Day 17

September 4, 2021

Travel fatigue is setting in - The Antholzer See

This morning was an experience. As has happened most every day so far, I woke up before my alarm went off. I decided to check on the breakfast on offer. When I asked yesterday, they said there was nowhere to eat outside. I’m overly covid cautious and not keen to eat inside at a hostel. When I looked in on breakfast, I was even less inclined. Two varieties of sliced bread, some packaged spread, all high in sugar content, and a couple sugary cereals. No fruit, no cheese, no meat. That is not a breakfast. On my way back up to my room I passed a disconcerting number of people not wearing masks, most of them without a mask even in their possession. That confirmed that I would never eat breakfast in the Toblach hostel.

On my map I saw a couple bakeries nearby. I decided to see if I couldn’t get something good to eat there. On the way out of the hostel I passed even more people of all ages without masks. In fact, I think I can easily count on one hand the number of people WITH masks. Not exactly in keeping with the laws of Italy. I could have had this experience back in the US and saved myself the trouble of long flights to get here. Granted the views here are nicer and they do have Erdbeerschnitte in a lot of bakeries.

The first bakery I passed only offered sweats. Middle of the day, sure, but I want something a little more nutritious in the morning. The second bakery turned out to be a factory. The next option was a grocery store. That was a much longer walk, but in the end it was worth it. I bought sufficient heathy supplies for breakfast and lunch today and tomorrow. Then I walked the mile or so back to the hostel. On the way I also passed an atm. I was getting short on cash so I stopped in. It wouldn’t accept my card and said it was blocked. Oh boy. Not again. As if my morning hadn’t already been bad enough! The second atm was closed when I walked by and that was the full extent of atms in Toblach. If it weren’t for tourism, I’m pretty sure Toblach would be nothing but a farming village. Seriously. Anyway, after I left the grocery store the second atm was open. Since my card had worked at the store as a credit card I decided to try one more time with an atm. First I had to wait for the guy in front of me to take his time at the atm. He clearly was not starving like I was. Once he finished, I crossed my fingers and inserted my card. It worked! Thank goodness. I was worried I’d have to try and navigate the rest of the trip without cash, not an easy thing in Europe where cash is often still the main form of payment, though I think covid is changing that.

I stopped at reception in the hostel to ask for more toilet paper. This is the only place that didn’t have multiple rolls sitting in the room. Really the whole hostel appears to be a pretty sorry affair. While there I had a conversation with the reception lady about the lack of masking. Her response was essentially we can tell people they have to mask (which they actually don’t - there are just some signs) but they’re adults and we can’t make them. Only Kontrolle can do that. So I asked when Kontrolle would come. She just shrugged. If anyone knows who one would contact to complain, let me know. In the meantime I’m avoiding being in the hostel as much as I can. I should have known better than to come to Italy during a pandemic. Obviously there’s a reason so many people got seriously sick and/or died here and it seems people did not learn a lesson from that experience, much like the US. But enough of the covid ranting. My fault for not better researching this one.

The weather today is more unsettled than previous days. I’ve been overall incredibly lucky with the weather with the only remotely notable bad weather being while I was on the Seiser Alm. Since there is potential for storms this afternoon, I decided this was not the day to do my top two activities, the Dolomites Radweg and the Drei Zinnen. I also decided it was a bad day for the Gsiesertal as well so instead I took the train and bus to the Antholzer See. Originally I was going to ride up the valley to the lake, but this route is actually a virtual route in my bike trainer app. The road is narrow and uphill all the way to the lake with the last part being too steep to be fun. I have free use of regional transport anyway so i decided it would be a good rest day. Having observed on the bus ride up how slow even the e-bikers were going, I’m confident public transit was the right choice for me.

Mountain View out the bus window on the way up the valley to the lake

The Biathlon Center, apparently quite a big draw

Small creek flowing out of the Antholzer See

The Antholzer See has some similarities to the more famous Pragsser Wildsee, with one critical difference: it is not as famous. That means less crowds and photo snapping tourists. The bus ride up was a relatively nice ride with good views. I was one of only a couple people on the bus which runs hourly. The bus stops at the biathlon center rather than right at the lake, but it’s not a terribly long walk. The lake, like the Pragsser Wildsee, has a nice path running all the way around it. Part of the path is boardwalk over a wetland area. Part climbs up the side of the cliffs that run down to the lake, part runs along the shore, and part runs along the mountainside overlooking the road which hogs part of the shoreline on its way to a mountain pass. There are ample good views from all sorts of locations along the lake path. Lighting varied, and thus so did the quality of my photos. Even without drop dead gorgeous photos, it was a nice walk and I stopped at a bench partway to eat the lunch I’d brought with. The lake itself actually lies directly south of the Krimml Wasserfall, though there is no pass leading up over the mountain to the falls. Not even Europeans have figured out how to get a vehicle over a mountain that tall.

More granite. There were some signs along the path talking about the mineral content in the rocks

No idea what type this flower is, but I took an artsy photo of it jus because.

After I finished my walk I noticed the projected rain was making some signs of developing. I also noticed that it would be nearly an hour until the next bus came, having just missed it when leaving the lake. There was a waterfall marked on my maps about 2 miles away so I thought, hey why not walk to it? I can enjoy the mountain scenery along the way and kill some time. For awhile I walked on a fairly new paved path along the road. That was nice. A few cyclists passed going uphill looking pretty miserable. I mentally congratulated myself for not being one of them. Then the path ended. There was a side road coming up with what looked like a way to access a hiking trail. So for a bit I walked in the grass verge along the road as vehicles whizzed by, particularly the motorcyclists who seemed to have confused the road for a racetrack. That rather detracted from the potential serenity of the mountain scenery. I reached the road for the turnoff to cross the creek and access the hiking trail. Oh great. I had to walk uphill to get to it. Okay. I’m tough. I can do this. When I got to the top of the hill, there was a gate. With signs of cow poop on the bridge in front of it. And on the other side of the gate were...a large herd of cows. All gathered right up by the gate. Now I’m not afraid of cows by any means, but these cows looked annoyed. Very annoyed at being on the other side of the gate. Two of them, which I shall call Mr and Mrs Kuhführer, were right up at the gate. Mrs Kuhführer had her head over the gate and the Mr seemed to be eagerly waiting for me to open the gate. It took me a bit to figure out how the gate worked. Once I had it ready to open, Mr Kuhführer made clear attempts to take advantage of the opportunity to escape. I was having visions of being stampeded by cows and yelled at by angry Italian farmers for letting their cows out while simultaneously trying to clean cow poop off my smashed body. I retreated. It seemed the only sensible option given the threatening circumstances. As I wandered back down the hill I could sense the cows angrily staring at me for thwarting their escape plan. Can cows put a curse on you? (Sorry. I did not video this encounter. I regret that now.)

The following are a selection of farm outbuildings along my long walk to the falls

The outbuilding near the jailbreak attempting cows

I chose another place further down to cross the stream. The path there led up along the hill along a ridge. It was a bit of a steep climb followed by a rocky steep descent. Then I reached a flatter area which had a couple areas where streams passed over the path. One of them was a little wider and deeper than I could easily walk across so I decided I would take a flying leap across. That was fine until my right foot landed in a deeper and wetter than anticipated spot. Now I was squish squishing across the meadow, but at least the path was gently downhill and free of awkward angled rocks. That allowed me faster progress, especially helpful now that I had a wet shoe. I am pleased to say that smartwool socks do still keep your feet warm even when wet and by the time I finished supper and returned to my room everything had dried out

I finally reached the turnoff to walk uphill to what I hoped would be a sufficient viewpoint of the falls. I’d actually seen a couple falls before this one, but they didn’t seem marked on my maps so I assumed this one must be significant. I did think it was odd that none of the trail signage mentioned these falls. It wasn’t a particularly long walk to my chosen viewpoint. The falls are pretty high, maybe comparable to the Barbianer Wasserfall. I don’t know that they’re anymore significant than any of the other 5 falls I saw along the valley today though. I took my pictures and headed back downhill.

A small church near the turnoff to walk up the hill to the falls

The best view I could get of the main falls. Way up the mountainside. Nah. I’ve hiked enough for one day.

I had no problem getting back to the closest bus stop in time for the next bus, who was running rather late anyway. As we drove back down the valley it was clear he was not having a good afternoon. He seemed pretty impatient, gesturing at people he thought should have signaled or given him the right of way. I felt his pain. I’ve had that experience plenty cycling here. Back at the train station I had about a 30 minute wait for the train. During the wait a couple kids thought they’d cut corners and jump down and cross the train tracks instead of using the underpass. I finally had enough of them and yelled at them in German for it. I find German has a way of really enhancing orders. The kid apologized and I didn’t see them do it again while I was there. I doubt it will lead to a more rule following future for them though, based on my experiences this vacation.

Supper was a budget affair at a kebab and pizza fastish food restaurant near the train station. My falafel kebab thing and French fries were filling and half the price I usually pay for supper. I shall return there tomorrow to try the curly fries and a falafel in pita pocket instead of the flat bread deal which was actually a burrito shell.

I have spent the rest of the evening hiding in my hotel room watching YouTube videos, at least when the WiFi doesn’t cut out. None of the hotels save the one in St Lorenz have had strong WiFi. I’m glad I got a large data plan on my smartphone service. I have used nearly 4GB so far. I think I got 7.5 but I’d have to check that. Might have been 10.

I’ve no idea what I’m doing tomorrow. Since I don’t need to be up in time for the “breakfast” I won’t set my alarm. Which option I pick will depend on how quickly I recover from my extended hiking today. Between the walk to the grocery store, the hike around the See, and the hike to the falls I estimate I walked 8-9 miles today. That would explain why my feet were pretty tired out. I couldn’t tell you the last time I hiked that far. It’s certainly been many many years. So, check in tomorrow to see what new and exciting things I will either complain about, or go on an on about how great it was. Oh, and I did get sprinkled on today, but I never had to get my raincoat out.

As for travel fatigue, I’m ready to go home now. The last hotel could have compelled me to stick around for awhile. That place was great. This one makes me miss my home with my nice shower, my cozy bed, and strictly controlled access to only those that are vaccinated and following my covid precautions. And I’m sure my cats really miss me too.

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Rich FrasierI don’t know whether cows can put a spell on you, but I’d be double-checking every yogurt container you open for a few months. Sounds like you seriously pissed them off.
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2 years ago

Ben ParkeTo Rich FrasierShould I be suspicious of cheese and gelato as well? The cheese I could survive without, but to need to curb my gelato habit could put a damper on things here. Mr Kuhführer really was very intent on butting his way through that gate. In a war of body weight, he would have come out on top. Literally.
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2 years ago