The Mountains Are Calling and I must.. take the caravan!

Burg Lahneck in Germany was amazing, but more sights were to come.
Quite a few families from the UK stay at Burg Lahneck, but as we headed south, we noticed far fewer UK cars or motorhomes on the Autobahn.

Setting off from Burg Lahneck, through the wooded hills, to Austria

Germany is Big. Really Big.

To drive from the north of the country down to the south is a long way. Similar to driving from the north of the UK to the south coast, and as mentioned before, we couldn’t take advantage of the high speeds that the German Autobahns are famous for.

After many hours of driving, and many hours of queuing, the landscape changed.
Rolling hills turned into big hills and then into mountains.

The Mountains are Calling

The houses changed too. They now had the classic large sloping roofs and wood cladding of buildings found in the Alps.

Finally, we reached the mountains

As we crossed into Austria, the mountains were huge. And some appeared to have snow at the summit still, even in mid-August with temperatures into the 30s!

No doubting we are in the Alps now

For some reason, the Sat Nav decided to take us off the Autobahn and take us cross-country, through little Austrian alpine villages, and single tracks.
It was all beautiful, but not a great ‘caravan friendly’ suggestion for a SatNav designed for caravans.

However, we soon reached our campsite: Seeblick Toni. What another treat!

Yes, Einfahrt did bring out childish humour!

Seeblick Toni

This campsite is set in an Alpine valley with large mountains all around you. It reminded us very much of Yosemite in the USA.

This was an impressive place to pitch the caravan

In our pitch, we had to manoeuvre the caravan sideways on between two trees. Again, a caravan mover would have been a big help.
Fortunately, another English camper was opposite and came to help, as well as the German family in the pitch next to us.

There isn’t as much space between pitches as we have in the UK. However, that didn’t distract from the beauty of the place.

I was also glad I bought a European adapter for our Electric Hook-up cable.

This European campsite didn’t use the European standard EHU sockets

The facilities were also magnificent, with excellent hot showers included in the price, as we as the pre-paid electric hookup that we booked through the Camping and Caravanning Club. (At Burg Lahneck there was a separate charge for the showers and electricity used).

There’s no pool on this campsite. Instead, there’s a sizeable Alpine lake that everyone one swims in.

Care for a dip? This is the lake at Seeblick Toni campsite

Up the Mountains

This Mountain Pass was included with our stay at the Seeblick Toni campsite

We stayed a few days at Seeblick Toni. Included in our stay was a free mountain pass, and the lady in the office recommended an excellent mountain to visit, Wiedersberger Horn, with a big lift that will take us up 2000m!

An easy way to climb up the 2000m

Of course, in the Winter season, this is a ski resort. In summer, it’s also a major attraction, complete with restaurants and children play areas at the top of the mountain.

This ski resort was also a great place to visit in the summer

We climbed the remaining meters to the summit, and a quick Google search revealed we were much higher than Snowdon back home.

On the way up to the summit of Wiedersberger Horn

The view was immense.

360 degrees was mountains. Every which way you looked. And much still snow-capped.

We were fortunate with the weather. It was baking hot and not a cloud in the sky.

The views were fantastic

After some refreshments, we went down to the children’s activity area, which was right up our street.

Getting some mountain air on a giant bouncy pillow

The ‘adventure playground’ was more like a mini Go Ape, built into the trees on the side of the mountain. There were also a few hammocks strung between the trees for the grown-ups 🙂

Austria is stunning. It is definitely on our list as somewhere to return.

on our list as somewhere to return