lake traunsee + grosser sonnstein

the grosser sonnstein mountain (1,037 m) in the salzkammergut area of austria was my hiking destination for today. i've started from the village ebensee - unterlangbath at the beautiful lake traunsee. traunsee is with 191m also austria's deepest and 2nd biggest lake (next to attersee). after

lake traunsee

just to make sure, the name of the lake is not a misspelled 'dream lake' which would be traumsee in german, the name is given by the traun river which flows through the lake.

is the gr. sonnstein difficult to reach? not really, after approximately 1 hour of steep walking i could reach the summit cross. the panorama views from there were just fantastic 😄.

you wouldn't believe it, but also at the very top of sonnstein you could still hear the noisy cars from the really loud road at the lake. probably is the acoustic is so 'good' thanks to the hills from both sides of the lake ...

village ebensee

grosser sonnstein mountain as seen from ebensee

summit cross at grosser sonnstein (= big sun rock)

museum ebensee

langbathbach creek at ebensee

 a short stop for swimming in the cold lake at viechtau

on the left you can see the second end of lake traunsee at gmunden

more pictures here.

lake mondsee & co.

there is not only the lake wolfgangsee in austria, my dears...

we have visited few more lakes: mondsee, egelsee, krottensee, hallstätter see and fuschlsee. the best known is lake mondsee ...

lake mondsee

 

 mondsee

 mondsee

 egelsee

castle hüttenstein

lake krottensee

lake wolfgangsee

 lake fuschlsee

 lake fuschlsee with castle fuschl and the schafberg hill

lake hallstätter see with unesco heritage city hallstatt

find more pitures in my g+ album. enjoy :-)

st. wolfgang am wolfgangsee

a dinner + nonalcoholic beer 'schlossgold' were the main reasons for us to visit st. wolfgang at lake wolfgangsee :-)

 christmas is about peace, isn't it?

 

 

 

 

 a candle in the middle of the lake? nice :-)

 

 dinner + nonalcoholic beer 'schlossgold' in the white deer restaurant at the lake

good bye, my dear 1,000 years old buddy st. wolfgang

more pictures here

what is better for holidays, st. gilgen or st. wolfgang? hmmm, they are sooo similar: lake, ship traffic to the other villages, old houses, hill above the village, cable car up to the hill zwölferhorn 1521m in st. gilgen vs. summer time train up to the mountain schafberg 1782 in st. wolfgang. well, st. gilgen have had a much nicer church, st. gilgen much nicer city center if you asked me ... and yes. hte 3rd biggest village/city at wolfgangsee is strobl, we haven't visited this time ...

eof

hallstatt (unesco heritage)

well, i was quite disappointed after visiting hallstatt, the unesco cultural heritage and city which was copied and re-built by one chinese mining company as an 1 : 1 replica somewhere in china. even when we have had a bad weather it still was interesting to see the old houses + 2 or 3 churches squashed between the lake hallstätter see and the rocks of the dachstein massif, but i've expected something more, to be honest from this heritage (weltkulturerbe) in the salzkammergut region of austria

enjoy few pictures anyway

 2nd church

 

 view from the 2nd church down to the lake and the 1st church ...

 skulls and bones

 

good-bye dachstein

just in case you want to read about the history of hallstatt: salt (world's first known salt mine is located just above the city), bronze, other metals, ... and probably also fishing + hunting + forestry and today tourism, of course :-)

more pictures in my google album

eof