AAT’s Best of – Our highlights

It took us quite some time but we managed to make our list of highlights, both positive and negative.

Highlights of the trail grouped by country

Silke’s winners in Austria:

  1. Großglockner region
  2. Millstätter Alpe/Tschiernock
  3. Nockberge

Felix’ winners in Austria:

  1. Großglockner region
  2. Millstätter Alpe/Tschiernock
  3. Rabisch-Schlucht, Groppensteinerschlucht

Silke’s winners in Italy:

  1. Monte Lussari
  2. Pass La Porticina
  3. Strada Napoleonica

Felix’ winners in Italy:

  1. Monte Lussari
  2. Strada Napoleonica
  3. Castelmonte

Silke’s winners in Slovenia:

  1. Vrsič pass/Kranjska Gora
  2. Lipica
  3. Soča (where we made a break and stepped into the Soča)

Felix’ winners in Slovenia:

  1. Vrsič pass/Kranjska Gora
  2. Soča (where we made a break and stepped into the Soča)
  3. Lipica
City highlights on the whole trail (for both of us):
  1. Gmünd
  2. Cividale
  3. Kranjska Gora
Accomodation highlights on the whole trail:

Silke’s winners:

  1. Rangersdorfer Hütte
  2. Fraganter Schutzhaus
  3. Erlacher Hütte
  4. Mühlenstüberl
  5. Hotel Miklic

Felix’ winners:

  1. Monte Lussari
  2. Rangersdorfer Hütte
  3. Hotel Miklic
  4. Erlacher Hütte
  5. Sotto il Volto (Bagnoli della Rosandra)
Best food on the whole trail:

Silke’s winners:

  1. Fraganter Schutzhaus (Goldberggruppe)
  2. Alexander Hütte (Millstätter Alpe)
  3. Pizzeria 4S (Cividale)
  4. Osteria al Colovrat (Clabuzzaro)
  5. Naturgasthof Schlosswirt (Ossiach)

Felix’ winners:

  1. Pizzeria 4S (Cividale)
  2. Himmelbauer
  3. Erlacher Hütte (Nockberge)
  4. Osteria al Colovrat (Clabuzzaro)
  5. Feistritzalm
Good surprises on the way (things we didn’t expect and turned out surprisingly fine)
  1. Gmünd (such a pretty small artistic town with lovely details!)
  2. Beautiful forest paths in Italy and Slovenia (like the Rilke Path, Josef Ressel Trail etc)
  3. Monte Carso (one great highlight on an otherwise uninspiring last stage of the trail)

And now for the lists of negative highlights – we really had only a few but during 45 days and 873km you just experience a lot and not everything is great all the time. 😉

Annoying parts of the whole trail:
  1. The stage from Gradisca d’Isonzo to Duino: because there were no trail markings for some parts and it was senselessy long without any reason (there was hardly any highlight) – the only good part was the first few kilometres to Monte San Michele
  2. Partly the last stage because of hiking through an industrial area and bad markings and waste (for the first time on the whole trail!!!) lying around in the forest – definitely not worth a final stage of an otherwise awesome, mindblowing trail!
  3. Hiking on the street for 7-8km down to Gmünd because the Märchenwandermeile was closed
Worst accomodations on the trail (and these were really the only bad ones in fact, everything else was fine!)
  1. Rifugio Zacchi
  2. Alexander Hütte
  3. Villa Rilke
Bad surprises on the way:
  1. Trail markings were sometimes really bad, especially in Italy
  2. This one day with enormous rainfalls and thunderstorms where we had to make a shortcut on our route from the Lärchenhütte to Bad Kleinkirchheim
  3. Having to take antibiotics against the horse fly bite (Silke) – Lagi di Fusine because of the herds of people (Felix)
Pains, hurts & Co:
  1. Horse fly bites
  2. Mosquitos
  3. A few small blisters