Obertraun Day 1

We took a private shuttle bus, CK Shuttle to Obertraun, Austria yesterday. After 9 transfers on public buses and trains, it was an indulgent luxury to have a door to door transfer. Our host at Cesky Krumlov even carried all our bags down for us. Our driver was from south India, now living in Cesky Budějovice, a city half hour away from Cesky Krumlov. He studied biology in Czech Republic, and stayed on. He learnt the Czech language before he left India, and continued his language study as part of his course which was all done in Czech. His wife is from north India, and they speak only Hindi to their 7 year old son so he can communicate with grandparents when they visit India.

Obertraun is on Lake Hallstatt , part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hallstatt Dachstein Salzkammergut characterised by tall peaks and breathtaking views of the lake. Our accommodation in this heavily touristed and therefore expensive area is at the end of Obertraun, about a 2km walk to the main town where the shops, restaurants and transport are. On the way back, we thought we took a different route by what our host called the "local stream". Silly Perth people that we are, we think we followed the local drain instead and ended up back on the road we took into town. It was full of gushing water over pebbles, and looked very stream like. It wasn't until the next day, on the bus that we saw the said stream which we would have called a river.

Grocery and food prices here are almost 3x that of the Czech Republic. Fortunately our Airbnb apartment is well stocked with herbs and sauces for cooking, and even has Vegeta a powdered vegetable stock.

Distance walked 9.3kmRead more