Not so great biking trip

Biking away

Yesterday's hiking trip had consumed our energy a bit too much as we went biking today. We started going the wrong way to Monguelfo, but when we couldn't find any biking route continuing to Monguelfo we turned back. The right route was exhausting uphill, not too steep but extremely long. Aino couldn't bike it, so she walked her bike and Gleb biked alongside. Although Gleb kept going with a thought on his head: "Maybe after that turn the rising stops..."

A castle near Monguelfo (wasn¨t open ): )

When we at last biked downhill to Monguelfo we again took the wrong turn, but later we saw clearly the reason why; the right turn was hiding in the bushes as well as the sign that told where the route led. We found the right path later after little accidental visit in Monguelfo.

We biked to a valley, following the path that sometimes was good asphalt, sometimes just twigs and stones. The path led to the car road, but the map said it should have continued up somewhere in the edge of the forest and the field. We never found the route again.

Aino had enough 

We stopped at a bar to have something to drink and asked for food. There were all these other guests eating, but the owner said that the kitchen was closed. We ate at another place, a hotel, that also seemed close; there was nobody else in the dining room except us, but the friendly owner of the hotel said that they were "half open" so they cooked us some delicious spaghetti. We continued all the way to San Martino, we should have kept on going to Santa Maddalena, but felt too tired for that, so we turned back.

We didn't feel like going through the hill, that only meant more uphill, so we went through Monguelfo and followed the car road, which was pretty scary because of the traffic. The route wasn't so great, and because it was hard to find the right paths we wouldn't probably recommend it easily. The biking trip took us about seven hours... Tomorrow fortunately the weekend starts, so we can have a little rest.

Back to work

So today we had work again; no big deal, starting softly, with a 10-hour-long hiking trip.

On the top !

Kids having fun

We planned that we would walk from Niederdorf to Toblach and continue up to Silvesteralm. From there we would again continue to Bonnerhütte, where we have been before and continue up to the top of mountain Toblacher, so we could see the cross that stands on the top. Because that didn't seem too bad a hike, we decided to still continue around the valley on the top of the mountains that surrounded it. We set off at 10 o'clock, having a chance to bicycle to some point, but leaving the bikes behind.

Resting a while

We stopped by at the park in Niederdorf for a very short time because we thought we had plenty of time to walk the trip. It's hard to believe there's such a cool place for kids in a little village like this. When we reached Toblach about an hour later Gleb was already tired. We don't yet know why, but he had a little pain in his legs and when we climbed the gentle but long hill up to Silvesteralm his legs felt numb. On the way he had something else to think though because there were plenty of cows in the field just before Silvesteralm that (according to Gleb) were all staring at him and planning an attack. Aino on the other hand made good friends with one bull on the way and lead the way through the field of cows to Silvesteralm.

Clearly planning an attack

 After having some traditional non-alcoholic drink at the alm we continued the way to bonnerhütte. When we saw a sign that said Bonnerhütte we thought we had to carry on and that the sign must be wrong; it was pointing up to a forest. Nevertheless we decided to check it out and turned out there was a little path up there to Bonnerhütte. The path led us directly the same way we have just come, towards Silvesteralm, but higher on the mountain.

The little path was very beautiful, the trees surrounded it sometimes, sometimes we walked on a meadow with a perfect view to the Dolomites, sometimes we walked on an steep edge of the mountain, with a huge drop just next to us and little waterfalls formed by the melting snow. However, it started to feel a bit long when we reached a meadow where we could see Bonnerhütte on the other side of the mountain. The walk felt frustrating and we started to feel tired, but soon we had good food and a little rest (Gleb almost fell asleep when Aino used the toilet...)

Filling the guestbook

We continued up to the cross, Aino felt tired and walked very slowly but Gleb on the other hand was feeling better and pushed her forward. We made it to the cross and to an amazing view with Dolomites and the Alps. Everywhere you looked you saw just mountains and sky. There was also a guestbook, which we signed of course.

After the cross the clock was already six, but we still decided to continue to the trip around the valley. We both felt a bit tired and everytime there was even a mild ascent, the pace slowed down a bit. We could see the Dolomites all the time and some glimpses of the Alps as well on the route. The sun had hidden itself, but showed some light from time to time, making the view even better.

Markus told us we would be back at seven...

When we started the way down the route didn't seem so nice anymore. We were both exhausted but our legs magically kept on going. The route down slowly hid itself in the woods, so the amazing view wasn't there anymore to cheer us up. We kept on going and going. When we saw a sign that said it would take one hour to Toblach, we called Markus to say that we could take the train there and he could go home as well, but he decided (thank God) to come and get us with the car of the hotel's owner.

Slurps

We checked later the real hiking map, with better details than the one we used on the morning and realized that the route looked much bigger on this one. We have no idea how much we walked, but we had more than 1500 meters ascent on the way, and our legs are now saying that it was too much.

BY THE WAY: We got back from Wien through Innsbruck, 24.6, sitting in the train more than seven hours on the same day.

Interrailing in central Europe

YOU HEAR ME?!

Hello, if you feel that the text below is a bit too much for you, or are here just for the pictures, then this is what you need to know: We are Interrailing and have visited in Austria, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovak, and are having a great time.

19.6 Bruneck – Innsbruck - München

But first, let me take a selfie!

We started our Interrail trip actually yesterday with careful planning of the cities we would visit and the trains we would take. Then we woke up early on the morning, packed our things and hit the route. We had to make two train changes to get to Innsbruck but there were no problems at all fortunately.

We could have taken the ski lift...

When we reached to Innsbruck we left our bags in the lockers in the train station and asked from Tourist Information where could we go hiking near the city. He recommended us Hungerburg, where we could get by bus. The bus left in front of a museum near the train station. The bus “J” was already going when we saw it and we waved it to wait us. Even from outside we could see that the bus driver was not happy; he was shaking his hands and he had the most impatient look on his face. As dumb tourists we didn’t mind and tried asking him the price and where to stop. He started almost yelling us in strange language we didn’t know and waved us to go to sit. So we got a free bus drive up to Hungerburg.

Hungerburg was 865 meters up and we made almost 300 meters ascent, walking three hours on the side of the mountain. The route seemed steeper than anything we have walked this far and there were these lunatic mountain bikers coming down from the top that we had to look out for. Because we have already seen amazing places like Drei Zinner and Pragser Wildsee, this time the view seemed “ok”. We could see whole Innsbruck below and the alps on the background. We stopped for a little while to have something to drink in Arzer Alm, and then walked back to Hungerburg, where we took the bus back down to Innsbruck. Not knowing how or what to pay from the trip, we paid again nothing.

Night at München

After having delicious meal at Burger King, we took the train to München. On the train trip the view got flatter little by little, on to the point where the ground seemed like it was ironed. There wasn’t mountains to be seen anywhere. It was weird.

When we got to München we were stunned on how big the city was. We realized it would take more than one day to explore this city, but at least we’ll get a glimpse on it. 

We found Hostel Wombat and took a private room for two. The room is clean and nice and if we would like to get drunk, this place would be made for it… but we’re here to explore, and have to get up quite early (damn..).

Now we have eaten apparently Vietnamese food (and sushi) in a restaurant called “China express”, walked some while in the city and are hitting the sack. Tomorrow we’ll have the day to explore some more and we’re continuing our trip to Prague in the evening as well.

20.6  München – Prague

Aino's amazingly artisticc photos BY GLEB

We had a big breakfast at the hostel Wombat, where we stayed the night. It had been easy to find it because it was so close the railway station. We checked out after the breakfast, left our bags in the lockers in the hostel and went out for a little shopping. We only had time to travel through one big street, mainly because we walked so slowly. We visited a big church on the way and the old Rathaus, where there was an exhibition of very weird art... there were furniture that were playing music. For example a stove was made into a vinyl player.

We found a good looking place to eat that served burritos, burgers, tortillas and some finger food. Gleb had a big barbeque meal and Aino ate some sort of chicken-rise-tortilla-cheese-thingy. We left with full stomachs back to the hostel so we would make it to 17 o’clock train to Prague.

The train trip to Prague took nearly 5 hours, a buss would have been half an hour faster, but we took the train nevertheless. When we reached to Prague it was really late, but we had a clear vision where we would find a hostel. We had checked hostels via Internet back in München (it was  only then that we realized that they don’t use euros in the Czech Republic) and put in mind Hostel Elf, that seemed to be quite near the railway station, and that had 24 hours reception. Well, after little navigation problems, we found it quite fast, but they didn’t have rooms for two nights, so we kept on going. The second hostel had no rooms at all even for that night, so we decided to take the third one, no matter what. Hostel 1 had a six-person-room left, and surprisingly they had a Finn at the reception. The Finn said that the hostel is usually very nice, but at that time, there were more drunk people than sober… and they were pretty loud. We went to sleep listening as the drunk people headed to bars and clubs.

21.6 Prague

They required a picture, so Gleb said yes

The morning was better; the people at the reception were nice, guiding us to find a hostel for the next night. We called a hostel that had private room for two with shared bathroom, even though it seemed quite expensive 1200kr/ person for a night.

We headed downtown after mild navigation problems (yet again) and visited not only one but THREE museums. One was about the both world wars in Czech Republic, the second had a handsome collection of wax models of real persons and the last one made us question Tim Burton’s sanity with his work (actually it almost made us question our own sanity as well). As we were walking back, we felt like having some sushi again and found a pretty expensive place to take some.

Later, when we checked in to the hostel, we found out that it was only 1200kr for the both of us. As we both already had 1200kr cash, we decided to take a taxi to downtown, had some expensive drinks at some expensive hotel bar and take a taxi back to the hostel. It worked out well, we got rid off the extra 1200kr (50 euros… such a good idea).

22.6 Prague – Bratislava – Wien

We woke up to have some breakfast and walk to the Train Station to catch the train to Bratislava. The train left around 9 o’clock and it took 4 hours to Bratislava, so we only had a little to explore Slovak’s capital city. We asked a pair of policemen how to walk to the city center. The town seemed little compared to Prague, but it was really beautiful. Aino really liked it better because it didn’t seem so stuffed. The weather was a bit too nice; it was 30 degrees in the sun and we had our hiking gears on (we thought we were going hiking, but didn’t have enough time for that). Gleb had to find a book when we found a bookstore and it took him about an hour to pick one. We walked to the old city center, which had some funny statues and beautiful buildings side by side. The center wasn’t big so it didn’t take us long.

We had to wait an hour at the Train Station for a train to Wien, because they were rebuilding the railway. The train to Wien took only an hour and in Wien we figured out that we should have made some information search about the city or the hostels in there. We found the way to center but the city is ENORMOUS. We asked for a map in some hotel and he guided us onwards. We found a restaurant that had free wi-fi and had some sushi (no, we don’t eat anything else) with the free wi-fi. We found Hostel Wombat again, marked it on the map and finally, after long day of walking and navigating from one place to another, found a place to rest.

23.6 Wien

Keep up, please

We woke up, had some breakfast and visited the center. We walked about four hours, visiting shops and taking pictures of the sights. The museums and churches all paid too much. Instead of spending our money on seeing magnificent art and architecture, we went shopping, near the Wombat hostel, where there was a street full of shops. Aino would have liked to visit Prater, which had for example a 100-meters-tall swing; the Praterturm. Unfortunately we had been walking the whole day and felt pretty tired, so we just went back to the hostel and relaxed. By the way we ate Chinese food (not sushi) today and some Turkish food (not kebab).

Our legs start to feel quite stiff, now that we have been five days on the road, just walking and walking and walking….

slurps

Wrong turn

Meadow up on the mountains

We visited Plätzwiese today again, Markus borrowed his car and we drived up to Brückele and took a buss up from there. The route seemed frighteningly narrow as the buss meandered up. On the top we took a little hiking trip to see how easy it was if we added it to our easier Active holiday packages. Well, the right route was easy enough, going through a wide meadow, but we took a wrong turn because we didn't read the map correctly.





We didn't go far though, the wrong turn only took us about 30 minutes. It seemed easy because we walked down to a valley, following this really beautiful path, but only after we got to the bottom of the valley we realized we had to turn back. We walked up again pretty fast and got a little exercise.

We could have followed up to Dürrenstein, but we didn't have enough time because we had to go back to Markus to have a feedback discussion. We discussed about the two weeks we have been here and about the future months to come. It seemed all the three of us were quite happy.

The way down the valley was a bit narrow

The reason why we had this conversation is because Markus is leaving to Finland for a week and we are having a little brak from work! We are thinking about doing a little trip to other countries near Italy by train. We are not sure yet if we are taking the computer with us or not so the blog may have a week long brake, or not... but we will at least write a loooong text later about the week :)

The valley

Many more adventures to come... and possibly dozens of wrong turns as well.

Hiking route number 41

In the end, it is not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away.

The Dolomites on the backround.

Gleb and Markus ran cooper today. Markus had to run 300 meters less because of the age difference to win the bet. Results: Gleb nearly having a heart attack and running 50 meters more than Markus. So Markus won! Now Gleb has to buy him beginner's course for climbing. Too bad he didn't win, because then both Gleb and Aino would have got a free massage from Markus...though Gleb already had one (which he paid for of course) but based on his screams while Markus massaged his hamstrings and calves he's quite happy that he didn't win after all.

Fallen trees on the way

Before the cooper we had improved the Active holiday packages the way Markus told us and afterwards he offered that we could go to eat some pizza together. To that the indomitable Gleb said no, and that we could easily take some biking or hiking trip. So we set off to a hiking trip more than four hours long.

Resting a while

We walked up to a nearby mountain, this time north to Niederdorf. The mountain wasn't so high this time (only 750 meters ascent) but the route we walked went on and on. The route was 17 kilometers long and it was very confusing. When we started the route suddenly was divided into two and the sign didn't tell which one to take. For the first time we choose the more difficult looking one, so on the way there were lots of fallen trees and broken branches we had to dodge. Then the route narrowed more and more and finally it was only a little path in the bushes. That didn't go on long fortunately and we could walk for a while on a regular hiking route.

Treehouse!

We were looking for the route number 41 and when the road crossed, there was a sign number 41 on it, pointing on the field. We walked on, following again just flattened grass when suddenly the path disappeared. We didn't mind of course, but walked on the steep hill, climbing to the top to search for a better route... or any route. We saw a deer, jumping up the mountain and Aino's trip immediately became a complete.

We make our own ways,
we don't need any routes!

We climbed up the mountain on a forest without trails, and we finally found one, full of grass and without any marked numbers. We decided to follow the path anyway, thinking it was the right one when suddenly, it disappeared. Yes, disappeared, again. We followed some sort of a path in the woods, climbing again the steep mountain, trying to hold on rocks and trees. After a while of coursing, we finally found the right route. This time marked with a number 41.

Aino found a knife that is used
for mushroom picking

The route was in good shape and we saw the deer again! This time both of us quieted down and we even tried to take a picture (don't get excited - we failed). We tried to get closer for a better view, but the deer turned to look at us for a while, then skipped away.

The route 41 went on and on. There were many crossings but not one of them were marked so we followed the route. The forest was beautifully green and we could see a little bit of the Alps on the left side and the Dolomites on the right. We walked by a treehouse, which Aino wanted to explore but the ladders looked too rotten for climbing. We also saw tadpoles in a little puddle in the middle of the route.

She ate ir's head...

When we were eventually walking downwards we saw a cat on the side of the street. She was hunting something, and Gleb had a glimpse of a tail of it. He said it was a mouse, but the cat captured the thing and pulled it to the road, and we realized it was a little snake. Gleb was 20 meters further just like that (he's a bit afraid of snakes) and Aino was praising the cat and taking pictures. The cat ate the poor snakes head off and the body of the snake started twisting like a maniac. Maybe that's enough telling about the snake.

Aino's amazingly artistic photos again. 

We were both pretty tired, especially our legs, but when we were already in Niederdorf we walked through a little adventure park, and Aino got excited. She only got to try two of the children's equipment when Gleb dragged her away, promising that we would come back later.

We decided to take the route sometime later again, because we didn't understand where the route 41 started. We also learned that even though the sign tells you to go somewhere, you should maybe use your common sense if the route looks like it didn't really exist.

Day off and photos!

Toblachersee

Today we didn't have to go to work, but we worked anyway. We managed to put some information about different hiking and biking routes together and we did an example of Active holiday packages. Tomorrow we'll have feedback discussion about the whole week with the Finnish group. They also had a trip today to Sexten and they apparently continued up to mountain Helm on a ski lift. Here it was raining a in midday, so let's hope they didn't get soaked.

Here are some miscellaneous pictures!

Flowers again

On the way to Talschlushütte (probably spelled it wrong but whatever)

Melting snow makes cute rivers and streams

Aino's amazingly artistic pictures

JUMP

The Finnish group on the way to see the three peaks

Markus took this with his pro camera.

On the three peaks still

First day picture, exploring Bruneck'