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Published: September 13th 2015
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Yesterday was a travel day so not posted on TravelBlog for subscribers.
Today dawned a beautiful, calm and sunny day, just perfect for a bikeride. Irvahn expressed a keenness to bike so we organised three bikes and headed off down through Ebensee and up Lake Traun. It brought back memories of our biking trip 2 years ago when we spent 10 days biking in the Austrian Lake District, 5 of which were in Ebensee.
It is Sunday and the roads were very busy with constant traffic which was the downside of a bike trail running alongside the main road. There is constant traffic noise apart from where the bike trail heads off onto the old road or through tunnels.
Our first stop was at Traunkirchen where we parked our bikes on the lakeside and went up the isolated hill to visit the tiny church on the top. We found a service going on which looked like a Baptism in the chapel so did not enter. This is a superb spot on the lake with jetties, picnic places, and boats everywhere. There were many yachts out on the water so it was a pretty sight. There were people everywhere
in their national costumes and we thought there must have been something being celebrated but by all accounts this is a common practice on a Sunday. Men wore lederhosen and shirts or trousers with traditional waistcoats. The women had lovely colourful dresses, a longer length. The children looked delightful and quite doll-like in their costumes. They are obviously proud of their traditions and it's great to see.
Our next stop was at a restaurant on the lake that we knew about from a previous trip. It has seating right down to the lake front and is very popular for lunch. Katherine (Rosenhof) had suggested that we try a kaiserschmarrn which is a traditional Austrian cake so of course Irvahn and I wanted to taste it. Essentially is is chopped up pancakes with sultanas served with apple sauce. Very yummy but very filling!
Almost to Gmunden was the castle of Ort which is very pretty. There is a castle Ort on land, and castle Ort on the lake. We visited the lake castle which is joined to the mainland with a footbridge. Since we had visited in the past we left Irvahn to tour the inside of the castle
while we sat outside on a bench overlooking the lake. A very serene sitting place while Irvy saw a real skull, the museum, the flood levels over the years and rooms set up for a wedding.
We attempted to continue into Gmunden but the bike trail merged with the walking promenade and it was pretty hopeless trying to bike through the many people so we figured we might as well bike back to Ebensee.
We biked the 16kms back to Ebensee and went a bit further to check out an area of the town that was off limits last time because it had been cut off from the huge flooding that occured in the country in 2013. Ebensee is an unusual town in that it is stretched out along the valley and also on either side of the river Traun so there are pockets of houses and businesses in various places.
There was a fair happening down by the lake front over the weekend so we figured we should check it out. It was fairly tacky with some pretty awful stuff supplied by hawkers who must go from town to town attending every market around. Much of
the merchandise was cheap clothes, handbags, leather belts, jewelry etc but very little in the way of crafts. There was also a lot of sweet buscuits, and candy floss as well as the fairground rides we remember from our childhood. Who would have thought you could still get candy floss? Or dodgem rides? Or a merry go round? Or shooting ranges for little toys? Nothing much had changed over the years.
So, finally back to Rosenhof at 6pm after a thoroughly enjoyable day followed by dinner at a really old, beautifully restored restaurant 20 mins walk away on a back street.
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