A Place for Fish

 7/11

Drive from Hallstatt to Triberg

Originally, our plan had been to get up early, drive via the Austrian alps to Neuschwanstein Castle, spend a few hours there and then drive through to Triberg, arriving just shy of 7pm to check in at the hotel (hotel of sorts at least, more on that later). Due to our mess-up on tickets, we decided to keep basically the same plan, but just go through to Triberg and get there early.

We were pretty successful in getting out early - pulling out of the drive at 7:30 and heading off. Halstatt in the early morning was maybe even nicer, since my biggest gripe was the overwhelming amount of tourists (of which I was a part, of course). The plan was to stop for coffee and pastries in Mühlbach am Hochkönig which also set Google maps off its preferred course of going back to Salzburg, then through Munich as the best way to get to Triberg. The Hochkönig is a mountain group containing the highest mountain in the Austrian alps - Mount Hochkönig. We picked this route based on nothing more than that and our stop in Mühlbach am Hochkönig was based on it being what Google sent us to when typing in ‘Hochk’ as a destination.

The drive was gorgeous, and - thankfully - since both Ava and Sam had taken Dramamine, not causing any issues. The whole beginning part of the trip was light on traffic through more back roads type paths and moment after moment of ‘stop for a photo’ landscapes. One interesting thing was that most of the speed limits on these roads were set at 100 kph… I’m not the best driver anymore, but we were in a pretty nice VW manual Golf, and I would have been insane to push past 80 kph. Until we got to the autobahns, this would remain the case.

Mühlbach am Hochkönig was a tiny town but what I would expect of an Austrian mountain town. We found a quaint bakery and proceeded to really annoy the baker trying to help us out by not knowing all of the steps and etiquette for ordering everything. Fair enough, but she took it all very disdainfully. The joys of travel. After a much longer stop than anticipated, which I guess was the cost of annoying her, we were back on the road for more stellar views and fun driving. We set Google in the direction of Innsbruck and pushed on.

We approached Innsbruck near 1 and decided to pull off to a smaller town just before it for lunch called Schwaz. We found a great cafe in a fun old plaza looking out on the hills - the town was actually pretty nice, and my cursory research tells me it was a hub of copper and silver mining in the Middle Ages. Beyond that, I have nothing else to say about it.

As we got back to the car and started the final leg towards Triberg, it was clear how incredibly overzealous our original plan had been… as it was, we left maybe 30 minutes later than we would have and now we were on track to arrive around 6. There is just no way the castle would have made sense… I think, in part, the driving estimate comes from going at the speed limit or so, and perhaps my unwillingness to push the limits on the local mountain roads greatly extended the drive time. Who knows. Maybe the plan just sucked.

At Innsbruck, you end up on nicer, higher speed highways (autobahns). In part, this means you give up the winding scenic roads for long, straight tunnels going directly through the mountains instead of around and over. Its good to see, though gets boring. It does remind you of scenes from Top Gear, however, so there’s that.

As we left the alps, ran up alongside the border with Liechtenstein, then up into Germany, you find yourself in wine country overlooking Lake Constance and Switzerland on the other shore. For very different reasons, this was also beautiful.

As a side note, it was an interesting drive overall. I don’t drive a lot anymore, so when I’m behind the wheel for more than 2 hours, I get tired fast. People don’t really realize how much endurance training we do in most parts of the US through our daily commutes - although I’m guessing with covid, more people have found this out. The last time I drove 10 hours it was absolutely brutal on me. This drive, however, honestly went by pretty quick. Its easy to be engaged with such great and diverse scenery to see over a day.

We eventually did make it to the Black Forest and the pines and rolling hills around Triberg. We checked into our hotel right around 6pm, so at least we had that as per the plan. We booked a place I had a hard time imagining, and indoor campground where you have access to a camper trailer in a parking garage/warehouse. Each trailer was themed, with many different sizes and layouts. We chose the ‘Globetrotter’, mostly because of the beds, but also because I figured it would go with our current plan of turning Ava into a traveler. We ended up loving it, hard beds, small quarters, no fridge, and shared bathrooms aside. Plus, it was something different, can’t discount that.