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Austria - Day 2 at Salzkammergut

Friday, January 6, 2012 - 2 Comments


Yayyy! Here comes, the most wonderful and memorable experience in Austria J If you are taking your car (you should, especially to Austria) or even if you don’t (like us & keep your fingers crossed about the next bus), a MUST visit is the salzkammergut area near Salzburg. Once you are there, you cannot help but fall in love with Nature - the lakes, the mountains, the lush green all over and the calmness.
We had zeroed in on the Schafbergbahn, the train (it’s a beauty!) that takes you to the top of a mountain. We arrived at the Salzburg train station to board a bus to St.Wolfgang, the base station for the journey. The buses aren’t frequent at all, there is one every hour or so. But the previous day, we had decided to take the first bus to get as much time as possible in Salzkammergut and to avoid missing the last bus back. But what we did not expect was that, the driver told us that this bus doesn't goto St.Wolfgang and that we have wait for another hour! Since that would make our schedule tight, we decided to board the bus and get down at the Fuschlsee and plan the rest of the day accordingly. We couldn't get much guidance from the driver with language problems. As soon as we got down the bus, we realised that it clearly was a wise decision to come to Fuschlsee.

We were awestruck at the serene, green water lake and were contemplating the direction to get nearer when we saw another equally excited tourist showing us the way saying, ‘It takes 3 hours to come around. It is SUPERB!’ J 
Since we didn’t want to miss the Schafbergbahn, we dropped the idea of walking around the lake heavy heartedly but just took a short walk (Ofcourse, after checking the timings of the next bus). The calm, green lake, the mountains, the greenery around, a couple relaxing on a boat being operated by their little triplets, few people heading to the lake from there hotels, women reading a book on the shore, few others swimming... I should say, this place was picture perfect. 
There are a lots of hotels to stay around the lake and I would highly recommend staying there for a while if you have the time or if not, atleast a day or two. Half-heartedly we left the Lake to catch the bus that would take us to Strobl, from there we had to take another bus to reach St.Wolfgang.

We then took the Schafbergbahn (thanks to the tip on the Internet, we rightly chose to sit on the left side of the train that offered great views) and thoroughly enjoyed the view during the entire journey. Its best said in pictures :)







Once you reach the top, you got to reserve a time slot for your return trip. There is a restaurant at the top that's quite big enough and serves decent food. We had our lunch there and came out of the restaurant to realize that you could also dine outside which makes much sense on a clear day :-(
The train journey takes around 30-40 mins one way and costs 29 Euros per adult for a roundtrip. Check out the brochure at http://www.schafbergbahn.at/  - you can find in the left navigation bar in different languages. It has lots of information!
Once we were back to the base station, we checked our bus timings(the last one!) and decided to spend the rest of the time, about an hour, near the lake St.Wolfgang. We also rented a boat for a while and M enjoyed it to the fullest. I felt kind of troubled with M riding the boat, water all around ;) and the fact that we don't know swimming and there was no life jackets in the boat. Hee hee :) 
Relying on public transport in Salzkammergut should be the last thing on the plan but am glad we did it against all the 'What If?'s. And we definitely recommend atleast a day or two in Salzkammergut (Fuschlsee is my choice! Its so so picture perfect). 
And need I say that we ended the day with dinner at Taj Mahal in Salzburg? :)


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Exactly my plan for next years annual vacation. So glad to see that its doable. And thanks a lot for all the handy tips. -Shilpa

G said...

Happy it helped shilpa :) Have a great time in Austria...

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