Stage 5: Maria Laach via Aggsbachmarkt to Emmersdorf

6 a.m. That’s when you’re being woken up in pilgrimage places because the church bells just love to announce that time of the day… 🙄 It also doesn’t help when your accommodation is right next to the church, mind you.

Breakfast at the Hotel Grüner Baum was nothing special but it was food so we stuffed ourselves and started today’s two stages of the trail…

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Stage 4: Mühldorf – Maria Laach

At night, the rain that was predicted the whole afternoon finally came. It was quite some downpour but no thunder. So much for precise weather forecast. 🤣

We didn’t rush to breakfast this morning because we had a short trip ahead today but since we went to bed rather early we were hungry and awoke before the alarm. And so we were the first ones at breakfast again… 😉

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Stage 3: Weißenkirchen – Spitz – Mühldorf

Today, thunder and rain was forecasted so we wanted to start a little earlier than the last two days. The owner of the Donauhof was so lovely and prepared breakfast for us already at 7.30 a.m., therefore, and it was great! Many regional products, great cakes and other sweet stuff, home-made apricot jam again, tea from Sonnentor, organic fruit juices, a great Liptauer spread…

So we started off filled and happy at 8.15…

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Stage 2: Dürnstein – Weißenkirchen

We slept very well in the B&B Gästehaus Rolea, not a sound outside, and even awoke before the alarm went off. Breakfast was awesome! Muesli, fresh fruits, fresh bakery stuff, home-made apricot jam from the owner’s own apricot garden, avocado, boiled eggs… If you ever get to stay at Dürnstein really consider this B&B – and it’s so much cheaper than all the hotels there! The owner even cut us two slices of the home-made apricot cake for the way as he saw that we wanted to head off before even trying it. 😉

Then off we went. First stop – Burgruine Dürnstein.

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Stage 1: Krems – Dürnstein

We arrived around 9.30 a.m. in Krems and dove straight into our first stage – after having had to walk 1,5km to the starting point at the Hoher Markt (because we never do it the easy way, of course 🤣).

Immediately the pattern of today’s tour began to emerge: up and down and up and down…

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Hiking between woods, vineyards and the Danube

Soon we’ll be off to a new short trail – 10 days and 200km will lead us through the beautiful region of Wachau. It won’t be alpine (nope, definitely not 😂) but it will be scenic with lots of great spots like Stift Melk, Stift Göttweig, Dürnstein (King Richard Lionheart anyone?) etc. on our way. I also hope to be served great food.

If you want to check out the route in advance: https://www.donau.com/de/wachau-nibelungengau-kremstal/ausflug-bewegen/bewegung/welterbesteig-wachau/

We’ll be doing different stops and even combining some days because after all, we’re here for the hiking and not wine drinking. 😉

To sum it up…

  • Distance hiked: approx. 170 km
  • Difference of altitude hiked: approx. 10.000m (for each up and down)
  • Time in motion: approx. 50 hours
  • Total time: 62 hours

So, you see due to the weather we didn’t spend much time for breaks during our daily hikes which really was a pity. But you usually don’t make hours of comfortable breaks while surrounded by dense fog and drizzling rain or while a thunderstorm rages somewhere above your head.

The nature on the Nockberge Trail (especially our variation of it) was amazing, the smell even more. Speik and Swiss pines everywhere, the funny whistling of the marmots, the pretty and chilled cattle all along the way… and when we didn’t have any fog: the view! The oh so awesome view! We had at least 1/3 of fog on our hike and the rest wasn’t full sunshine either but the surrounding so compensated for all the weather deficits.

You should try some hiking days in the Nockberge – they are worthwile every drop of rain and patch of fog only with their sheer beauty of mostly untouched nature!

And now for a little visualisation: Here is our trail in 3 graphics (it didn’t fit in one 😀 )!

Day 10: Back to Austria, Kranjska Gora – Faak/See

So, now we were in Kranjska Gora. How to come back to Austria? Public transport would be possible but not very easy because there’s no train to Villach. A taxi would cost around 50 Euro, not too expensive but then again we could invest those Euros in food. 😜 And our CO2 footprint wouldn’t be so nice after all. So, the only logical solution: let’s just hike back the way we came from!

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Day 9: AAT Reloaded, Stage 22 –> Baumgartner Höhe – Kranjska Gora

Today we would be hiking another stage of the AAT, from Baumgartner Höhe to Kranjska Gora. Meaning we would be hiking along the Austrian-Slovenian border, via some mountain passes and summits without any serviced huts on the way. It’s also the most difficult stage of the AAT with an approx. duration of 8 hours… So, let’s have some fun! 😎

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