gmünd in kärnten (austria, AT)

what a nice stop-over for lunch on our way back from croatia + italy in gmünd in kärnten (carinthia) österreich (austria, AT). is is a BEAUTIFUL small medieval city close to the highway with an castle ruin + nice town square surrounded by both, (remainings of) city walls and the alp mountains ... soooo nice! and the food in austria is generally better taste and higher quality compared to germany's standards due to the overwhelming cheap-cheap-cheap attitude, you know?

on the way to istria / croatia we have slept in our favorite sauna & wellness establishment in a quite rundown hotel directly at the lake st. leonharder see in the city of villach / kärnten / AT. the restaurant + sauna + the nude bathing in the lake + the views at the surrounding snowy mountains are so great, that the quite old hotel rooms and the sooo ugly entry to the sauna through storerooms + bicycles + beer crates + other stuff do not matter much 😄

castle ruin

our place for a tasty lunch, guest hous alte post (old post office)

the market square

meow meow 🐱

more coming soon (in the rainy autumn weeks at the end of the year 2026?) or never ...

harikiri skiing, zillertal, AT

what a wonderful skiing in the zillertal valley in tirol, austria (=österreich), AT. 🏂🌋🌞 

i was alone, so i could wonderfully concentrate on my feelings + thoughts, especially abt my investment strategy for the next few weeks/months due to the soaring gold + silver + copper + mining stocks prices and the unbelievable volatility which most likely could mark some major market peak, cant it?

the most famous ski run in this mountopolis area is the steepest track in austria, harakiri with a 78% declension. i've tried twice, but the icy artificial snow piste vs. my 10 years old unserviced skis with completely blunt edges (stumpfe kanten) was not any nice experience. later they've even closed the harakiri run completely due to few injuries out there ... any lessons learned? yes, i've brought my skis to a service the very next day 😀⛄🍀

indeed, there was not enough snow in this mountopolis ski area, which is 1,600-2,400m high, so we've had just the artificial icy snow all over the place ...

if mountopolis, then start your tour at the horchbergbahn cable car from stockach / schwendau. why? you dont need to stray all over mayrhofen looking for a parking place and on top is the parking at the horchbergbahn base station for free. will you remenber that advice? promised?

mayrhofen. do not tap into the city center for skiing 

horchbergbahn cable car, base station, here we go ⛇

skiing is not for free ...

mountopolis ski area

harakiri ski slope. 78%

knorren lift => harakiri piste

lunch at the lärchwaldhütte at 1.999m in the penken area

penken express

4er nordhang lift

how the world looks like through my ski glasses 😎

hello? wanna jump down the rock?

the day is almost over, isnt it? how to come back home?

do not stop in any of the many apre-ski bars, my dears! no matter

 whether it is called kamikadze, yeti-bar or anything else, will u? 😈

few more pictures here.

wanna look at my last years ski visit to zillertal in zell am ziller / zillertalarena?

traunsee, ebensee, langbathsee, wolfgangsee - AT

traunsee + ebensee, langbathsee, wolfgangsee ~ oberösterreich (= upper austria), AT. 

btw, which of these four 'lakes' (see) is not a lake? ... got it? well, ebensee is just a name of the village at the southernmost point of lake traunsee and means here is everything flat ('eben') 😆

btw, the lake traunsee build by the traun river is the deepest lake (completely located) in austria with 191m. just the lake bodensee between austria & switzerland & germany is with its 251m even deeper.

i'll most likely upload pictures + insights later ... much later ... most likely in the cold + rainy autumn evenings, okay?

lake langbathsee

village ebensee

view in the direction to feuerkogel from our plain & fine 

guesthouse 'gasthof roitner' in ebensee

the village / small city of ebensee

picture of castle ort on an island in the lake traunsee in our hotel

picture from google maps (or wiki?) by florian pollak

lake traunsee as seen from ebensee

lake wolfgangsee, view to the north

lake wolfgangsee, view to the south

(very) few more pictures here.