Ever since our last trip here I have wanted to take a road trip to see the mountains and villages around the Carinthia Tirol, specifically on road 111 going through the Lesachtal Valley, just above the border of Italy and Austria.
Ralph and Angelika picked us up, we met up with Jürgen and Veronika and set off for the day.
On the map it is only a 2.5 hour trip, but with stops to look around we spent the whole day exploring.
But it really is old. How old? Way old.
It has the graffiti, "The Romans were here in 0045!” to prove it.
It took about ten minutes to walk the town.
There is a sundial, but it is off by one hour. I think I would be off as well if I were Mr. Sun-With-The-Metal-Rod-In-His-Head.
But then again, so was the clock on the church steeple… in fact time just seems to stand still here.
It took a little set up, but there, I got it out.
There is also an old castle on the hill that could be restored, and one street of colorful houses.
We all wanted some caffeine to avoid the blurry headache, so we grabbed a table at basically the only cafe in the square. We enjoyed listening to a child screaming so loud that you could hear it echoing down the quiet street from out-of-sight around the corner. It sounded like screeching tires of a car wreck.
And then there was the crazy lady, next table over, having a very public breakup via cell phone, holding it out at arm’s length and yelling as we all listened in.
So these things kind of offset the “anti-headache” quality of the coffee.
We drove across the River Drau and up a winding road. There is a picnic area up on the pass, so we stopped and looked down on Oberdrauburg and up-valley from where we had just come. The U shaped slopes from the mountain shoulders is called the Carinthia Gate, formed long ago by glaciers.
Over the pass and down into the city of Kötschach-Mauthen. We stopped at the Museum 1915-1918 which is about the First World War. It was bitterly fought in the mountains in this region.
I was struck by a few things:
It was interesting to see the places I have stood (on the via feratta climbs) or stayed at (Dreinzinnen Hütte) recently, but to see them during the war.
Second, the heavy heavy equipment that they drug up into the high mountains, sometimes 100 men on a single cannon.
Ugh.
Even simple things like ladders were so bulky and heavy, and it is not like the slings and packs they used were very sophisticated. Just the sheer amount of work tunneling and putting in cable stairs and rope ladders is mid boggling.
Then there were the bitter cold conditions. Wool coats, thin gloves and knee socks? At least it looks like, on the Italian side at least, they were fortified with lots of wine.
They are not shy about showing photos of dead bodies, in fact the museum seems to be trying to make the point about “Was it really worth the cost?”
Yet as we all know, the war to end all wars didn’t.
The museum is run by a group that is restoring and preserving the trenches and high altitude forts on the old front lines. They also find and preserve relics, and have a rather jarring photo of a guy lying dead in a meadow near here, with the warning, “Accidental explosion while recovering artifacts.” In other words, look but don’t touch.
Outside there was a weird sticker stuck to the pole. Kangaroo? This isn’t Australia.
Turns out there might be a kangaroo or two in Austria after all.
It is cute village after cuter village; clusters of houses and farms on the steep slopes.
We stopped to eat at the Gasthof Wilhelmer in the village of Liesing. This is the type of alpine village, houses perched on stilts on the steep slopes, where the homes in the center of the village are built over their cow barns. There is a low mooing in the village and the smell of cows, but clean cows not overwhelming cows, is in the air.
I had a nice bowl of the Knodel Süppe that I like, while others had salads or some dumpling meal called schlipfkrapfen.
There is of course the cute church with point spire, and a little village square with fountain. I watched as a big logging truck tried and failed, with a loud CRUNCH! to make the very tight turns in the town center.
Why is a truck going through the middle of the village? Because of the storm damage from last October; there are complete slopes of trees down all up and down the valley. All the via ferrata routes in the Tirol are closed due to damage, and a couple people have been hurt or died ignoring the closures (and thus no climbing this trip, much to my dismay).
Leaving the village we had to take a detour. The road is still buried under the October avalanche.
Further up valley we stopped in Maria Luggau where there is a great big pink church and cloister, with cool tile work and a funny painting on the ceiling of a farmer loitering in his field while the angels admonish him.
But the cool part in Maria Luggau are the famous mills. There are six of them strung together in a line. As the top one’s wheel turns, it drops the water into the mill race to feed the next mill wheel down the slope. This one in turn dumps the water into another mill race which then feeds the next and so on. There used to be 196 mills total; every farm had one. These mills have been working continuously since 1700.
Think about it.
The US did not even exist in 1700.
There is a person working one mill who will show you how it works, for a few euro, or you can simply walk and look.
This is one of those cool but really obscure places that you would never know about, but if you did you’d want to stop for sure. If you google it for information, there is not much there. We were lucky to be traveling with locals who know what to see.
So now you know. Stop by and see it!
We stopped for food at Hotel Gasthof Unterwöger where we ordered two glasses of Reisling. Mine was good, Gail’s was buttery, I tried to send it back but the waitress insisted she herself poured both from the same wine. I don’t know if one was older or what but they were not the same, as everyone agreed. Anyway I had a good garlic cream soup, specialty of the house.
There is a ski area here. Narrow crooked streets with crowded houses and barns, everyone living on top of their cows. Tractors are parked in the garages underneath, the cars banished to the narrow streets.
People mowing hay on the very steep hillsides, how the mower does not roll I don’t know.
They have a real night watchman who patrols all night long looking for fire. It would be a disaster if one of these places started to burn.
The night watchman is so important that he has a statue in the cathedral, between Mary Sword-In-The-Heart and Jesus-On-The-Cross.
Yes, between them.
The Night Watchman is the third person of this village's Holy Trinity.
Even just in this area here we could easily take days worth of road trips, not to mention the hiking we do, and the hundreds of climbing routes.
Maybe on a future trip we will rent a car and just set up in three or four different spots, then spend days exploring.