Ortisei to Ebensee (Austria)

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Today was a travel day from Ortisei to Ebensee in the Salzkammergut Lake District of Austria, not far from Salzburg.

The drive out of Val Gardena was as hair raising as driving in. The road is narrow and winding, the walls on the mountain side seem to be right by the passenger seat and it seems too fast downhill. Maybe I'm losing my nerve but those walls being so close to the side of the road had me leaning towards the driver. Once onto the autostrada driving is more straight forward but all the way to the Brenner Pass was heavy traffic, often slowed to a crawl, and with many trucks - and this was a Saturday.

Strangely, the shortest route to Ebensee was up to Innsbruck, into Germany towards Rosenheim, then back into Austria by Salzburg and lastly around the lakes Monsee and Attesee. The TomTom made a hash of the last part of the journey when it took us through back roads to Bad Ischl rather than on the main road. So, what started off on the TomTom to have us arriving at 1.05pm ended up being 2.30 due to the heavy traffic.

It was lovely to arrive in Ebensee again where we had stayed for several nights a couple of years ago on another cycle tour. We really enjoyed the hospitality of Katherine and Robert at Rosenhof B&B so wanted to come here again. This time with a car we can go further afield and see a lot of what we didn't see last time. It is so nice to be somewhere quieter without the large numbers of tourists. It's also a very beautiful place to visit.

We met our neice, Irvahn off the train at 6pm as she is staying with us for the next few days. As always it is lovely to see her and enjoy her stories about life in Switzerland where we have such fond memories.

Now we are back in the lower altitudes the weather is warmer so we were able to sit out on the balcony in the sun, eating chocolate and drinking a celebration bubbly. We later walked down to a local restaurant where we had an excellent meal - one of the better ones since we have been on holiday. We shall return.

Robert and Katherine now have a little boy called Lucas who is 14 months old. This has changed their lives somewhat with the accommodation business so they no longer do the cycle tour groups or dinners. However, they do still have the bikes available for rent and we shall used these tomorrow since the weather is looking good. (Check out the Rosenhof B&B, Ebensee on TripAdvisor)

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