A photo of an old small church standing on a green field in a remote and isolated village between mountains, caught my eyes when I was planning a hike trip in Austria. That was St. Georg church of Kals, which made me reserve the 3rd day in Lienz for visiting it.
Kals am Großglockner
Kals is a small village at the foot of the Großglockner mountain (3,798 m) in East Tyrol with a population of about 1,200 in 2015, which lies approximately 30 km north-northwest of Lienz. On July 20, I got on a bus 4408 at 9:05am in front of Lienz train station to visit this village. The bus ran north along the river Isel for nearly 30 minutes to Huben, where I changed to another bus for Kals village. Within an hour in total, I got off at the information center in Ködnitz district of Kals and planed the hiking course for that day with the help of a young lady staff there.
St. Georg church
I made up my mind to climb to Mt. Gorner (2,702 m) and headed for the lift station in Grossdorf, On the way, I found a small Romanesque church of St Georg standing in solitude on a green field. According to the old charters, this village had already a separate parish in 1197 and the St Georg church is said to have been rededicated in 1366.
This church looked like symbolizing the village’s unique history. During the latter Iron Age the Celts came in and founded its kingdom Noricum in 400 BC, which became a province of the Roman Empire in 16 BC. After the battle of Aguntum 610 between Bavarians and Slavs, the Slavs penetrated into the valleys of East Tyrol and settled in the Kals Valley. Historically there lived together peacefully Celts, Romans, Slavs and Bavarians for centuries, developing a spirit of community through faith in God in this isolated village. I imagined how they could have forgotten their hatred in everyday life and pray for God side-by-side at this Romanesque church.
Mt. Gorner
There are several pleasant hiking routes along the 19.5 km long Kals Valley, but I preferred to be on a top of mountains, even if it was not the mighty Grossglockner. The lift station in Grossdorf, just 10 minutes walking away from the church, was an entrance to the high alpine hiking trails such as the ascent to Mt. Gorner (2702m) or Europa Panoramaweg which leads to Matrei im Osttirol village. From the summit station I took the route to Mt. Gorner.
<Kals village> <Mt. Grossglockner>
Ascending a steep rocky slope starting from Adler Lounge at the summit station, I enjoyed 360 degree spectacular views before my eyes. Yes, this is the Hohe Tauern National park with more than 60 peaks over 3000 meters viewed from this trail. Near the top of Mt. Gorner, I met a Belgium family with two small kids and asked him to take a photo of me with the Mighty Grossglockner, the highest in Austria in the back.
From the peak, I returned to the Adler Lounge, where I took a late lunch with a little bit of beer watching magnificent mountain ranges.
Here were my orders;
- Weihenstephaner Weizen hall 0.3l for 3.00 euro
- Grösser Bier Ladypfiff 0.2l for 2.4 euro
- Würstl mit Brot und Senf for 4.00 euro
This was absolutely one of my best restaurants ever.
While waiting for a last bus to Lienz at Ködnitz, I met a senior couple from UK, who were travelling across Europe by car. As their sun was working in Osaka, Japan and they had once traveled across my country, they were very friendly and we spent a pleasant time chatting for a while. And they taught me an interesting beverage dubbed as "Radler" with beer and lemonade which was the ideal for mountain hikers who loved beer, but couldn't drink while walking. Next time I'd try that certainly!
(to be continued; next "Renewable energy in Austria vs Japan")
Related blogs are;
"Mt. Schafberg - A senior hiker on Austrian Alps (1)" posted on Aug. 4, 2015
"Zell Am See - A senior hiker on Austrian Alps (2)" posted on Sep. 9, 2015
"Lienz - A senior hiker on Austrian Alps (3)" posted on Oct. 22, 2015
<Bus trip from Zell To Lienz>
There’s no direct bus nor train from Zell to Lienz. I left Zell at 9:30 am on July 18 by bus for Mittersill, about 25 km to the east. From Mittersill, there is only a bus connection to Lienz in East Tyrol running north to south through the Felbertauern road tunnel of 5.3 km long at an elevation of about 1630 m within the Hohe Tauern mountain range. In the 14th century, traders carried salt, ice, and copper from north to south over the Felbertauern Pass (2481m) to northeastern Italy. Goods such as wine, velvet, and silks were brought over the pass from south to present day Austria and Germany. Through the bus window, I enjoyed viewing quiet and scenic mountain valley landscapes, while imagining those good-old days’ adventurers. On the middle of the trip, the bus stopped at Matrei, well known for an access point to the Großvenediger peak (3,657 m), the 2nd highest in Austria.
It was just 15 minutes before noon that I arrived at the Lienz train station.
<Lienz, a medieval town>
From the station I got a taxi to go to 'Goldner Stern', a pension for my three days stay in this town. The taxi driver looked like a cheerful Italian, who listened to Mozart violin concerto while driving. I've never seen before a taxi driver who indulged himself in listening to classical music in his car. After check-in, I walked toward the city center and looked for an Italian restaurant. I felt like eating spaghetti here, not Austrian beef cuisine.
Geographically Lienz is lying 40 km north from the boarder with Italy and has an atmosphere of a small medieval town with the population of less than 12k. The streets and the city markets lured me to think of its glorious days during 13 to 15 centuries. I instantaneously loved this kind of medieval atmosphere.
For mountain hikers, Lienz represents one of the alpinist’s holy Meccas, which is surrounded by the Hohe Tauern mountain range in the north and the Dolomites in the south stretching to the northern Italian Alps. This town provides a good access to varieties of spectacular landscapes.
History of Lienz
Lienz first appeared in history under the name of Luenzina, in a deed issued by the Bishop of Brixen about 1030 when it, together with the neighboring area, belonged to the Patriarchate of Aquileia, an episcopal see in northeastern Italy, at the era of the Holy Roman Empire. Afterwards it was purchased by the Counts of Gorizia, who were originally officials in the Patriarchate of Aquileia, and they chose Lienz as their residence. They started to reign the Country of Gorizia from 1127. This town flourished as a marketplace on the trade route from Venzone in Italy to Salzburg and received city rights in 1242. In 1278 the Counts completed the castle Schloss Bruck, which served as their local seat until 1500, when the Austrian imperial House of Hapsburg succeeded all its estate.
<The views from the castle Schloss Bruck>
Schloss Bruck
After strolling around the city center, I headed for the castle as my first must-see here, which was in the walking distance from the city center. This castle has been well preserved and is now used as a city museum, where they exhibited the works by Albin Egger-Lienz (1868–1926) when I visited. Ascending old wooden stairs in the tower, I could get a whole picture of the city.
<on the way to the castle> <the entrance>
St. Andrew’s Church
Next morning, it was a fine and restful Sunday, so after breakfast I strolled out across the river Isel to the nearby St. Andrew’s Parish Church. This church was built in 1450 on the Romanesque foundations with its porch and crypt constructed in 1204. The area including St. Andrew was Christianized from Aquileria in north-east Italy in the 4th century. I arrived there before their Sunday service began. A middle-aged woman came from nowhere and humbly gave a small bouquet of flowers to the photo of a little girl at a kind of a family vault on the church wall, while her dog was quietly waiting. This was touching.
Gradually more and more people came to the church for attending to a Sunday service, whom I followed and sat on a wooden row seat at the back. During the service, although I could not understand what the priest and his assistants were saying in German, but I could guess fairly well what was going on, because I had experiences to attend to such christian church services while I was in elementary school in Japan more than 60 years ago. When people sang a hymn, I stood as well as other attendees and also made a donation. When the service over, somebody sitting nest to me offered his hand to shake mines. I am a Buddhist, but respect people's religious minds to seek for peace and happiness in this troublesome world. Hearing people hymning in tune with the 17 century-made pipe-organ, I thought that eventually we were the same human beings no matter what a different religious background we might have.
Zettersfeld
Returning to the pension, I was wondering how I should spend the afternoon as I had no plan for that Sunday. I asked the mistress of a pension for some advice in exploring the local nature or culture that Lienz has to offer. Thanks to her advise, I headed for Zettersfeld which was situated north of the town and truly a gateway to the Hohe Tauern National park. It took around 40 minutes by walking to reach the cable car station.
The cable car was not operated with nobody lining up in front of its gate when I reached. It was a lunch break time. I was a first passenger when it resumed a operation at 13 pm and a cable car lifted me very smoothly to the summit station at 1,800 m high through the alpine pastures spread under my feet.
With no definite plan I headed toward the Neualplseen lakes, the most popular site in the area, which was located between the peaks of Schleinitz (2,905m) and Goiselemandl (2,433m). I enjoyed in viewing the Lienz Dolomite range standing solemnly to the south in Italy. But at around 15 pm on the way, it started to rain and people warned me that the cable car might stop operation earlier before 4 pm. So I decided to return back. I regret that I had not reserved an extra day for hiking in Zettersfeld.
(to be continued; next "Kals")
Related blogs are;
Zell Am See - A senior hiker on Austrian Alps (2) posted on Sep. 9, 2015
Mt. Schafberg - A senior hiker on Austrian Alps (1) posted on Aug. 4, 2015
<From Salzburg to Zell Am See>
On a train down to Zell Am See from Salzburg, I sat next to an old lady. There were few people in the car and as she was so friendly that we started to talk at once. But soon we came to realize that it was not an easy task for us to continue chatting between German and English. Just avoiding uneasy silence of nearly two hours until we both reached Zell, I got an idea to use a translation tool on my smart phone, which I had never used before. I put an English sentence into this device and showed her its translation result in German, and she put a German word in her turn. Thus we spent a pretty good time, but I was puzzled by her remark on cows when I told her that I was going to hike on Austrian Alps. It was not until the very next day when I met a herd of cattle grazing on my way at a high altitude near the Schmittenhohe summit, I realized that not only hikers but also cows liked to spend a good time on high altitude in summer time. Zell Am See is a small town by the lake surrounded by mountains and provides good access to diverse hiking trails, which allow people with different levels of experience and physical strength to enjoy hiking according to their own tastes. I went to the tourist information center at first and got a very practical hiking map and useful tips on choosing my next day's hike.
<Schmittenhohe - 4 LAKE HIKING>
In the next morning, I rode up on the lift to Schmittenhohe and from there walked along the trail No.50 dubbed as “4 LAKE HIKING”, which was one of the recommended routes for a hiker with some experience by the city's simple hiking guide. Starting the Schmittenhohe top with the height of around 2000 meter, I could easily trail the path per guideposts. It was a really nice walking, breathing in cool mountain air and having a great view of Austrian alpine scenery on a sunny summer holiday.
<Kitzsteinhorn - Gipfelwelt 3000>
In the afternoon after 4 LAKE HIKING, I descended to Zell and headed for Kaplan on a local bus to see Kitzsteinhorn glacier and have a panorama view from Gipfelwelt 3000 lookout.
While planing in Japan, I was thinking about taking part in a guided tour to the Kitzsteinhorn summit (3,203m altitude) led by a state qualified alpinist. But this requires the ascent of 200 meter altitude being fastened to a rope with other climbers and I was not so sure of it, so abandoned this idea. Instead, I just changed to a different lift up three times, which took me to 3,000 meter altitude so easily in less than 50 minutes. At the top, I walked down to an ice field, excited with the cool touch of summer snow under the strong summer sunshine just as kids playing with sleighs. Back to the Gipefelwelt 3000 lookout, I enjoyed the magnificent view of mountains in the Hohe Tauern National Park.
<Pinzgauer Spaziergang>
This hiking trail also starts from the top of Schmittenhohe lift and stretches along the mountain ridge of Kitzbühel Alps to Saalbach. It requires 6 hours of pure walk, all-day hike so that good physical condition and strength is a must. But the guide book stresses this hike as one of the most beautiful high trails in the eastern Alps with magnificent views of the Kitzbühel Alps and Hohe Tauern range.
I met a senior hiker from London at the pension. He also came alone to challenge this route to celebrate his 61 years birthday. But on the next day while chatting, he persuaded me not to take this route as he had been forced to retreat somewhere on the way due to the long walk under the heated sun, saying that it would be very tough for a senior lonely hiker like him and me. Anywhere I decided to go on this trail as far as I could.
Around two hours walking from Schmittenhohe, I encountered a senior German hiker returning from the opposite direction and we talked for about one hour, considerably long time for a hiking rest, siting on rocks under the shadow of trees. He started earlier with a tour group, but decided to return to Schmittenhohe. He was of almost same age as me, we felt some familiar feeling each other. He had experiences to visit Japan several times as a chemical company's engineer before retirement, saying he knew some people of the Japanese chemical company which I'm currently working for. Walking alone on a desolate trail makes sometimes a lonely hiker talkative.
30 minutes after waving good-by with him, I reached the mountain hut dubbed "Hochsonnberg Alm" situated at 1841m altitude. This hut welcomes hikers with a menu of specialties and a magnificent view of snow-capped Kitzsteinhorn mountains. Instead of a beer, I ordered a juice, a kind of lemonade, which looked like just water, but tasted subtly sweet and very refreshing. The master said they made this with mountain cool water and asked me how I liked it. It was certainly the most refreshing juice I ever had drunk.
A gently sloping uphill from the hut took me to the saddle point called Rohrertori, where there were no human beings but cattle and horses grazing peacefully and some of them took a suspicious glance at me when I passed by. But this was just the entrance of a maze that made me losing my way. There was certainly a guidepost that might have indicated the right way, but it was written in German with an unfamiliar place name. I tried to make a detour not to interrupt those cattle and horses grazing. I continued to walk on for more than one hour until I found it was not the right way to Saalbach. On this Alm, I learned that broader trails are for those cows and hikers should choose rather narrow roads. When back to Rohrertori, I lost two hours and decided to return to where I came from just as my two fellow colleagues.
<Kaiser Franz Joseph Hohe>
On the 4th day in Zell Am See, I joined in the bus tour to Kaiser Franz Joseph Hohe conducted by National Park Rangers. I had been wondering whether I should rent a car to go there, but Ms. Mondre of the pension looked for a nice bus tour and made a booking for me. It was very economical because of its discounted fee of 22euro thanks to a Zell Am See Card and also eco-friendly. I got in the bus at 9:00 at Zell and a park ranger started to explain us in English about the today's tour and the nature of the Hohe Tauern National Park. The bus drove on the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, one of Europe’s greatest alpine road,which connects Bruck and Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Höhe (2369m), 48 kilometers long with its 36 hairpin curves and a splendid view of glacier mountains.
Our first bus stop was the Alpine Nature Show Museum at an altitude of 2260 meters above sea level, which highlighted its local mineral and flora exhibition. From the nearby lookout, I enjoyed the scenic view of glaciated peaks including 3564m Grosses Wiesbachhorn.
At 12 o'clock the bus arrived at Kaiser Franz Joseph Hohe Visitor Center (2369m). I followed our park ranger to the crystalline Wilhelm-Swarovski observatory, listening his explanation about the area's fauna, rapidly retreating
Pasterze Glacier and climbing route to the top of Mt. Grossglockner; "The Grossglockner is the Austria's highest mountain, 3, 798 meters high above sea level with the longest glacier in the eastern Alps, the Pasterzeand. You can see lovely marmots socializing each other near the center and if you are lucky enough, the mighty ibex might loom up in the fog." But looking at the retreating glacier made me realize how the global warming has presented itself as a real threat to human beings.
We had two hours to explore the site before 14 pm, the departure time of bus. I took a lunch at a restaurant with a great view of Grossglockner behind the back of ibex statue, ordering "Leberkase", fried egg with potato salad for 9.8 euro and 0.3L draft beer for 3.2 euro. In return, our bus descended the same zigzag road back to Zell and stopped in a half hour at Fuscher Lake (2262m) for a short coffee break. The lake was calm with the sound of melting snow flowing into it and reflecting the surrounded mountains images. On the road side, people gathered to see a marmot coiling around the neck of his master.
The Grossglockner High Alpine Road had been constructed between 1930 and 1935, during the Great Depression, around 80 years later after the visit by the Emperor Franz Joseph. Although the construction was motivated by the people's anticipation toward the opening of motorized tourism, they are also eager to protect the area's natural environment. The local people advised me not to use rent-a-car, but recommended me to take part in a bus trip. I heard the touring bus was launched in 2012 for sustainability reasons as well as offering an easy access to the region's unique natural beauty.
(to be continued; next "Lienz")
The other blogs related to "A senior hiker on Austrian Alps"
1. "Mt. Schafberg from Salzburg" posted on Aug. 4, 2015
