The ride from Radstadt down the Enns is surely one of the best and most spectacular ones that exist. The river rushes along, fresh from the mountains that are on all sides. It moves at about 20 kph. The path may take various diversions, but generally it follows the river, so there is no doubt about which direction you are generally heading in.
The main street of Radstadt, leading to the central square
The river from Radstadt is running towards the east. As you descend, there ar about six major mountain ranges that come up to the Enns valley from the south. These ranges are separated by valleys, so each looks like its own mountain. On the slopes of these mountains, meadows extend quite high, and often have individual or clustered mountain chalet style houses. It's very dramatic. On the other side is the Dachstein massif, looking more like a wall of mountain. Also dramatic.Finally, as you pass Oblarn and approach Irdning there is a lone mountain - the Grimming. The Grimming is the "home" mountain of our family in Oblarn and Irdning - the one they are perhaps most familiar with. They say its their favourite mountain too, and they have climbed it many times.
p.s. The rock on the Dachstein side is limestone, while on the south side the rock is some other, older, type. Also, on the south side there is a lot of water, lakes, and vegetation, while on the north the environment is rockier and more barren. The Enns is therefore a major dividing line between environmental systems, and you are riding right up the middle of this whole thing.
At Mandling, before noticing the wool factory, we found this small bakery. They had erdbeeren schnitte, mohn and kwark pastries, and ones with whole apricot halves!
There was a little change of pace from admiring all the mountain scenery, as we pulled into the small town of Mandling. What attracted us first was the bakery, where we found pastry "dream team" candidates: poppyseed rolls, cheese danish, danish with whole apricots and cheese, and danish with poppyseed on one end and hazelnut paste on the other. There were also some strawberry slices, reminding us that we need to research these more while we are in Austria. It was while we sat at a bench, eating our reasonable and conservative (!) selection from these treats, that we noticed the Steiner store nearby. A closer inspection revealed that this was actually Steiner's Wool World - a place where woolen fabrics - like for blankets and capes - is manufactured, and has been since 1888. The store also had an extensive selection of dirndls. Dirndls generally sell for 200 euros and up, but they really look nice.
Arnold Schwartzenegger visited the factory too. Note how in this photo he is wearing histraditional Austrian pants.
Many dirndls for sale. Birgit tells us that while dirndls are quite commonly worn,they are usually reserved for special occasions, like church functions. Johanna was in a school singing performance recently, and dirndl was required dress. The kids looked so great in them!
Schladming is another special place, a real skiing centre. The 42nd Alpine World Ski Championships were held there in 2013, and you can still see evidence of it at the site.
We were amazed that the Grampies in 2012 had cycled 90km to reach Irdning in one day from Pfarrwerfen. After about 60 km from Radstadt this time, we were pretty beat. However, it was reeneergizing to be together again with Christian and Birgit and kids Tobias and Johanna. We talked about all sorts of things for many hours, meaning that I am typing this very late in our day. However, we will hang out here for the day tomorrow, which will be a good chance to rest up and recover, assuming no further staying up late talking!
One of the things we talked about - or rather the Grampies talked and Christian and Birgit looked on bemusedly, was Gruber's Guitar. You may recall from past days' blogs that Franz Gruber was the guy who wrote the music for Silent Night. The words were by Josef Mohr. In the Gruber museum in Hallein, prominently displayed, is a guitar, which I captioned at time as the guitar on which Gruber had played Silent Night, that first time in 1818. But Dodie read that Mohr had played the guitar, and with the organ broken at the time, Gruber had only sung. Why then, I sniffed, would the guitar be in the Gruber museum! Further research seems to reveal that on the death of Mohr the guitar went to his son, and the son then gave the guitar to Gruber. If this story is true, then the stained glass in the Silent Night Chapel in Oberndorf is incorrect, since it clearly shows Gruber playing the guitar. That would be a major error, if true. Does anybody know anything more about this?
Flash< Dodie herself has pointed out that how could Mohr, being a priest, have a son? We have now found what looks the official Silent Night source: www.stillenacht.at/en/origin_song.asp They says lots of legends have grown up around the whole Silent Night thing. They claim to have the facts. So far we have only noticed that confirmation that Mohr playedthe guitar, and that Gruber wrote the piece for guitar because the organ was broken. But how did the guitar get in the Gruber museum?
Update: (for anyone still following this!) In the website tennengau.com are the words: " Joseph Mohr's guitar, with which he performed the song at Christmas in 1818 for the first time. " in reference to the guitar in the Gruber museum. So all sources (except the stained glass!) seem to agree it was Mohr's guitar and he played it. The only question then is how did Gruber or his museum get hold of it?
Rafting is one of the summer activities run out of Schladming.
This house is in Haus, which is competing to be the flowered town capital of Europe. Haus, however, is known to us as the place where two years ago they refused to give us drinking water, even from the washroom, at the community swimming pool.
Weissenbach is one of the most beautiful villages we have ever seen. There are no fancy churches or suchlike, but every house seemed to be an Austrian chalet.
Where we live, houses are just buildings - nothing too special about their history - and the families in them change around a fair bit. Families may sometimes put up a sign, like "The Smiths", or not. In England, it is the houses that have names, and the families are temporary occupants of the house. So the sign would say "Rose Cottage", or "Buckingham Palace" or somesuch.Here, it seems the families are important, and do not change much. See these street signs?
Birgit, with a reprise of strudel making - that she showed me last time. This time she judges the apples around to be of poor quality, so this one will be Qwark.
Christian and Birgit. The map in front of them is from them trying to figure out which exact mountains I was raving about, especially in the vicinity of Pass Lueg.
