Badgastein

Early visitors found a thundering waterfall at the head of the Gastein Valley. What to do? Some bright spark must have said as a joke "Let's build a village on both sides with a bridge over the raging cataract". So they did. 

Eventually, they discovered numerous mineral springs and thermal caves, all of which were advertised as having health benefits which attracted tourists, and thus the decision to build was proved sensible. 

Well, that's my version. 

The official legend involves saints performing miracles to cure a wounded deer with the mineral spring water. 

The truth is probably between these two stories. 

Whatever the true history, there's no doubt that there are many such springs and visitors come from all over just to soak in the healing water and breathe in the healing air. Some visitors just wash their hands... 

One other story about the healing water: someone in a wheelchair went in hoping for a miracle, and it worked! They came out with 2 new tyres... 

So why were we in the area, especially as we didn't know any of the history before we arrived?

This was one of those 'go with the flow' decisions, if you'll pardon the pun. We had talked about our original plans with our Viennese hosts, and Andrea said "How about Bad Gastein?" That seemed enough of a recommendation, so here we are... 

As noted in our Budapest blog, getting here was tricky, so when we arrived we basically just went to bed. 

The next day we went wandering and found steep alpine meadows, the quiet tinkling of sheep and cows bells, and snowcapped mountains in the distance.  Had we stumbled on the set of a re-make of Heidi? 

Further wandering took us into the town, for more tourist brochure scenery... 

What could top all that? Friday 26th happened to be the opening of the cable car up to Stubnerkogel so that seemed like a good way to find out. 

How about Europe's longest suspension bridge? 

Spectacular views of the Tirol mountains perhaps? 

Or Granny Goat summiting again? 

One surprising fashion note: I always assumed lederhosen, i.e. leather trousers and shorts, were obsolete, only to be found in old movies. Not so. I lost count of how many people I saw wearing them. And these were clearly well worn, everyday items, not traditional dress only brought out on holidays. The tourist versions were €1000 in one shop! 

Not everywhere is steep. As further training for our El Camino we also walked up... 

and down the the riverside trail... 

which was lovely. It would have been even better if it wasn't so hot. How to recover?

Next stop: Salzburg