The next morning I rise early. I want to fit in a quick run before we eat breakfast. I know, I know, I’m on holiday and supposed to be relaxing but I’ve been running every week since April and I didn’t want to break my streak. I’ve also been putting a lot of work into incorporating exercise into my life as self care not a punishment so it felt necessary to still do it.
Off I went running past houses, grapevines, early morning workers, until I ended up on an industrial estate. I have to admit, I was a little hesitant. What if someone dragged me into one of the buildings never to be seen again? “Just keep running”, I said to no one in particular.
Once back at Yahanatou’s I had a quick shower before breakfast. Oh the lovely breakfast Yahanatou had prepared. Breads, cheeses, fruit, jams, meat, green tea. All set up in the little court yard garden. We shared stories about our lives back home and Oliver (Yahanatou’s husband) joined us too. It was a bright, warm morning and the local wasps decided to join us. To say I’m not a fan of flying insects is putting it mildly. While I was flapping around Oliver calmly walked away from the table without saying a word and came back with a glass that he just popped over the wasp and carried on eating like nothing had happened. What a guy!
Sadly it was time to leave, we hugged and I promised to write (which I will) before we set off on the next part of our journey. We’d decided to pick up some bread for the journey and not long after we left the house we spotted a huge queue outside of a bakery. Surely a good sign? We pulled over and queued for 10 minutes or so before entering the little bakery. It was full of cakes, tarts and bread. Joe chose a baguette and I chose a millefeuille. It was the perfect dessert after the savoury breakfast.
Approximately 7 hours and 3 toilet breaks later we are in Austria. The scenery has changed dramatically, it’s breathtaking. One thing we didn’t expect was the amount of tunnels. The last tunnel we drove through seemed to last forever, as we came out of it and light hit us I can’t describe the view in front of us. Let’s just say it was emotional. This is what we had been waiting for, absolute pure beauty. Majestic snow capped mountains all around us, raw and rugged. It was mesmerising.
A few winding roads later and we were in the little town of Großarl which is located right in the middle of a valley. Carmen our host came to greet us and we were surprised to find we weren’t staying in her house, we were staying in a little room at the base of a larger hotel. She ran it as a business. She was lovely, originally from Italy but had also lived in London for a while before settling in Austria. After giving us a key, she wished us a happy stay and disappeared. I was relieved. The thing about staying in airbnbs is you have to be ready to converse with people at any moment, although that’s one of the lovely things it’s also tiring and I was happy to not have to deal with anyone, as lovely as they had all been.
There wasn’t a lot going on for an overnight stay, it’s a place for hiking, mountain climbing and skiing rather than a stopover but it was beautiful. Every wooden house absolutely perfect. Not a thing out of place, not a drop of litter anywhere and flowers everywhere. Seriously, every house was covered with baskets and window boxes filled with geraniums.
After a walk we ended up at one of only 3 or 4 places to eat. The super market and bakery had closed already and we ended up outside an old fashioned looking hotel restaurant. Thankfully the food was much better than the place looked and I finally got to try spätzle! I ordered an Aperol spritz and the most Austrian dish ever, need goulash with spätzle. Spätzle is kind of like pasta but instead of a solid dough a soft batter is dropped into water producing moreish dumplingy noodles. It was so good!
We sat for a couple of hours winding down and chatting about what had been our favourite part of the adventure so far. Only 3 days in and we had seen so much.
The next morning we had a breakfast of croissants and coffee at a little bakery. I tried (and pretty much failed to recall my GCSE German. Hallo. Guten morgen. Bitte. Danke….pathetic. As we drove away from Austria I felt a little sad that we hadn’t spent more time there, I longed to get into the mountains and explore but I wasn’t sad for too long as Croatia was just around the corner…
The actual life of Riley 