Highline 179 & Fort Claudia

Neither of us had a great nights sleep which was a pain as we had a big day ahead of us and we were both up at 7:30am drinking coffee when the local maintenance team turned up and started strimming the grass behind us. It was a hell of a noise and how the guy next to us stayed in his car asleep I’ll never know.
At 8am we put the bed away and Ellie had a shower using up the last of the water and then we both got dressed and had breakfast.
Once everything was clean and put away, at 8:45am we were on the road and headed first back to the Lidl supermarket we went to yesterday for extra fruit juice and frozen fruit and then went back 2 miles to the next village where there was a paid Aire, but we could get water and drain the toilet and grey waste.
By 9:30am we were back on route as we headed back down the final stretch of the romantic road, passed Neuschwanstein castle and through Fussen. There we picked up Highway 179 and left Germany and entered our 6th country of this trip, Austria.
We weren’t in Austria long before we came to our first and only stop here and we arrived at Highline 179 at 10:40am.
Highline 179 is a huge suspension bridge spanning 450 meters across a gorge with a fort at the bottom that is now a museum and the ticket office and a castle/fort at either side 374 feet up. We parked almost directly underneath the suspension bridge and it looked daunting and now we were actually going to pay to walk across it.
Our first stop was a ticket machine that I had to translate using google translate to get our tickets and here we had a choice of either walking up the 15% gradient to the first castle or getting the cable car. We chose to walk because we’re on a budget and it took us 20 minutes to hike to the entrance of the suspension bridge. We took a few photos of the bridge first as we’d have to scan our tickets to get through unmanned barriers and we didn’t want to go across the bridge just yet.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t feeling happy about walking across it atall.
Before entering the bridge we climbed a little further up the mountainside to the remains of the castle ruins of Ehrenburg on this side of the bridge. It was amazing to walk around and here most of the signs were also in English telling us about the different rooms of the castle and its earliest parts date back to the 12th century. It is currently being restored to its former glory which was great to see.
Then we went back down to the entrance of the Highline 179, scanned our tickets and started our 450 meter walk across the longest Tibetan style suspension bridge in the world.
Ellie loved it and video’d most of her walk, I didn’t love it so much and only looked down once and I also only let go of the side once. In the middle where the bridge really sways there is a metal mesh either side to stop you getting blown off.
We walked across when there was roughly 20 other people on it and in the middle it swayed like crazy. I wouldn’t want to do it in summer when it is packed with people.
Making it safety across we now had a short hike to the next ruin of fort Claudia. These remains were part of a bastillion fort and not quite as impressive as what we had just seen but once Fort Ehrenburg is restored they will then restore this one. Once again the signs were in English and the earliest parts of this fort go back as far as the 11th century.
With Fort Claudia done we could have walked back down a hiking path and back to Wanda but the bridge looked a little quieter now so we scanned our tickets and headed back across the expanse. This time the wind was really getting up and I practically ran across.
Ellie said I left her behind but it was every man for himself.
We made our way back down the hill to Wanda, and got there just as the heavens opened up and it started raining. it was now 1:30pm and we’d had a great morning.
Back in Wanda we started looking on park4night for places to sleep it was 140 miles to our next destination and most of it through mountains and I didn’t think we’d make it there by dark so we needed a rest stop on route and found one in the town of Bruneck Brunico in the Dolomites of Italy so we set the sat nav and started the 110 mile journey.
We drove through some of the most Austrian Alpine scenery you could image, but unfortunately it rained all the way so we didn’t bother stopping.
There were beautiful villages, hundreds of little alpine wooden houses and massive backdrops where mountains just disappeared into the clouds. It was a beautiful drive and it’s not that we didn’t want to stop in Austria and see more. It’s the fact that the campsites are crazy expensive and wild camping is illegal.
At 5pm we arrived at our Motorhome park up in Italy, only to find that it was completely closed off because of a fairground. I had to carry in driving as all the parking spots were roped off and I ended up in the smallest tightest little town to drive through and TomTom said I wouldn’t fit and with inches to spare I managed to navigate our way through and back out and then find somewhere to stop to look for another spot.
The second spot we found was also a no go as it was up an unmade track and the third spot we found should have been a car park but it was on grass and what with all the rain I didn’t fancy getting stuck.
Eventually on our 4th attempt I found a lay-by for some hiking trails that’s well out of the town and we arrived at 5:45pm just before it was completely dark.
It’s not very level so this is the first time we’ve used our chocks to level up but it is free and we still haven’t paid for a camp yet.
Straight away Ellie cooked us a lovely, well needed dinner and then with a cup of tea we just sat in the back of Wanda and chilled. This is the longest day of the trip so far and can you believe, we woke up in Germany, Went hiking in Austria and slept in Italy.
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