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:
- Großglockner region
- Millstätter Alpe/Tschiernock
- Nockberge
Felix’ winners in Austria:
- Großglockner region
- Millstätter Alpe/Tschiernock
- Rabisch-Schlucht, Groppensteinerschlucht
Silke’s winners in Italy:
- Monte Lussari
- Pass La Porticina
- Strada Napoleonica
Felix’ winners in Italy:
- Monte Lussari
- Strada Napoleonica
- Castelmonte
Silke’s winners in Slovenia:
- Vrsič pass/Kranjska Gora
- Lipica
- Soča (where we made a break and stepped into the Soča)
Felix’ winners in Slovenia:
- Vrsič pass/Kranjska Gora
- Soča (where we made a break and stepped into the Soča)
- Lipica
City highlights on the whole trail (for both of us):
- Gmünd
- Cividale
- Kranjska Gora
Accomodation highlights on the whole trail:
Silke’s winners:
- Rangersdorfer Hütte
- Fraganter Schutzhaus
- Erlacher Hütte
- Mühlenstüberl
- Hotel Miklic
Felix’ winners:
- Monte Lussari
- Rangersdorfer Hütte
- Hotel Miklic
- Erlacher Hütte
- Sotto il Volto (Bagnoli della Rosandra)
Best food on the whole trail:
Silke’s winners:
- Fraganter Schutzhaus (Goldberggruppe)
- Alexander Hütte (Millstätter Alpe)
- Pizzeria 4S (Cividale)
- Osteria al Colovrat (Clabuzzaro)
- Naturgasthof Schlosswirt (Ossiach)
Felix’ winners:
- Pizzeria 4S (Cividale)
- Himmelbauer
- Erlacher Hütte (Nockberge)
- Osteria al Colovrat (Clabuzzaro)
- Feistritzalm
Good surprises on the way (things we didn’t expect and turned out surprisingly fine)
- Gmünd (such a pretty small artistic town with lovely details!)
- Beautiful forest paths in Italy and Slovenia (like the Rilke Path, Josef Ressel Trail etc)
- 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:
- 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
- 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!
- 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!)
- Rifugio Zacchi
- Alexander Hütte
- Villa Rilke
Bad surprises on the way:
- Trail markings were sometimes really bad, especially in Italy
- This one day with enormous rainfalls and thunderstorms where we had to make a shortcut on our route from the Lärchenhütte to Bad Kleinkirchheim
- Having to take antibiotics against the horse fly bite (Silke) – Lagi di Fusine because of the herds of people (Felix)
Pains, hurts & Co:
- Horse fly bites
- Mosquitos
- A few small blisters