European Trip - Day 22

Today we walked from the site southwards, up the Gerstrubental valley. We followed the river for a bit then went past a nice pond.

At times we were on a track through meadows, at other times we were walking on a quiet road. The views towards the Austrian Alps were good.

We then turned off the track and went steeply up in the forest next to a gorge with viewing platforms over spectacular waterfalls.

We reached the tiny village of Gerstruben, which only has a mountain hut, a few residences and a chapel. We had some lunch sitting in a barn with some old farming equipment in it.

We had the option of carrying on up the hill and down into the next valley, but reckoned it would be a tough slog in the heat. Instead we carried on up the Gerstrubental valley.

We came across an old water mill.

From a meadow we had good views back to Gerstruben.

We passed more villages on the way up the valley, Spielmannsau and Alpe Oberau. There we found the perfect lunch spot, a bench next to a tiny chapel.

We then took the direct route back down the valley, passing many remote buildings, farms and livestock fields on the way.

We stopped just outside town at Cafe Jägerstand, which has views over the river.

The walk was 22.5km with 570m of ascent. When we got back to the van we left Oscar and went for a walk into town.

We had a beer in a beer garden then returned to the van for dinner. We had a barbecue of bratwurst, pepper, courgette and tomato.