leelabell

My husband and I will be spending three nights in the moutains of Austria without a car. We enjoy light hikes and walks and soaring mountain scenery.

We are debating the following locations. Your thoughts are welcome.

Seefeld
Heiligenblut/Lienz
Zell am Zimmer/Mayrhofen

Thank you for any advice.

Wayne

Lienz is a neat city, near the mountains, but is nothing extraordinary. How you classify it along with Heiligenblut I don't know, but if the two must go together, they would be my choice. All of the places you named are scenic, and some of the vistas all around Mayrhofen would be a strong second place in my mind. But Heiligenblut is to me a place where you can compose your own picture-postcard photos, hike in rugged or less strenuous terrain, and enjoy scenery everywhere you go.

By the way, I stopped for lunch one day in Lienz and ate a pizza at (honest!) Al Capone's Pizza. What a sign to see dangling outside an Austrian restaurant!
Good luck.

bob_brown

Heiligenblut without a car? You can hike, but you start off in a hole and work your way up. Without a car, how do you drive the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse? Of course, it depends on when you are there because the road is closed most of the year.

The town is quite small and there are only a few shops there. I will say this, the shops I found were high quality. The Post Hotel had good food; the Wienerschnitzel was better than anything I had in Vienna!

We stayed overnight at Landhaus Christof, but I cannot find it listed among accommodations in Heiligenblut.
I don't know why. It was set up as a guest house. Nothing fancy, but we had a private bathroom.

bob_brown

Landhaus Christoph is still there!!
It is run by Josef and Maria Kramser.
Frau Kramser speaks English enough to get the job done; her husband does too, but he is a village official and puts in long hours on the job. The youngest child, Johannes, must be 6 now. He was, at age 4, a real character. He never met a stranger. He would run up to my wife, jump in her lap, whisper something in her ear, giggle, run off, and hide. Then he would come back and peek around the corner to see what was happening. My wife speaks no German, so lord knows what he said in his whispered secrets. His mother said not to worry; she did not know what he said either. She just agreed with him and went on.

leelabell

Thanks for your quick responses.

After reading your responses and checking train/bus schedules, it looks like if we want to go to Heiligenblut we should rent a car. I think I will rearrange some things and a rent one for this portion of our trip.

We will be there in September.

Thanks again.

bob_brown

Check all, and I mean all, fees, taxes, add ons, etc before you decided from whom you will rent. I rented from Avis in Salzburg and after Avis socked me with a big fee for a second driver (wife), I ended up paying quite a bit more than I had anticipated.

Austria socks you with a pretty good tax, and gasoline/diesel is not cheap either. We had an Opel (the one smaller than the Vectra) that had a diesel engine. I am not sure you want one of those in the mountains. There was always a lag before the engine began to accelerate. And I was always downshifting to get up the mountain.

One other thing, if you are there when the mountain roads are open, check on the tolls. We were NOT told at the toll both about the fact that you could pay a little extra and have a multiple use ticket.

Frau Kramser told us about it at breakfast the day after. Fortunately it was not too late to upgrade. It saved us a bunch because we drove over the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse coming back from the scenic Krimml waterfalls and then we drove north to Munich by again going over the Grossglockner. I enjoy driving it! It is a very scenic route with some tight turnouts.

molker

While you do nare coming from, this can be important for access to your destination choice.
Zell am Ziller has easy access via the Zillertalbahn railway from the mainline station Jenbach( near Innsbruck) and offers many hiking possibilities in the mountains.The Hotel Theresa( www.theresa.at) offers superior rooms and food at good prices. The bahn offers easy transfers in the entire valley including Mayrhofen and allows good walks with an easy return if tired.
The time of your visit is not noted and that also can be a factor in the mountains. In winter, many non skiers ride the lifts to the top and enjoy the scenery while hiking down. Zell and Mayrhofen are perfect for this.

molker

Sorry just reread post and see you will be there in September. The ski lifts still run then for hikers to ascend mountains, many small huts are open to offer food and drink. You can meet many people and enjoy super scenery as well.
Lifts are in Zell and Mayrhofen.

Peep

Any ideas about how Mayrhofen and Zell am Ziller are in mid-May for hiking?

manio

here are some infos on hotels in the Zillertal (including Mayrhofen). Hotel Theresa is listed as well (with a test report written in German):

http://wellness-heaven.net/