DAY 2 - VILLACH

2) WEDNESDAY, 29 JUNE 1977: 232 KMS. - VILLACH


I woke up almost 9 am., had coffee and breakfast in our campervan.  Around 10.30 am,  I went out to buy some postcards to write to friends in Germany and family.

Kitzbühel - Photo : Bing images search

Almost at noon, we left the famous KITZBÜHEL, where many celebrities : Hollywood film stars and almost all famous people had ever set foot in this beautiful city area such as the Shah Pahlevi of Iran, King Carl Gustav of Sweden (as a crown prince), Princess Caroline of Monaco, Soraya, Gina Lollobrigida, Rock Hudson, Omar Shariff and many more names to cite. .

Route from Kitzbühel to Villach

 

We drove southward through MITTERSILL, BRUCK  and continued further down the south along one of the most beautiful and highest roads in the Alps, called "Hochalpenstraße of  the Grossglockner”. We were charged for using the road to cross the mountains  about Shillings 300.-  = DM. 43. -, rather expensive !

 Großglockner Hochalpenstraße

This route starts from BRUCK to HEILIGENBLUT  for the distance of 47.9 kms., full of  very steep curves upto 12 % steepness. There are as many dangerous sharp curves as 26 curves along the whole length. However, there are still many tour buses and private cars  cruising uninterruptedly on this road.

Our campervan is rather heavy, we could tell it when we reached a steep climbing and Tilo had to get full acceleration while changing gears very often because we were driving along danger curves of depths. On the roadside, we could see waterfalls and glaciers and also lines of falling rocks (I’d like to call it flowing stone glaciers !) This area is a nature reserve of plants and animals, all living creatures of the Alps. There were  roses of the north Alpine - Azalee, with red-violet or pink color blooming. We could find also small blue flowers, likely a type of Vergissmeinnicht (Forget-me-not) mixing around.  Indescribable beauty !

Moo Moo - Photo : Bing images serch

On mountain slopes, there were also cattle grazing grass periodically. I thought they were wild bulls but Tilo laughed and told me they were domestic cattle (very keen in climbing), having pretty thick hair of brown and white patches. I did not understand at first why they were feeding  in this high altitude, estimated at more than 1,000 meters up. I came to realize later that owners would let their cattle to graze freely along mountain slopes while the weather is warm during summer and they would use the meadows below at the foothills to grow grass for several cuttings. In this way, they will build up hay stock for cattle feed in winter, when they will have to keep cattle  in the barn all the time.

Edelweiß - Photo : Bing images search

The highest peaks of this road  is measured at 2,571 meters and most of the time partly invisible covered. We drove up to the height of 2,506 meters and moved down to HEILIGENBLUT. Therefore, we didn’t followed all the way of the Edelweiß route, which is the name of the flower of the Alps with its velvet white thick petals overlapping.

All along the way we drove, I tried to spot these white star-shaped thick petals, hoping to pick up and keep them for souvenir of  this high road but I did not find even a single flower. Where have you been my Edelweiß ?

 My travel companion and friend Tilo Grabowski, digging up some ice pearls from inside of the snow mass along the roadside for "Kijafa Cherry" on board, to keep us warm during our long drive on Großglockner Hochalpenstraße

Driving downhill, we stopped  at the side parking. Tilo got an idea that we should scoop some snow crystal (round ice pellets found when digging into the snow mass on the roadside). We used a spoon to dig into the snow mass (or glacier) on the roadside and found lots of cleaned and clear beads. I put those snow crystal beads in a plastic bag to chill orange juice in our cool box. Tilo put some snow crytal in a glass and pour some Cherry liqueur Kijafa in it and enjoyed sipping very much  the ice cold sweet alcohol (risky to be controlled by check-point ?) against the cold temperature outside. As it was cold outside of our campervan with low temperature, there appeared frost around the glass in a short time.

 Edelweißstrasse - Photo : Bing images search

All the way, both up and down I sat praying and was excited all along that we wouldn’t have engine breakdown (being aware that our van is a used one) because it ran on the road at high altitude along a steep hillside. I was afraid of imagining if we ever had a break failure or an accident and fell down in depths,…our long journey wouldn’t be able to realized and the cost of  rescuing would be too much expensive ....and so on…

Edelweißspitze - Photo : Twinni / Bing images search

It lasted about two hours until we completed  our crossing over the Alps  (including few stops to take photos and admiring flowers and grass on the way! )  Once in a while, when there’s  a  car running uphill during our way to downhill, we have to stop waiting around the curves and narrow paths and  let upcoming vehicles to go first. This practice should be normally observed on any mountain roads.

We were heading next to LIENZ, and arrived in WINKLERN about 6 pm., then to  OBERVELLACH, KOLBNITZ, SPITAL  passing the lake MILSTÄTTER, following the road along the river DRAU until reaching VILLACH  around   7.30 pm.  We found  a nice parking lot area  right in the center  (feeling like we once parked along the banks of the  Seine river in Paris!).

Photo : travel.nationalgeographic.com / Google images search

 
There had been changes of sceneries and buildings along the way we passed, from view of wooden houses in TYROL to  building blocks like in Germany gradually appeared .  I thought  back to those cattle  grazing on the slopes (mentioned before),  I remembered that  during my living in  SINDELFINGEN / BÖBLINGEN  I had to walk along the narrow road closed to the grass field and the barn on my way to a bus stop to take a bus to STUTTGART.  On my way back from the university, usually during winter time, when I walked passing the field I could hardly breathe due to the pungent smell of ammonia or gas generated from cow dung ! Because farmers poured out  cow dung mixed with water as fertilizer in preparation the ground for planting grass in spring to summer.  What I could do was to block my nose, hold my breath as I walked passing  this spot until the smell faded away. Luckily, I had never been fainted before reaching my apartment!

Villach - Photo : region-villach.at / Google images search

We arrived  VILLACH  at dusk. There was a fair known in German as "Volksfest" (something like a temple fair). There were several booths selling sweets,  raffle gifts , teddy dolls firing and etc….  We took advantage of the atmosphere in walking around within the city.