Kaunertal

Our day started like most days on the trip, with the exception that it was raining in bursts. Thankfully the overpowering scent of the spread manure had been washed away.

The hotel breakfast selection was very impressive and the seating area quite grandeur. Most guests were in their mid-70s to mid-80s.

For the first time on the trip, we started off wearing our rain gear, and wore it all day. It stopped raining early on, but between the cool overcast weather and damp roads we figured it more practical to leave it on.

Leaving Oberstdorf around 9:30, we snaked our way further north through the light rain and various construction zones. The first pass of the day was Oberjockpass. Definitely a windy section of road up, but not much elevation gain. We took it easy due to the very wet roads. Nothing makes a day slower than an incident 🙃

Eventually we started heading west with a quick stop at a view point over looking market-town Nasselwang. Soon we were back in Austria, and found our way to the town of Ruette where we zig-zaged back towards the mountains.

Another quick stop, this time for fuel in a little town of Elmen, just before the turn off to the next mountain pass of the day. This time there was definitely more elevation gain. Not too many vehicles on the road heading in our direction, but lots of oncoming traffic. We enjoyed the winding switchbacks up to Hahntennjoch pass. The clouds were high enough up that we were able to see a decent glimpse of the area.

The decent was as fun as the accent with all the twists and turns down in the the far valley. Passing through the town of Imst, traffic was a bit more choatic, but we managed to navigate through it.

We carried on through to the wooded nature park to the village of Kaus where we noticed a couple of castles. One was across the valley, much farther west, on a rocky spine of a ridge; Berg Laudegg. We drove by the other, Burg Berneck, built in the early 13th century.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burg_Berneck_(T…

Finally arriving in Feichten im Kaunertal by mid-afternoon. The Edelweiss Hotel was a lovely find after a lot of searching for something last minute without a big cost.

On our ride in we spotted an impressive set of stairs above town, by a waterfall. Our riding gear swapped out for walking shoes we went to check it out. To our surprise there was a turnstile for admission! No coin-operation here, it was a QRscanner and instructions how to by the ticket online 🤣. Not to be out done by technology, A stumbled through it. The hotel didn't mention about a tourist card like other hotels offer, which provided a discount. Imagination for the required 9-digit code was successful 👍 the walk up was nice, and we enjoyed the loop back down on a quiet gravel road. A quick sauna and steam at our hotel before dinner was in order.

The family run Pension shows the love and efforts. The dinner offering was delicious and wonderful service even with the language challenge. They didn't seem to mind that we had started with the salad bar instead of doing it mid-course. To cap off the dinner we sampled a splash of the proprietor's Gin. It was nice but not delicious enough to purchase a bottle for the road.Read more