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Chasing lakes and waterfalls in Aus-cro-slo-aus… part two

Our big journey began on Tuesday, October 26th. It started on Tuesday, because Bill had to take his first two online courses at the Jung Institute in Zurich. He spent Monday at home, listening to lectures out of Switzerland. I could tell he was very interested, which was nice to see.

Tuesday morning, we packed our bags, loaded the car, and were on our way, with our first stop being the Hundepension where Arran and Noyzi stay when we travel. Noyzi was very excited about the car ride. Several months ago, he surprised us by willingly jumping into the cargo area of the Volvo. Two weeks ago, he actually jumped into the passenger seat and was all set to go for a ride. Of course, in Germany, it’s not legal for pets to ride in the front seat, so we had to relocate him. Arran used to like car rides too, but he was not very excited this time. I also noticed that while Noyzi couldn’t wait to get to the pension, Arran was less enthused. We told Natasha, the lady who takes care of the dogs most while they’re at the Hundepension, that it was okay for the dogs to be separated, if need be. I think the main issue is that Arran is annoyed by Noyzi, who is bigger and younger than he is. He’d rather hang out with a female dog, closer to his size.

Once the dogs were dropped off, we headed for our first destination, Wels, Austria. I mentioned in the first part of this series that we chose Wels because it’s about halfway to where we were headed. It’s also a city we had never seen before. I read up a bit on Wels before we booked there. Many people reported that the downtown area is pretty and pleasant, and I noticed there was a “Therme” (spa with mineral springs) there, and a few interesting looking museums. What I failed to notice, however, is that October 26th is Austrian National Day. It’s a national holiday, which means a lot of things are closed.

The drive to Wels was uneventful. We stopped at a McDonald’s in Bavaria on the way there. That visit went off without a hitch. We stopped at the same McDonald’s yesterday, and it was a no go. You can read today’s post on my main blog for the reason, and a rather peevish rant from yours truly. I amused myself by taking photos on the drive down and playing with my iPad, which has cellular abilities. What did I ever do before I had an iPad with a cellular function? I’m amazed I ever survived any road trips from my youth!

  • Near Wurzburg…
  • What was on the bathroom door…
  • at the Serways…
  • A McDonald’s that has seen the last of me…
  • When they deigned to let us dine with mere medical masks.
  • Every German truck stop worth a damn has one…
  • Yea! Austria is always a treat.

Entering Austria was no big deal. No one wanted to see our passports or our vaccine proof as we drove in from Germany. When we arrived at Hotel Ploberger, apparently the best hotel Wels has to offer, I steeled myself for encountering the receptionist, which isn’t always fun in the era of COVID. But she was low key and wore no mask… and, in fact, we weren’t required to wear masks, either. It was like 2019 again. I can’t say I didn’t love it.

Hotel Ploberger is very business oriented. A few weeks ago, when I was planning this trip, I went on their Web site and noticed how enticing the site was to add on things, like parking, breakfast, and a bigger room size. When I tried to X out, I got a pop up message that read something along the lines of, “Oh no! You’re leaving without booking?” Actually, since USAA and PenFed were being pains in the ass and blocking my cards, I did have to X out and let Bill book for us.

The hotel did turn out to be convenient, and they offered some nice perks that I wouldn’t have expected. For instance, because I booked directly with them, they gave us a free round at the wine bar next door. There was also a lovely fruit and chocolate plate and bottle of sparkling water for us in the fridge. The room itself reminded me of an Aloft Hotel. It was very modern and constructed in a way that was more functional than stylish. But, if we were missing our pets, we could borrow one of their pet goldfish. A huge parking garage is right under the hotel, and guests can access the hotel lobby directly from the garage. They also have a bar in the lobby, or, if one prefers, there’s a wine bar/buffet next door that features Austrian wines.

  • Comfortable bed…
  • A strange shower area. I suspect it was designed for people with disabilities.
  • View.
  • A view of the other side of the room.
  • Handy gimmick for those who miss their pets.
  • How comforting…
  • This was a nice touch… fresh fruit and chocolate!
  • And a bottle of sparkling water included…

As I mentioned earlier, unbeknownst to us, it was Austrian National Day. A lot of restaurants and all of the stores were closed. I was still impressed by how pretty the old town is. Here are some shots from our first walk around Wels. As you can see, it’s a pretty town, even if it’s not a place I ever thought to visit before. They also have catfish, also known as “sheatfish”, there. I’m not sure if the fish is like what we get in America. I’m not a catfish fan, anyway. But they do have them in Wels.

  • The fall colors were in full blazing glory…
  • Stadtpfarrkirche Wels
  • You can get your Trachten here…
  • Not sure why this pipe has a cozy on it.
  • I really wanted Bill to get Lederhosen, but we weren’t in Wels when this shop was open.
  • Maybe this is more my speed…

I don’t think Wels is a particularly famous city in Austria. That’s kind of what made it appealing… I didn’t hear a lot of my countrymen. And they didn’t hear from me. There’s also lots of shopping in Wels, which is a nice thing, especially since there was little shopping in Slovenia and Croatia. I barely managed to get my mug and magnet from Croatia.

  • This appeared to be some kind of housing… it was right by the river. I was glad to see fencing.
  • We walked over the river, which was kind of a nice experience.
  • I really liked this bridge.
  • I’ll bet this is a very pleasant place in the summer.
  • Traun River
  • The next village.

One of the biggest attractions in Wels is the Ledererturm. It’s the last surviving tower of the original Medieval fortification of Wels. If you walk around the city, you soon notice a wall that was built in Medieval times. I also noticed that a lot of the restaurants and other buildings we entered were thick walled with low ceilings and crappy cellphone reception. I guess it’s because this is an old town with old buildings in it. The Ledererturm is among the eldest, and it basically serves as a landmark. Cars can drive through it, one at a time.

  • Ledererturm

After some dedicated sleuthing, I managed to find us a cute little Italian restaurant to have some dinner. The restaurant, which was called Rustica, was a tiny “hole in the wall” type of place. It was full and very busy the whole time we were there, but we managed to enjoy a nice dinner, even without reservations. Apparently, this joint is known as an excellent pizza place. I could see they were doing a brisk business, with many people dining in and even more picking up pizzas to go.

  • Bill looking very pleased…
  • I had grilled shrimp. Bill had veal with some kind of sauce…
  • At about 20 euros each, these were among the most expensive dishes at Rustica.
  • They came with salads and vegetables.
  • A popular place.
  • We didn’t go hungry.
  • We might have had dessert at Rustica, but figured they wanted their table back. We had gelato, instead.
  • And I noticed this alcohol free gin at the local Vom Fass. I am a graduate of Longwood University in Virginia, which is definitely NOT a dry (alcohol free) place. We visited Vom Fass the next day and loaded up, but not with Longwood Zero.

We had an interesting experience at Rustica, which was rated as Wels’ fourth best restaurant on TripAdvisor. The place was not expensive at all, nor was it a very private or romantic place. A very young couple was seated next to us. I kept noticing the male half watching us… I think he noticed my gadgets. My phone needs a new battery, so I carry my iPad with me. I also have an Apple Watch. I noticed that the guy and his girlfriend shared what would be a medium sized pizza in America, had a round of drinks, and dessert. It was plenty of food, but I got the sense that he would have rather have had what we had. Bill noticed it, too.

I wanted to tell the guy that we’re going on 19 years of marriage, and we were broke for the first few years… and there will be a day when he and his girl can each have their own entrees. We’re also over twice their ages.

Of course, I might be misinterpreting. Maybe they’re diet conscious or cheap. Anyway, that purely non-verbal experience gave us something to talk about as we headed back to the hotel.

Stay tuned for part three.

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trip planning

Chasing lakes and waterfalls in Aus-cro-slo-aus… part one

So much natural beauty… almost all to ourselves…

I may live to regret titling this particular trip series as I have. At the moment, I’m having trouble coming up with a snappy name for my latest vacation blog series. It might be because my brain is still scrambled by the whirlwind of four countries Bill and I have traversed since October 26th. It could also be because the time has changed. Additionally, I’m still a bit peeved about today’s lunch, which I’ll probably bitch about on my other blog, since I like to keep the travel blog somewhat “PG-rated”.

People who regularly follow this blog may know that Bill and I finally took our 2021 vacation. It was not a small undertaking to plan this trip, or even decide where to go. Gone are the days when we could just choose a destination on a whim. These days, we have to pay attention to COVID-19 rules and regulations, which seem to change daily, as well as infection trends. I feel like I’m back at South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control, working for the Bureau of Epidemiology, where it was once my job to translate the results of chronic disease trend statistics into laymen’s terms. Thanks to my current career as an “overeducated housewife”, those days are long behind me… or, at least I don’t get paid to do them anymore.

As of about an hour ago, our vacation ended, as we walked into our house and I caught a whiff of the rotting avocado and mozzarella cheese in the refrigerator. At first, I was afraid someone forgot to flush the toilet before we left town! The dogs will be picked up in a couple of hours; hopefully, they are both fine. I sure have missed them… I really mean that, even though taking them with us on trips isn’t exactly easy to do, especially now that we have big Noyzi, and Arran has become a cranky old codger.

So how did I choose a trip to Austria, Croatia, and Slovenia, then back to Austria? At first, it wasn’t in the plans. Originally, I had been looking at going to The Netherlands. I kept getting enticing ads on Facebook, particularly for a very upscale looking property in Zeeland. I must admit that the prospect of enjoying some legal weed was also somewhat appealing. But then I started thinking about how much I’d like to go to France and Belgium, too. I started trying to design an itinerary that would allow us to get the most bang for our bucks and the time Bill got off from work. I kept getting bogged down in and frustrated by minutiae, as I realized that the places I wanted to go weren’t all that convenient to each other. Accommodations were also kind of pricey. And then, I had a sudden flashback to 2015, when our return to Europe was still new and exciting…

Several years ago, when COVID-19 was a mere nightmarish fantasy in the back of a mad scientist’s or Hollywood screenplay writer’s most warped mind, I saw an enticing video on YouTube made by a user who called herself heyannalise. She made entertaining clips about traveling in Europe. Back in May 2015, she made one about her visit to the Krka National Park in Croatia. I was enchanted by the scenery in her video, which I am sharing below…

No… this is not where we went. I tried to get us tickets to the Krka National Park, but was unsuccessful. You have to buy them at least a day in advance, and all of the tickets were sold out for when we were in Croatia and had time to go… We will try to come back for an experience like Annalise had.

Somehow, even though I was enthralled by Annalise’s video, Bill and I never got around to visiting Croatia, even though we’ve now been in Europe for ages… I kept meaning to go, and we did once take a “joyride” to Pula, Croatia while we were visiting Trieste, Italy in May 2016. But we never managed to actually book a real trip there that involved staying overnight. Time moved on from 2015, and I pushed thoughts of Croatia to the back burner, even though my Croatian friend, Boris, who organizes trips to Croatia, kept wanting me to go and blog about the experience. The timing just never seemed to work out for us, or there was somewhere else I wanted to see that was more pressing or convenient.

As I was planning our most recent trip, thinking about France, Belgium, and The Netherlands, I couldn’t help noticing a nagging thought in the back of my head, reminding me how much I had been wanting to visit Croatia to see waterfalls and lakes. Since I managed to nag Bill into taking a lot of days off work, I realized that we finally had enough time to really enjoy ourselves and see a lot, and that meant it made sense to finally take the plunge and go to Croatia. I also knew I could break up the trip into manageable and affordable blocks, and that was a real plus. My days of wanting to drive eight hours straight to cram in life experiences are long done, and I don’t need much encouragement to overspend on fancy hotels. I also have no desire to fly during the age of COVID-19 unless it’s absolutely unavoidable.

By the time I was ready to go to Croatia, I had forgotten where Annalise had actually gone. I went on Google and started searching… and somehow, instead of Krka National Park, I wound up finding the Plitvice Lakes. Now… there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with going to Croatia just to see the Plitvice Lakes. They are stunning and mesmerizing, and you will definitely get plenty of exercise and fill your camera with exquisite photos of magical scenery. But we were down there for four nights, and Krka National Park is only about a 90 minute drive from where we stayed. It would have been nice to combine the two experiences, although now we have a good reason to visit Croatia again and do a LOT more exploring. It really is a beautiful and easy to travel country, especially for English speakers. And… we haven’t been to the coast yet, to see all the towns that tourists flock to during the summer months. We have a good reason to go back to Croatia, now.

Anyway, once I’d decided on Croatia, it was time to plan for a visit somewhere else within proximity. I recalled that while we were visiting Trieste in 2016, we also visited Lake Bled in Slovenia. I remember being totally enchanted by beautiful Lake Bled and the other areas in Slovenia we visited on that trip. I also specifically remembered Slovenians telling Bill and me that we should visit Lake Bohinj, as it was even better than Bled is, and less touristy. Realizing that Bohinj was maybe 4 or 5 hours from the Plitvice Lakes area, I determined that it would be a great second stop on our trip. We could spend another four nights there.

The cities where we chose our visits in Austria were mostly down to being practical. We decided to stop in Wels, Austria on the way down to Croatia because it was about halfway to where our final destination would be, and Bill and I didn’t want to stay in Linz or Passau, which are cities we’ve both already visited. Ditto to our stop in Salzburg. Every time we’ve gone to Slovenia– we also went to Kranjska Gora, Slovenia last year to pick up Noyzi— we’ve stopped in Salzburg, because it’s convenient. It’s also a great town to visit, although on our other two trips, we’ve only spent a night there and neglected to properly enjoy the city.

  • This is the very delicious ham and asparagus meal that I ate in Salzburg in May 2012…

We did take a day trip to Salzburg in May 2012, when we did our very first military hop, and we got to see the city on that trip. But we visited Salzburg from Munich instead of staying there overnight, and that sharply limited our ability to see a lot. I also remember getting caught in a sudden late spring thunderstorm that day, so we ended up ducking back into the restaurant where we had lunch (ham and asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce), and drinking lots of beer and Schnapps! I remember the proprietor was quite pleased with us giving him more business. I think that restaurant has since closed down, which is a pity. We sure enjoyed going there.

Ever since that day trip in 2012, I had been wanting to go back to Salzburg. Russian buskers had made me cry there, and I saw some beautiful Friesian horses… But every time we’ve stayed in Salzburg overnight, we’ve been rushing to or from somewhere else, so this time, I decided we’d spend two nights.

With all of the cities chosen, I went looking for places to stay. Wels, Austria, it turns out, is a very pleasant and attractive city, but it’s not particularly exciting or noteworthy. I noticed they had catfish there. There are museums to see, and the downtown area is nice. But I didn’t find any cute places to rent. Consequently, we ended up booking Hotel Ploberger for two nights, which is supposedly the best hotel in town. I was amused by their very aggressive sales tactics, right on their own Web site. For the other three stops, I booked homes privately managed by hosts I found on Booking.com. Not only was that safer in terms of COVID-19, it was also more convenient. Lake Bohinj and the Plitvice Lakes areas are both chock full of apartments and homes to rent. I would say there are more private residences for renting than hotel rooms, although they do exist. And in Salzburg, I chose to rent a place owned by a musician/music producer. That was mainly because I am myself a musician. I will write a lot more about all of the properties as the series gets underway… and as we were gone for twelve nights, it’s bound to be a long one.

We had a fantastic time on our trip, and I look forward to detailing the blow by blow, even if Bill and I are the only ones who read it. So, now that the introduction is done, on with my blog series on the trip down to Aus-Cro-Slo-Aus. Hope you enjoy the ride.

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