In the cool height of the Hühnersberg we slept quite good and where fit and ready for breakfast at 7.30 a.m. Unfortunately, the innkeepers weren’t. So, hungry as we were we spent a little while outside in the morning sun doing our warm-up for the hike and then went packing our backpacks. Only at 8 o’clock breakfast was finally served. Though I made it quite clear the day before that I’m vegetarian we got a plate full of ham, salami etc. And although there were some grapes and vegetables on the plate most of it lay on the meat stuff. Great. 😒 I stuck to nutella, jam and butter. But oh well, the view from the terrace was awesome and we had great company with Anna and some other guests so it was a very enjoyable breakfast!
At 9 a.m. we set off again. The first part was nice, mainly through the forest and we passed an old water mills which has just been lovingly restored this year.
After passing the mill we soon got on an asphalt road. At first it was quite nice and at one place (above Altersberg) we had a fine view onto the mountains:
It was also there on a bench when we met Anna again and while we chatted another guest from the Hühnersberg accomodation, Martin from Switzerland, who also wants to hike the whole trail came along. So together we hiked a few minutes to Altersberg where we all parted again.
Since the normal path leading to the Märchenwandermeile with the gorgeous suspension bridge is closed this Summer due to rebuilding, Martin wanted to go a different way more up the hills while we wanted to have a look at the small church Georgskirche (one of the oldest churches in Upper Carinthia). Anna went straight down the alternative road and we agreed to meet in Gmünd.
The church was really pretty:
Afterwards a very boring re-routing because of the closed Märchenwandermeile began. Asphalt road near the highway A10, and I was really annoyed that I didn’t get to see the suspension bridge. Moreover, the alternative road wasn’t marked at all and the AAT GPS track led us a completely stupid way once: very steep up a hill (where I got bitten by a horse fly again!!! 😡) and then steeply down again for no good reason!
So we just wanted to get over with this alternative route and were very happy when we reached Gmünd.
We made a picture of the AAT information point and did some shopping at a supermarket.
Finding our accomodation wasn’t too easy but after some detour and seeing quite a bit of the town involuntarily 😉, we got there! It is an old mill from the 19th century being turned into an inn in the 70s and the rooms are really very new and well equipped.
After getting our room and taking a shower we went to meet Anna and had late lunch together. Then we wanted to see the Alte Burg (old castle) and Anna went off for the Porsche museum.
The Alte Burg was really cool, very prettily restored with a lot of sweet details.
The view from the lookout tower of the castle was also fantastic and we freely chose to walk up some stairs for it. 😉
There was also a restaurant at the castle with a nice view down on Gmünd where we stopped for coffee.
Then we went back to our accomodation and had some snacks (fruits, jogurts,…) before we decided to go to the main square again for tea. The café Nussbaumer had a nice outdoor area and so we chose to have a drink and cheese toast there. The first good green tea (leaves!) I had in 10 days!!!
While we were there Martin came along and we chatted quite a long time before we took a final ice cream “to go” and parted for our accomodations.
Gmünd is really a pretty artistic medieval town and the first town on the way I did like very much!
Some figures for today:
- 15km
- 390m up
- 590m down
- Hiking time: 2h 55m