myself climbing into the mist after Bad Reichenall. Had a bit of trouble finding my way to the border. Had to ask people the way a couple of times. Not quite sure why I made it so difficult? The key village was Marzoll where I was told I needed to head for the Church and would see the border with Austria. Got there eventually and spotted the familiar Austrian green rectangular bike signs ready to guide me round the mountain. So it was Auf Wiedersehen to Germany and Frau Merkel. She had been smiling down on me throughout my time in the Bundesrepublik, either that or there was an election going on?
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| Frau Merkel - Germanys favourite pin-up |
My green signs for the Tauern Radweg sent me down a separate cycle path alongside a busy road and then a cross-country route marked for Salzburg and Grodig. When the routes diverged very near Salzburg I headed towards Grodig on a route very close to the familiar A10 Motorway, the Tauernautobahn. In the gathering gloom I stopped at the first available Gasthof, the Gasthaus Esterer, just before Furstenbrunn. Have to say, it looked a bit rustic and the public areas were very dated and dark. On the other hand, my room was
fine, typically Austrian and spotless. I wanted a meal and the Lady announced that I would have to eat in ten minutes. I was clearly the only resident. No time for a shower then! After my late lunch I would have preferred to eat a good deal later. She rustled up a traditional meal of boiled meats, potatoes and cabbage served in the pan. I ate with the elderly couple running the place. I had my Weiss Beer, he had Wine and chatted about his son in South Africa and the solitary Peacock in the Garden. The rest of the Peacock family had been eaten by the Martens that are bit of a pest around here.They bit the Peacocks in the neck and drank their blood. Apparently they attack the pipes under cars as well. The solitary peacock now has mirror near his perch so he has someone to talk too. Katy, the dog, looked like a hairy Dachshund and was tied up so she would not run off into the forest? Think I might have let her go. The grounds were lovely and deer were munching on the 'fallers' from the Apple Trees. There is a cable car nearby, the Untersberg, but it sounded difficult skiing from what I could understand. Very early night for me, no way I was going out in the rain again. Checked under the bed to make sure there were no Martens lurking before hitting the sack.
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