Bob on BAC Trans Alps 2008

Please visit August 20 slideshow

Our morning schedule was set. We were to be up at 6:00 with breakfast at 7:00 and bags out to the van at 8:00. Then we could leave for our ride.

Hallstattersee


Hallstattersee Bicycle Path

Today we awoke to cloudy skies. So we packed our rain gear for insurance. Our ride started out on bicycle lanes and country roads. The bicycle road network in Austria is fantastic. Most of the time we share the roads with walkers and sometimes cars, but they have little traffic and they go through quiet villages, forested hills and alongside lakes. Today was no exception. The first lake we came to was Hallstattersee where we rode for several kilometers until we came to a bicycle/pedestrian ferry to take us across the lake. We had two ferry options. The first ferry, the closest, was the one on our route sheet. It was a large ferry that ran only twice per day. The other ferry was further along the trail and ran more often. The ferry landing was near a train station. The trail between the two ferries was gravel in spots. Norbert had not scouted out this part of the trail and wanted feedback from us. The trail was ridable and a good option.

Hallstatt


Hallstatt Bone House

The ferry took us to Hallstatt, a World Heritage site. Jeff and I decided to park our bikes here a walk around the town. One highlight of the town is the Bone House at a Catholic church. Apparently, grave sites are rented in the graveyard. When families no longer want to pay the rent, the bones are dug up. Skulls are cleaned and dried in the sun, polished and decorated with designs. The the skulls and bone are stored in the Bone House.

When we left Hallstatt, it started to sprinkle. After about 5 kilometers it started to rain. We put on our rain jackets and continued on. After another couple of kilometers, we reached the climb of the day - 1.5 km at 18%. Soon after I saw a sign that read 23%, I decided that I had enough pushing my heavy Bike Friday and continued the climb by foot. Jeff kept going and barely beat me to the summit. The road leveled out but the rain increased. We put our rain pants on at this point.

After a short, steep downhill, we entered Bad Aussee where we stopped for lunch. We ate with Steve and Cynthia Hammer from Tacoma. Our meal was potato soup with sausage and a toasted ham and cheese baguette. Not real good, but filling.

Altaussee

We put our wet outer clothes back on and continued on our route. Jeff and I took an option from the route and visited the village of Altaussee and its lake view. Jeff took some photos while I just looked around.

We got back onto the route and then made a wrong turn which gave us a few hundred additional feet of climbing. When the road ended up in two different back yards, we knew we were lost. So we retraced our side route and got back on course.

The rest of the ride was uneventful except at the point where we gave up on the queue sheet and used the marked map instead. We got to the hotel last, which is a first for me. We had enough time, though, to shower, wash our clothes and hang up our wet rain gear to dry out. It stopped raining as soon as we got to Hotel Kogler in Bad Mitterndorf.

It was a beautiful ride, though. Even though we put on extra mileage, we enjoyed it a lot.

Our route rap/happy hour was now set at 6:00 and dinner at 6:30. This was by popular demand. Dinner tonight was good, but not as good as last night. We started out with a pate with bread, avocado mousse and shrimp in a sweet and sour sauce. The next course was a consume with thinly sliced dough that is a cross between a pancake and a crepe. For our main course, I had a vegetarian plate. Jeff had spaghetti with turkey schnitzel. Dessert was a plum baked in a flour/potato dumpling with crumbly sugar/cinnamon mixture.