Austria

Here I am, in a small village called Pfunds heading towards the Reschen Pass, which I have just read is near enough to the border of Switzerland / Italy / Austria.  And the penny has just dropped that that is why I have been seeing signs to St Moritz, the Swiss ski resort!

 Looking across the River Inn at Pfunds Dorf.

 A fountain in the village. 

The pension St Lukas, where I am staying tonight (€38).

Pfunds is at an altitude near 950 metres and the Reschen Pass is just under 1,500 metres, though it is just a steady climb.  Sadly though I won't be walking over this as I am carefully nursing my feet.  I have tried, unsuccessfully to get into a physio, and in their absence I have taped my left foot for posterior tibial tendonitis and the right foot for anterior tibial tendonitis!  I notice there is a physio next door to where I am staying at present and so will try and get in if I can so that I can have my diagnosis confirmed!!  Actually the rest has made a huge improvement, and I am just practicing the lessons learned from previous trips and waiting till things are really healed - instead of soldering on, which is what I am wont to do!

One of the things that Joan and I talked about when we walked was the fact that we ended up in little villages that most tourists would never get to see, and yet they were worthy of a visit. Even though I am bussing at present I am still following my itinerary, sort of, and am still ending up in these tiny little villages, eating meals in little cafes and restaurants, singing in the churches (most of which are open), and just sitting by the river or in the square waching the world go by!

 The River Inn at Landeck.  Landeck Castle is on the bank high on the left, and is now a really interesting museum about the Tyrol and the Tyrol people.

 The tower at Landeck Castle.  So many times since arriving in Europe I have been reminded of the song I learnt in Sunday School - " the wise man built his house upon the rock"!

 In the village of Fließ this house holds the Via Claudia Augusta Museum.  They have made some amazing discoveries and there is a very interesting collection of artifacts here dating back thousands of years.  I had to bend a lot to get through the little door in the centre, and the big door on the left goes up to the church.  The date on the house says 1360!!

The church tower in Fleiß. 

 A barn wall in Pfunds

I decided to catch the bus at a place called Trofana Tyrol.  It is a GIANT petrol station / restaurant / store / tourist place, and as I navigated my way to the exit and the bus stop, I was stopped in my tracks by his display!  In case you can't read it it says "no kangaroos in Austria"!

I have taken he opportunity of this "rest time" to catch busses to the next village and look at the museums and so on.  The bus drivers need a medal for coping with the droves of cyclists, and I mean droves - dozens upon dozens of them!  It is rare to see a single cyclists, twos and threes are quite common, but so too are groups of 8 - 10!  What I find interesting is that the bus has a special run every couple of hours on which they tow a huge trailer where the cyclists put their bikes so they don't have to ride over the Pass.

 The bike trailer on the back of the bus

Heading over the Inn at Pfunds

It is really interesting seeing the River Inn.  I began following it from just outside Imst. There I thought it was perhaps a middle aged river, wide and deep, fast flowing but not too boisterous.  As I have gone upstream I keep getting tricked by it - I think it is becoming a younger river, a strong current and bubbling with a lot of noise over hidden rocks and boulders and sometimes it appears more shallow.  I have decided that at present it is more like a teenager - sometimes calm and steady, but then, for no reason it changes to a raging torrent roaring through narrow passages and around bends.  I cannot put my finger on the colour of the river, sometimes I think of it as a steel blue yet other times it has a greenish tinge to it, and over those colours there is a milky component to it as well.

 My first sight of the River Inn, even though I had been walking alongside it for more than a half hour.  The colour is very accurate and you can see why I have trouble defining the colour.  It was this path, pounding along on lovely concrete that  created havoc with my left foot!

 A foot bridge crossing the Inn at Landeck.

The Inn is used for water sports.