Verrückt! Unglaublich… Wow the path to becoming an Austrian mountaineer continues

Just finished one Klettersteig section with a long way to go. Feeling pretty good right now

I haven’t written anything on here in quite some time.  Call it laziness or being busy, I don’t know.  I have had quite a busy summer in terms of travelling:  Crete, Greece, London, England, Salzburg (finally) and a tour around some parts of Canada (golden horseshoe, Ottawa, Bon Echo, Montreal etc.)  Maybe I’ll post some of those pictures up soon.  My friends at home gave me some much needed critiques in that I “blah blah” too much and should just keep the posts short with lots of pictures.  So I’ll take their advice.  This recent trip of mine got my heart racing, a real Rush and I just had to share.

A group ahead of us taking on the first Klettersteig section

The title pretty much sums it up, though you made need your German-English dictionaries (I always use Leo if I’m online:  http://dict.leo.org/pages.ende/impressum_en.html?lang=en).  On the weekend, Lisi pretty much just said “Hey, let’s go to the alps” and sure why not?  They’re only an hour away (how cool is that?  I still can’t get over it).  So Lisi, I and her friends Connie and Thomas decided to go for a day long hike in the alps near a mountain that I have already been to before (Großer Pyrghas… see previous post from last year) and we wanted to try something different called “Klettersteige”.  I had no idea what the English name was until I looked it up in wikipedia in German and then chose the relevant English page.  It’s called Via Ferrata and here’s their explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_ferrata

We had to buy some gear ahead of time: helmet, harness (my second), and a Y-form (show in the German wikipedia page below, sorry it doesn’t come in English).  Now I’ve done a lot of sport climbing before so I thought that I was pretty prepared.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klettersteigset

Lisi just finishing the first Klettersteig. Connie is in the background making her way up.

All I can say about this experience is that it was unbelievable!!  The trail took us along the edge of a knife as you climbed your way up the mountains.  Nothing but air on either side of you.  So, Klettersteig essentially has a steel cable bolted into the rock face which you clip into with you Y-form using two carabiners and then you essentially climb your way up any way you like.  The cable is typically bolted in every 5 metres or so and you have to clip on and of as you go up.

Scariest moment for me was climbing over that peak on the left hand side which was part of the "wrong" route. There was literally a 100 metre drop on either side and I crawled over that.

The scariest part for me is in the picture above.  Lisi was leading the group and climbed the wrong path.  All I hear above me is “Oh crap, I think I went the wrong way.”  She kept going and I lost sight of her as she passed over a peak, but she eventually got back on route.  I stupidly followed and quickly realized my mistake as I hit the top of this section.  I was literally on a 1 square foot peak with nothing but air on all sides of me and I wasn’t tied into anything.  Holy SHIT!!  I am very rarely afraid of heights, but I must admit that was probably one of the scariest, most exhilarating moments of my life.  The pictures really don’t do it justice!!  It was about two minutes after I passed this point that my cell phone starting ringing.

Hello Helen. (my stepmother)

Hi love, did I catch you at a bad time?? (Did I mention that she’s British)

You could say that…  (I was a little short of breath at the moment)

Oh… OH!!  what did I interrupt you two from doing?!?

The Cross!!! Seeing these is a good sign because that means you're at the top.

Hahaha… gotta love Helen!  Needless to say, we made it to the top (2007 metres high), took a break and headed back down the way we came.  As usual, coming down is 10 times harder than going up and I ended up having sewing machine legs, with really wobbly knees.  The trip took 8 hours in total and my quads are still killing me today.  We’ll definitely be back on another mountain this weekend if the weather holds up.  You know what they say “When in Rome…”

It never looks so bad when you’re starting.

That was the first Klettersteig section that we had to do. You can see people crawling up the side.

A group ahead of us taking on the first Klettersteig section

Putting on the safety gear… looking a little nervous.

Caribeeners from my Y-form. The only thing keeping you alive if you drop.

Lisi just finishing the first Klettersteig. Connie is in the background making her way up.

Just finished one Klettersteig section with a long way to go. Feeling pretty good right now

Scariest moment for me was climbing over that peak on the left hand side which was part of the “wrong” route. There was literally a 100 metre drop on either side and I crawled over that.

Beautiful view, if a little frightening. I think this is when I got the call from Helen.

The Cross!!! Seeing these is a good sign because that means you’re at the top.

Hiking along the edge of a knife. Take my advice, don’t look down either side.

Thomas and Connie on their way down.

Wow, I can’t believe that it’s been a year already…

Climbing in Auwiesen, here's my partner Tua!!

Yesterday marked the anniversary of my move to Austria and what a year it has been.  With so many ups and downs in 2008, I’ve really been happy this year with how things are going so well and of course, I’m looking forward to all of trips in the summer.  I actually in between trips right now.  We just got back from Crete, Greece and I’m heading to London tomorrow for the weekend.  I’ll post up those pictures when I have some time, hopefully next week.

One of the really high walls. The guy climbing it gives you an idea as to how big this wall actually is.

Anyway, I also wanted to write a quick post about some climbing that I have been doing over here.  There’s a climbing gymn in Linz which I tried to find last summer in one of my older posts: Advertisements, hobbit holes and PDAs .  To go climbing on a regular basis requires a climbing partner however, so I haven’t gone in over a year.  One day at work, a work colleague of mine, Tua (a Swede-Fin, that can also speak German, English and Spanish … not bad) saw that I liked climbing on the Borealis employee boards and mentioned that she also loves to climb and was looking for a partner.  So we decided to head out together and check the place out.  Unfortunately, the gymn is located in Auwiesen which is in the south of Linz on the very last tram stop (about a 30 minute bike ride).  However, once we got inside both of our jaws hit the floor.  This place was HUGE!!!  It’s like a climber’s paradise.  I have never seen anything like it before.  The top height was about 30 metres and the place had at least 200 separate runs of the various walls with at least 4 different coloured routes per run.  That’s 800 different climbs you can do and that’s only the climbing section.  They also had a massive bouldering section which you can easily spend hours on.  Another thing that really struck me was that the climbers were all experienced… there were no new people, no birthday parties with children, or people goofing off and that was really nice.  I did find out subsequently that this was in fact the largest climbing gymn in Austria and one of the largest in Europe and to think that it’s right on my doorstep.  Needless to say, we quickly got memberships and have been climbing about once or twice a week since.  If only it was closer to the city centre.

Climbing in Auwiesen, here’s my partner Tua!!

One of the really high walls. The guy climbing it gives you an idea as to how big this wall actually is.

Overview of just one section of the gymn.

Tua working her way up a bouldering wall.

And here’s my attempt….

The Muskateer’s Cup… finally it’s yours Roger!

Championship Point at Roland Garros, finally Roger it's yours!!

I have been a huge fan of Roger Federer for quite a long time.  I had the real pleasure of even being able to watch him in action at the Rogers’ Cup in Montreal back in 2007 against Radek Stepanek.  I even wore a ridiculous paper machée, fluorescent yellow tennis ball head for the occasion (thank you Emily for all the help with that, as shown in my “who is this guy” page).  That was truly an incredible experience, and I am really grateful for those that arranged this for me.

It’s always fantastic to watch history in the making with so many records being broken under his reign. Roger has always had such a complete game on and off the court that he’s made it easy to admire him:  his truly incredible talent with the ball ( there are so many highlight reels of unbelievable shots that he’s made ie:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZRQEtAyiTM), grace on the court where he almost seems to dance, and how much he contributes outside of tennis has really made him champion for the sport.  Not only has he been recognized by sports critics, journalists, fans, but even by his own peers.  It always amazes me to hear compliments from the legends of the sport like Sampras, Agassi, Laver etc.  The only grand slam that he was ever missing was the Muskateer’s Cup at the French Open  and the only opponent that stood between him and that historic title for the past 4 years (3 finals and one semi) was Nadal.  Last year, I wished him all the best for a 6th consecutive Wimbledon and he lost against Nadal.  Instead of pontentially jinxing him, I decided to leave it alone this year just in case and boy did he deliever.  His opponent, Robin Soderling, had an amazing run this year, not only beating Nadal for the giant upset, but also making it through several of the top clay court players in the world.  For that, he deserves a great deal of respect, but Roger just played too well today and won the only title that has ever eluded him.  Congratulations Roger!!  You truly deserved this!  Wish you and Mirka all the best when the baby comes.

Wine, Schnapps and Chocolate, sounds like a perfect weekend.

Riegersburg, this was a really impressive view.

The long awaited Riegersburg trip…  taking place on another Austrian long weekend.  I think this time they were celebrating Whit Monday which just so happened to be the day before my birthday.  Some good of mine from work, Daniel and Martina, planned a really nice trip to Styria which is a province in the South-East of Austria.  The Reigersburg region is about 40 minutes east of Graz and you need to drive through a TONNE  of tunnels to get there.  We all left work at noon on Friday (I love Austrian work times) and ventured out.  Lisi just got her malfunctioning TomTom replaced with a shiny, new one and we were pretty excited.  Several hours later near Reigersburg, things start getting interesting.  The TomTom FAILED us!!  Or better yet, we just entered the twilight zone.  We discovered while approaching the area that Riegersburg is in fact above having street names.  Every street displayed on the TomTom was called “Riegersburg”.  Each building in the area was just assigned a numb and it wasn’t necessarily in numerical sequence.   You may wander down a street counting up the street numbers like 45, 46, 47, 389, 390, 391 etc.  The break in the sequence would most likely indicate that the houses with the higher numbers were probably built years after the ones before.  Each little community in the Riegersburg region was small enough that I guess everybody knew were everybody lived.  “Oh you’re looking for Hans.. well he just lives three hills over on the corner of Riegersburg and Riegersburg.”  Did I mention that there was a nearby community called Reigersberg just to make it interesting?!?  Definitely accommodating for tourists.

The schnapps cellar in Gölles

Once we had settled into our hotel (which was in the community Breitenfeld an der Rittschein) we started our whirlwind tour with some Wine tours.  Austria has a lot of good wine in general which I never knew before.  The highlights for me came a little later starting off with a trip to a Gölles where they make schnapps and vinegar.

http://www.goelles.at/en/ueber_goelles.html

Of course, we had a tasting tour of the facility!!  The vinegars were really great and the schnapps… Wow, those definitely warm you up at around 45% alcohol.  They also had some really nice liquors which weren’t as strong, but delicious.  Here’s just an abbreviated list of the fruits they used: strawberries, apples, pears, elderberries, raspberries etc.  I even got to try some rich, chocolate liquor which was so good that we bought a bottle.  Most of their wares were expensive, but you are definitely paying for quality.  So with a nice, warm tummy and a slightly spinning head we left for our next destination… a CHOCOLATE FACTORY!!

Willy wonka, Willy wonka... Oops as I said before I couldn't get that music out of my head.

No, it wasn’t Willy Wanka’s chocolate factory though the Oompa-Loompa song in my head.  We went to Zotter’s which is a big chocolate producer in Austrian known for unique combinations in the bars and his Fair Trade principle.

http://www.zotter.at/4.html?&no_cache=1

For ~8 Euros you could get a tour around the facility with as much tasting as you could stomach.  The tour was fantastic and the tastings were great, but it was too much.  By the end I had clearly enough chocolate (and I didn’t really eat that much) which was making souvenir shopping extremely difficult.  Notable things that they specialize in are regional (Nicaragua, Panama etc)  bars varying in the amount of cocoa from 10-100%, hot chocolate bars used to dissolve in milk, balleros which are easy to explain with just the link http://www.zotter.at/135.html , and of course their regular bars which had different kinds of filling.  I particularly enjoyed the chocolate with chili inside.

The classic shot of the stairs in Graz

At the end of our trip we went for a brief visit to see Graz which was pretty nice, just be careful driving around downtown as you may just find yourself in an area full of street cars, bikes, pedestrians and you’re wondering where the hell cars are supposed to go.  Yup, I kind of fell into that… lucky they weren’t any cops around.  We also did something that was definitely out of my comfort zone, a trip to the spa.  Now, I know what you’re thinking “what do you mean out of your comfort zone?!”  Lisi has been getting me prepared for this trip for a few months now and I’ve always felt that I’ll try anything once.  So, Lisi and I along with two of Nordic colleagues took a trip to a very large spa.  It’s not a spa by our definition.  Half of this place looked like a water park with, wave pools, a lazy river, water slides and generally a lot of pools and hot tubs.  It was completely packed with at least 500 people.  The other half of the “spa” was where the saunas were.  I’m familiar with the whole idea of wearing a towel in a sauna and nothing else, but once you cross over the turnstile and enter the sauna area, you have basically just entered the naked zone.  There were easily 100 people there, pretty much all nude.  Some people were lieing around with the towels, but once they went into a pool or sauna, they were buff.  You had to be over 16 to enter this area and there was a wide range of ages here.  They feature all kinds of saunas, infrared, tropical (full of steam), traditional and the extremely hot 95 degrees C.  There were a couple of hot tubs and one cold tub at 10 degrees.  I did take a plunge in that twice right after being in a sauna and wow does that ever feel crazy.  Unfortunately, they confiscated my camera at the door so I couldn’t get any pictures inside

Riegersburg, this was a really impressive view.

Saeid and Vida enjoying some pumpkin cream soup which was really delicious by the way.

Lisi didn’t like schnapps so much, this is just before it hit her mouth.

The schnapps cellar in Gölles

Hey, you’d look like this too if someone dared you to down a whole glass of schnapps.

I didn’t mention this, but we also saw a witch/sorcerer exhibit in Riegersburg. Apparently, they burned a lot of them here. This was a really ornate door in the castle Riegersburg.

Willy wonka, Willy wonka… Oops as I said before I couldn’t get that music out of my head.

One of the MANY chocolate fountains. This one was made directly from the cocoa beans and didn’t taste all that good. Better ones came later.

Bags of cocoa beans from central America.

Our amazing hosts/organizers, Daniel and Martina.

They had little cable cars moving “hot chocolate” bars around the room.

I’m preparing a hot chocolate with one of those bars from the cable cars.

This was right at the end, and I had clearly enough chocolate for the weekend.

The only picture you will see of my sauna/spa experience.

The classic shot of the stairs in Graz

Road trip to Venice

Road trip through the Alps... let's Go!

Ah yes… one of the distinct advantages to living in Austria is how close so many wonderful places are.  When I got whiff from an old friend of mine, Sonia, that her and her husband Doug would be in Venice for a weekend, I thought “Hey, that’s pretty much in the neighbourhood.  Why not go for a road trip?”  Of course, Elisabeth looks at me like I’m crazy and reminds me that Venice is like 6-7 hours by car.  Hehehe… after driving through most of South Western and Eastern Ontario, that didn’t seem like it would be very far at all.  After a little bit of negotiating where I basically promised to drive the whole way, we set up our plan.  Lisi has a friend that lives in Villach along the Italian/Austrian border which would make a perfect pitstop on our first night.

In St Marcus Square, Venice

So off we went leaving directly from work on Friday at around 2pm (gotta love Fridays in Austria).  The trip would take us near Salzburg, south into the alps where we would stay the night in Villach, then across the border and eventually we would arrive in Mestre.  Mestre is basically right across the water from Venice with a bridge connecting the two and hotels are infinitely cheaper there.  If you’re ok with staying in a hotel that is not 5 stars then you can definitely find good prices at www.hostelbookers.com.  The first thing I notice about an hour into our trip is that we hit a construction zone and instead of reducing the highway to one lane on our side, they keep 2 lanes and reduce the width of the lanes to 2 metres.  2 METRES is not very big for a car and for the next 10 km of construction or so, I sat there nervously looking at all of the nutjobs passing me.  I could have literally opened my window and touched them… very unnerving.

Sonia and Doug in St. Marcus Square

For the most part the drive through the alps was absolutely gorgeous.  There’s nothing better than driving through the mountains at 130km/h (that’s their speed limit here).  Villach was a nice, cosy town and a great resting point.  Once we crossed the border, things got a little more intersting on the road.  All of the major highways are toll highways and cost quite a lot.  We spent about 16 Euros to get from the border to Venice and it was maybe a 2 1/2 hour drive.  What makes this worst is that if you miss your exit, you’re pretty much stuck on the highway for another 20-30km as the exits are few and far between.  It was great to finally arrive and after a cheap bus ride to Venice (1.50 Euro) we were finally able to meet up with Sonia and Doug.   I was really happy to see them (it’s been at least 3 years) and this was the first opportunity for Elisabeth to meet someone from home.  Sonia and Doug just finished a cruise around the Mediterranean Sea for their anniversary which left and returned from Venice.  They were soon heading back to Tanzania and it was great catching up with them.  We teamed up and toured around the old city, enjoyed the food, sights and the wine.  Venice is really nice, but completely packed with tourists and most things are overpriced.   We took a trip out to the glass makers in Murano and some of the prices they were charging were jaw-dropping.  Don’t get me wrong they make really beautiful pieces, but you PAY for the labour.

The beach in Bibeone, ok so maybe there are more than a few hundred people.

After our nice visit with Sonia and Doug, we decided to stop at a beach in Bibeone, Italy about an hour north-east of Venice.  The beach had thousands of umbrellas, beach chairs etc, but since it was so early in the season there were only a few hundred people there.  It was fantastic and of course we both went into the sea.  I do need to mention that Lisi did do some of the driving on the way back, although I do believe she thought that we were flying at the speeds she was going.  Overall, this was definitely a really nice weekend trip.  Next time we’ll try down the other coast and head for Slovenia or Croatia.

Rusty, our travel companion in the alps.

Villach nestled in the alps

In St Marcus Square, Venice

Sonia and Doug in St. Marcus Square

Sonia and Lisi in Venice. I think my mother is going to be a bit jealous that Sonia got to meet her first.

Venice by night

Some of the glass works in Murano

The beach in Bibeone, ok so maybe there are more than a few hundred people.

Road trip through the Alps… let’s Go!

Lisi’s criticial speed, right before take-off.

Duck and Cover. Rusty is reacting to how fast Lisi’s driving.