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Journal: |
I left the hotel and walked the short distance to the railway
station where I bought a coffee and egg salad roll for breakfast
which I ate on a bench in the station watching the commuters and
international trains.
From the station, I walked back through
the old mediaeval town and was impressed by the number of
low-ceilinged passageways and arched porticos surrounding the town
plazas. It would have been easy to spend more time looking
around, although it was obviously a big tourist destination and
there were many up-market shops.
The route out of town was
upstream through a narrow gorge occupied by a swiftly flowing river,
a walking track and a suspended freeway, later joined by a rail
line. It all felt a bit neglected and industrial and the first
hour was pretty uninspirational walking. Gradually the trail
left the transport corridor and followed farm roads and back roads
through pretty undulating rural countryside along the lower sides of
the river valley. In the distance were the usual snow-covered
peaks, but they looked a little incongruous on a blazing hot sunny
and humid day. It was strange, but I was immediately taken
back to the 3H days (hot, humid and hazy) of the Appalachian Trail,
26 years ago. My subconscious physical memory of those hot
sweaty days with a pack was quickly evoked.
Sadly, much of
the walking was across open fields and I looked forward to the
little bits of forest which provided some respite. There were lots
of people out cutting, raking and loading hay, so I couldn't
complain (much). This was pretty much the pattern for the rest
of the day as I slowly climbed the valley, passing through the
occasional village or forest, to a region called a Biosphere Park (a
UNESCO designation) which presumably seeks to protect an already
settled area of international importance.
I didn't push the
pace too much though tried not to take too many breaks and felt I
was dealing with the heat fairly well. I was carrying some
soft drink and supplemented that with plenty of water from the
springs which seem to be a feature of every village and hamlet.
There weren't many accommodation options along the way and I
finally decided around 5pm, in the village of Blons, to catch a bus
to a small town, Thuringen, down in the valley, where I was
confident there would be some gasthofs. Sadly, this didn't
prove to be the case, and despite walking about 5km around two
loosely connected towns found about five gasthofs either not yet
open for the season, or not providing rooms (just a restaurant).
cutting a long story short, I finally caught a bus at 7pm to another
much larger town called Bludenz where the story now was that
everything was full. I began contemplating sleeping rough
somewhere, but I was so salt-encrusted and smelly after the hot day,
that had little appeal. I decided to walk back along the bus
route to see if I could see anything else and finally found a hotel
with a very reasonably-priced room next to a supermarket.
Sadly, the supermarket had just closed and the hotel didn't serve
evening meals, so I survived on my emergency rations. It was a
tiring end to a tiring day, but I did enjoy that shower.
As
night fell, thunder and lightning was audible and visible on the
surrounding peaks, but another hot day is forecast for tomorrow.
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