Rovinj, Croatia to Heiligenblut, Austria
Got up early and finished packing, then off to the Adriatic Hotel for breakfast again. Same waiter (from Bosnia).
Walked back to the hotel and got to the door just as our golf cart ride arrived. Loaded up the luggage and rolled through the largely empty 8am streets in the golf cart.
Drove north to the Postojna Caves.
So much traffic getting out to our Alpine destination!
Austrian guy helping me with credit card at mountain side gas station.
We arrived at our Hotel (National Park Lodge Grossglockner) around 6:30pm and had to drive south a bit to park in a parking garage. The area is idyllic! Like Heidi will come singing down a mountain any minute. We also discover that the Marmot is the town mascot. I quip that California Marmots chew car wiring and the hotel clerk dismisses me outright. “Our marmots don’t do that”. The implication is that Marmots from California are criminals.
Search for dinner. Everywhere we went, it was nearly impossible to find a place to eat at 7pm. Seems like everyone is out at exactly that time. Because people hang out at tables for longer, they will basically turn you away if you arrive that time. Such was the case of the Italian place our hotel clerk recommended. So we looked around for other places and were able to get two high-top chairs surrounding a pillar in the middle of the room of Café-Restaurant Dorfstub’m. I had an individual pizza, the “Deftig” and a couple sour Radler beers. Sylvia had Kärtner Kasnudeln (described as “Carinthian speziality (sic) homemade noodles stuffed with cheese and brown butter”) We finished the meal with an order of Bauernkrapfen (described as “Carinthian doughnuts”)
After we ate, we took a walk around the area, including passing through the centerpiece church and it’s graveyard. We then took a long walk through the valley while it started to get dark, trying to walk off some of the heavy meal and defeat the restless feeling after a long driving day. The path took us across a river, but the only return bridge was far up the valley, so the walk ended up being much longer than we anticipated, so we were hustling by the end. Passed the local shed/bar, but decided it was too late (and we were still stuffed) to go in for a drink. Maybe next time.
Got back to the hotel room and found it less stuffy as we’d left the window cracked, but opened the balcony door and window all the way.
(15,097 steps)