Day 22

I’m just going to jump right into this one because it’s late and I’m tired. We started the morning in Heiligenblut at 6:30 am, which seems to be a normal wake up call for us now. A few quick showers later and we were off into the city. The sky was blue and the clouds were small and distant. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. We went to our favorite picture spot and spent a while taking in the beauty of the valley and the surrounding mountains. The snow on Grossglockner was even more prevalent in the morning with the sun shining on it. It was incredible. We left our spot and went a little closer to the church to try and take some better pictures. And yes, we succeeded. It’s hard to believe that in a months time all of the mountains will be covered in snow and everyone will be skiing! It really gets me excited for the next season. Our next stop was the town church. It’s a small little church, but if you ever see a postcard or picture of Heiligenblut, you’ll know which one I’m talking about. We went inside and even had the opportunity to climb up to the top level of the seating area. But the floor boards didn’t sound like they were going to hold our weight, so I quickly got down. We walked around the grounds and found another picture spot. By now the sun was shining and the mountains were all lit up (in our pictures). We stopped by the local grocery store to grab some snacks for later in the day and then we walked back to our hostel for breakfast. Breakfast in Europe seems to consist of the same things: some bland cereal, bread (not toasted) with an assortment of jellies, butter, chocolate and meat paste spreads, and then some ham and rolls. I’m getting pretty sick of ham sandwiches. After we finished up, we walked outside and headed towards our bus stop with just a few stops in between for pictures. The sky looked wonderful and I was hoping for it to continue. We took the hour long bus ride down to Lienz and hopped on a train heading for Launsdorf. Launsdorf is the city that Hochosterwitz Castle is located in. But as soon as we got to Launsdorf, the rain had started. And to make matters even worse, the train station didn’t have lockers for our big bags. So we started the 4 km trek to the castle with about 40 pounds of weight on our backs, in the rain. It was miserable. Even after the rain stopped, all I could think about was dropping my bag off. We finally made it to the base of the castle. My shoes were soaking wet because of the rain and they squished every time I took a step. Adam mentioned that there was a cable car that would take us to the top of the mountain so that we wouldn’t have to hike with our bags on. The only problem was that it was nowhere to be seen. So while I took a little break and watched over the bags, he set off in search of the cable car. I don’t remember if I mentioned this earlier, but my watch battery died in Luxembourg. So I don’t have a watch. And I really don’t have any way of telling time. So even though I only sat there for 15 minutes or so, it felt like 45. He finally came back into view and told me the good news. He had found the cable car. The bad news was that we still had to hike up the mountain a bit to get to it. That was the longest 15 minutes of this trip. But we made it! Was it worth it? I don’t know. We took the cable car up sans bags. And it’s a good thing because I don’t know if this car would have been able to carry the weight of our bags. It was swinging from side to side and it looked like the only thing that was keeping it attached to the side of this mountain was a single chain. Thankfully we made it safely and then spent a good hour in the castle. It’s very old and well preserved, but there really isn’t much access inside of it. So we spent our time walking around the castle and getting some good views of the surrounding cities and farmlands. There were a few rooms open to the public, but they mostly contained old suits of armor and paintings. Thankfully there was no Leopold I paintings. I don’t know if I would have been able to handle that. We took the cable car down and mentally prepared ourselves for the 4 km walk back to the train station. At least it was on flat ground. We kept a good pace and stopped for some pictures along the way, and we made it back in time for our train to Klagenfurt. Once we got to the train station we decided that the 2.5 mile walk to the hostel was going to be a little bit easier without our huge bags, so we dropped them off at the station luggage hold and set forth into the city. The walk was long, but we made it to the hostel in under an hour. I don’t know if you noticed, but there was no mention of lunch in this blog. That’s because we didn’t have time for lunch. So we were pretty hungry at this point. We checked into our hostel and even got a free bag of peanut M&Ms. But that wasn’t going to satisfy my hunger. We stopped at the nearby pizzeria and each got a bowl of minestrone soup and split a nice big cheese pizza. It was amazing. We walked back to the hostel and prepared for bed. There’s still no internet, but maybe in Graz (which is where I’m headed right now). P.S. I sent some postcards out today. I don’t know how long they’ll take though.