Author: mamawithwanderlust

We woke up early on 7/6/17 to get a head start for our long, steep hike.  Patrick, a guy from the Czech Republic whom we met the evening before, decided to join us that morning.  It was still dark out at 5:45am, so we used our headlamps to help guide us.  It’s interesting trying to find the trail markers in the dark.  Good thing there were 4 of us.  The route started out following alongside the road.

Around 7:30am we reached a cafe/bar that was open so we could grab a coffee.  It turns out that Patrick is a Personal Trainer so he had us working on hip opening stretches to help us with our backpacks.  I chose to keep drinking my coffee while doing the stretches.

We continued our walk alongside the road.

There are many small, sweet churches along the Camino.

You can enter the churches and get a stamp in your Pilgrim’s Passport.  If you start the Camino with over 100km to get to Santiago de Compostela, you are supposed to get at least one stamp per day to prove that you walked.  If you start with 100km until Santiago (this is really popular) you are required to obtain two stamps.  This is for when you obtain your Compostela at the end of the Camino.  You can also receive these stamps at cafes and alburgues.

Everyone comes to the Camino for a reason.  Some of those reasons are religious, spiritual, transitional, deeply personal, grieving, life changes, or seeing if your body can physically do this.  Whatever the reason, you have time to think about it while walking.  You may spend time in silence, deep in your own thoughts OR you may talk things out with new friends on the Camino.  It is really interesting to me to hear what others think and what they are going through, as well as sharing my thoughts.  I have always loved meeting people and hearing their life stories, so this aspect of the Camino is just great for me.  When walking for so long, we did also get into super silly moods as well.  So there were many laughs shared.

We started to reach the ascent.  I believe we had an elevation change of 1300 meters.

Everything started getting really green and lush.  It was pretty warm as well.

I really enjoy going up hills.  It is physically challenging and feels good to me.  It makes me feel strong.

Taking a break going up the hills.

Horses coming down the Camino.

As we are on the Camino, many farmers are moving their livestock on these pathways.  You need to be careful where you step.

Once we reached our ascent, there was a bar/cafe for Pilgrims to refresh themselves with.

We now entered a new province of Spain, Galicia.  It has a history of being a Celtic area and you feel as if you are in Ireland when walking this portion of the Camino.

It started to very lightly sprinkle so I was able to use my backpack rain cover.

We approached O’Cebrerio and saw the hobbit looking homes with the thatched roofs.

We stayed in a municipal alburgue that evening.  You learn to quickly get used to having your personal bubble challenged because you are sleeping very close to people you don’t know from all over the world.  I use eye blinders and ear plugs when sleeping in albergues.  It helps tune out flashlights and snoring.

The church in town is built on the site of a 9th Century Parish.  It had to be rebuilt because it was in a state of disrepair.

When I arrived in O’Cebrerio, I learned that I had HUGE blisters, so big in fact that we named them. The shoes that I brought to wear are the shoes that I trained in.  They fit me perfectly.  That is a big problem.  You need to bring shoes that are a size to a size and a half bigger than your normal size.  They should fit you good on the heel and have plenty of space in the toes.  When you carry a backpack, you have extra weight on your body.  In addition to that, you are walking LONG miles in the heat so your feet are going to swell.  The path is not flat ground but instead can have a lot of uneven rocks in it.  For training purposes, try to find ground like that to walk on. What a lot of people chose to do and what I’ll for sure do next time, is bring sandals to wear the last few miles of the day.  This allows your toes to have space.  Megan had badly hurt her Achilles’ tendon, so she hiked in her Birkie’s almost exclusively.

Today’s hike was dedicated to my mom.  I chose today to be her day because of all she is going through with her cancer diagnosis.  She had surgery a few weeks before I left for Europe.  I was so grateful that I was able to go down for her surgery for the week and spend time with her & my dad.  She found out she had Stage IV Appendiceal Cancer in January.  She has been an inspiration for how she is dealing with everything.  She is very matter of fact about it all and does not ever show any signs of feeling sorry for herself.  She is so positive and continues to be more concerned about other people rather than herself.   Thinking about her helped me push through any pain and continue on with the mileage.  She has always approached life in a very laid back manner.  She finds humor in situations that others may not.  She is very selfless and thinks about others all the time.  She is an inspiration to me and helped me push on today.

We slowly started our day, originally wanting to start hiking at 5:30am so that we could beat the afternoon heat.  After a bit of a sleep in, packing up, and grabbing a coffee, we were off at 6:30am.

Coming straight from my other part of the trip I had waaaaaaay to many clothes, even though Brad and the girls took a lot home for me.  You really only need two outfits to hike in (wash one and wear the other if the first one is still wet), one outfit to change into once showered after hiking, a rain jacket, a long sleeved shirt, a pair of pants,  and a couple pairs of socks.  Other useful things, flip flops or shoes like that, a silk sleeping bag liner, toiletries, a quick dry towel, a backpack rain protector, and cell phone & charger.  Talking to many people, packing can be a fear based process and you end up taking things because you start thing of the what if’s.

When we started walking, we walked out through the city of Ponferrada.  In cities you really need to keep looking for the arrows or shells to guide you out of the city.

We did have to walk by the sides of the roads, so you need to be careful of traffic. There are so many churches of all sizes along the trails.  Many locals will volunteer their time to stamp the Pilgrim’s Passports.

Walking along you greet other Pilgrims with “Buen Camino”.  In the little villages you will see Pilgrims stopping at the little cafes for coffees, breakfast, and snacks.

By the time we arrived in Camponaraya we had to make a pit stop at the post office so I could mail some clothes home.  In typical Sarah style, I sprawled all my belongings out on the floor of this tiny post office to sort what stays with me and what goes home.  Locals are coming in to pay their bills and mail their letters as I’m doing this.  Megan told me her cardinal rule of don’t keep anything white on the Camino, it’s just going to get totally dirty.  I ended up mailing home 3.5 kg or 7.7 lbs home.  I felt lighter both physically and spiritually getting rid of all that stuff.

We walked through the vineyards of Cacabelos and had the mountains surrounding us.  It was gorgeous.  Sonali picked a beautiful place for lunch.  Megan ordered this gorgeous goat cheese plate.

I’m partial to this dish called Tortilla which is basically a frittata with potatoes and cheese.

Because we started late and I had to dink around with my backpack, we were now reaching the hotter part of the day. It got up to 87 degrees. So when we would reach a watering spot, we would put water on our heads to cool us off.  We walked by the side of the road again and our final ascent was through vineyards.

The village of Villafranca is really beautiful and there was a large building in the town center.

We stayed at Albergue de la Piedra and totally recommend it.  The couple that runs it renovated it themselves.  The cool part about it is that it is built into the side of the mountain AND the rock is actually in part of the building as the wall.  It looks gorgeous.  Megan was excited because there was a kitchen in it.  After being on the Camino for 19 days, she was excited to cook.  She also said, that is the best way to meet people.

Megan and I went to the little grocer, bought veggies, chicken, rice, and tortillas to make up some fajitas.  Megan was so happy to cook and she was right, we met a lot of really cool people.  We met a mom and 12-year old daughter from Vancouver hiking the Camino.  She heard about it when a visiting author came to her library and was talking about the Camino.  She knew right then that she had to walk it.  We met a guy from the Czech Republic who decided last minute that he was going to hike the Camino from Ponferrada  to Santiago, the next day he was on the plane.  Another couple we met, actually met on the Camino a few years back.  She was from Brazil and he is from Newcastle, England.  He said he actually met her the year before when she was working on the trail, but she was so busy she couldn’t really get to know him.  He came back the following year and they have been together ever since.

Since we walked through the vineyards today, I wanted to taste the local wine.  For 3€ you can purchase a bottle from the albergue.  I bought one and it was fun to share with the people we just met.

I decided that everyday I walk, I’m going to walk for someone.  Today it was for my Grandma Bellin, since today would have been her birthday.  In moments as we walked in silence I thought of how she influenced my life.  She always told you what she thought.  She enjoyed to travel.  She loved her husband, my grandpa whom she met on a blind date in college at the University of WI-Madison.  She taught us to send out thank you letters in a VERY timely manner and if you didn’t you would hear about it.  She never really complained.  She was a member of the clean plate club always.  I have very fond memories of her and am thankful she was in my life for a long time and that she got to meet my Gretchen.

Tomorrow we have a long, steep hike AND we plan on getting an early start.  I’m looking forward to it.

Last October my friend Megan asked me if I’d like to join her and her daughter Sonali  on the Camino.  I’ve been wanting to hike it, so was thrilled.  I thought it would be great to hike with them.  Since my family had already planned on being in Europe this summer, it was super easy for me to tack this experience on.  After I said goodbye to my family in Munich yesterday, I flew to Madrid.  From Madrid, I took the train to Leon.  A helpful hint if you are going direct from the airport to one of the train stations, you get a free ticket for the C1 train (the one that leaves the airport).  All you do is look at your Renfe ticket and there is a 5-digit pass code “CombinadoCercanias”, enter that into the Renfe machine and voila, a free ticket in.

In Leon I needed to pick up my Pilgrim Passport.

I did that and obtained my first stamp.

While in Leon, I wanted to stop and see the Gothic Church, the Santa Maria de Leon Cathedral.

After my little jaunt around Leon, I had to catch a bus to meet up with Megan and Sonali in Ponferrada.  Megan and Sonali have been on the Camino for 18 days now.  I am honored to do the last lag of this hike with them.  As I was walking from the bus across town to the albergue, an older gentleman wished me, “Buen Camino” and  I got tears in my eyes.

I was able to see Megan and Sonali come in from their daily pilgrimage.  It was so great seeing them here.

Ponferrada has a Knights Templar Castle that we toured.

I am so excited to start walking tomorrow!!!

Glockenspiel in Marienplatz

We took the train from Salzburg to Munich.  Our family really enjoys this type of travel and find it very relaxing.  We can all enjoy the views.

Upon arrival we went to our hotel only to find out that we did not have a room.  The receptionist found another room for us in a different hotel.  He even escorted us there.  Once we settled in, we wanted to go on a walk into the Fussgangerzone of Marienplatz.  The Glockenspiel looked so pretty at night.

Our main goal in Munich was to visit with friends.  Johanna has been part of our family since she was 14 years old.  She made the journey down from Jena to see us.

Veronika and her boyfriend Daniel made the journey in to see us as well.  Veronika lived with us two years ago while interning at the girl’s school.  She is really fun to be around and we were so happy she made the journey to see us.  We met Daniel for the first time and he is fantastic, Hanna was in a really silly mood and he did great with us all.

We walked through the English Gardens which are huge.  It was a tad rainy so it wasn’t as busy there as it normally can be.  Veronika took us to this cool bridge where you can watch surfers.

The is a huge Chinese building in the park that is in the center of a beer garden.

A local volunteer group was trying to raise money by bringing their dogs to the park to be pet.  The girls loved this.

We had to of course stop by the busy Hofbrauhaus.  The girls enjoyed a huge pretzel and we got to see some music.

For lunch we went to St. Augustine’s Dom and I tried Schweinehaxen.

After lunch we climbed to the top of St. Peter’s Dom and had a spectacular view of Munich.  The stairs up are tight and if you are claustrophobic this could be an issue because people are coming down at the same time as you are ascending.  The view is worth it though if you can get passed that.

After climbing down the stairs, Hanna’s legs were tired so Daniel helped Hanna out.

We basically walked around a bit more, ate, and visited.

Monday morning Johanna came and we all had breakfast together.  Our family all bought dirndl’s and lederhosen.  Johanna had to leave then.

It also came time for me to say goodbye to my family because I had to go on to Spain to start walking the Camino.  I cried.  It was so nice being together these last 4 weeks.  Brad and the girls made their way to Amsterdam and will fly home tomorrow.

The weather in Altausee while we were here was ever changing, so we needed to be prepared clothingwise for rainy and cool to really warm.  It would rain pretty hard in the morning while everyone was just waking up and then turn into a sunny day.  You watch the weather changing above the mountain tops and come in.

On our last day we decided to pack up, hike around Altausee, and then head to the Salt Caves and go on a tour.

The girls pretending they died from packing up.

The hiking path around the lake is pretty flat.  The views of course are spectacular.  Loser Mountain is ever present glaring down at you.  Here is a great website for hikes in this area.

We came upon this great Gasthaus called Jagdhaus.  If you have trouble walking or feel like relaxing, you can take the Jagdhaus Seeweise (ferry) to get to this gorgeous Gasthaus.  To our surprise we learned that part of the James Bond movie  Spectre was filmed here.

We made an unplanned stop here.   The dessert was voted the best dessert by Brad and Ryan.  Kim found her favorite dessert here that she had been looking for while in Austria.

The girls had fun climbing on the rocks out front.

After our pretty walk we headed to the Salt Mine in Altausee.

For the tour you dress in protective clothing so your clothes don’t become dirty.

They show an informative film that explains how the Salt got trapped in the Earth.  There was a clever comparison to dumpling soup.  Once the film is over, you enter the mines.

The mine is still in production and they use water to obtain the salt.

The miner’s have a chapel called St. Barbara’s Chapel.

This painting is over 300 years old and is hung as an example of how well these mines preserve art.  These mines are where Hilter hid his stolen art collection.

The mine was still an active mine while the Nazi’s were doing all this.  Here is what the Nazi’s built to store Hitler’s collection.

The words mean,”Warning, Marble Don’t Move”.  The miner’s became curious as to why the Nazi’s were storing this boxes in the different rooms instead of keeping them all together. They peeked inside and saw that there indeed was not marble, but bombs instead.  As Hitler was losing the war, his thought was that if he can’t keep the art, then no one can.  They were going to detonate the bombs and destroy the stolen art.  The brave miner’s took it upon themselves to remove these cartons containing the bombs.  This was an extremely dangerous and bold thing to do.  They saved a thousands of pieces of artwork.   There was a movie made, “Monument’s Men”, about the American’s coming to recover this artwork.  Our guide told us that the movie was very Hollywoodized because there was never a doubt that the Americans would be the first to recover the art.  The movie made it seem like the Americans were trying to beat the Russians to get there first.  I found this all to be fascinating.  They tried to return the artwork to the rightful owners, although so many of them were murdered in the Concentration Camps.

A fun part of the tour was going on the mining slides.  This is an example of how a miner can quickly get from one level of the mine to another.

This tour was so informative and a peek into what makes up this area of Austria.

After our fun day together, we had to say goodbye to the Hahler’s and head to Salzburg to take the train to Munich.

Hallstatt, Austria

Today we went to one of my bucket list cities, Hallstatt.  The drive from Altausee to Hallstatt was one of those scenic drives that is so hard not to gawk at the beauty that is surrounding you instead of keeping your eyes on the road.  We quickly stopped at the start of Hallstatter Lake right outside of Bad Goisern to enjoy the view of the beginning of the lake.

We entered Hallstatt through a tunnel that goes through the mountain, so when you exit, you are there.

We took a funicular up the mountain to give the kids a special ride up the mountain.  You can hike up as well, as you can see from the map below.

At the top of the funicular, is a viewing platform and the entrance to the Hallstatt Salt Caves.

Hallstatt has the oldest salt mine, 7000 years of mining has taken place here.  I think that is incredible.  Salt was such a valuable commodity and allowed people to trade for other goods.  Salt made it possible to preserve meats throughout the winter.  There are a lot of hiking trails up at the top.  You can walk around in this area and learn about the history of the salt mining. There is a really steep incline when walking around.

St. Barbara has such an interesting story.  The miners have her as their patron saint.    As you can see from the plaque above that her father kept her locked in a dark tower for 3 years because she converted to Christianity.  He then took her life by cutting off her head.  He was struck  by lightening immediately after doing this.

An entrance and exit into the mine.  There are 3 salt cave mining tours you can go on.  This one is special because of the funicular and the train you get to ride on. We chose to tour the cave in Altausee and spent our time in Hallstatt exploring.

We hiked down the mountain and I highly recommend doing this.  Great views and the UNESCO World Heritage Culture Site has set up informational sights so you can learn more on the way down.

This plaque below signifies the Habsburg’s changing the ways the mining community operated to a socially responsible manner.

You can enter the town center from this path.  The town is extremely picturesque and built into the hill on the lakefront.

Hanna found a Krampus mask.

We had fun exploring the city.

We rented electric boats to view the village from the water, this is really fun and I highly recommend it.

Hallstatt is gorgeous!  There were a lot of tourist besides us enjoying this beautiful, important village.  So keep that in mind if planning a trip here.  We really enjoyed day tripping here, but staying in Altausee.

Loser Mountain

We are now in the beautiful city of Altausee, a mountainous portion of our trip.  I would describe this place as beautiful, dramatic nature with the lake and mountains, and an exercise enthusiast’s wonderland.

We arrived last night and after unpacking we headed down to explore the lake.

This morning I went on a run around this stunning lake.  Luckily there is a path that encircles the entire lake.

Towards the end of my run, there was a gentle rain.  So as I arrived back home, I was delighted that everyone still planned on going hiking.  Not only were we going on a hike, but we were hiking up a mountain to Loser Mountain Hut, about 2000 feet for the ascent, a 4 1/2 hour hike.

The girls all did great!  We promised them a great lunch once we reached Loser Hut. This was really the carrot at the end of the rope.

The rain stopped.

We came across cows grazing below Loser Mountain.

We made it to the Loser Hutte and…..

The sign states, “Today is Quiet Day”aka closed.

We were disappointed, but that did not last too long.  Ryan went in search of a vending machine and came across this….

We started our descent and saw this…

The girls played games the entire way down and really kept themselves in good spirits.  Once back down, we had lunch back at our house.  The girls were sooooo hungry. We partook in the afternoon ritual of Kaffee und Kuchen at the local bakery right around the corner from our home.

The girls needed some down time so we gave them dinner at home and the adults went out.  Before we left, we saw this….

We had to try Loser Beer and it tasted great!

This is the home we are renting and Loser Mountain is in the background to give you an idea of how high we hiked.

Twenty years ago, I participated in a study abroad program in Graz, Austria.  Kim, Ryan, Kimberly, and I all met here and the main reason for this trip was for our 20 year reunion.  We had a great time over these last 4 days and it was fun to be back in Graz with my family.  20 years ago, marriage and kids were far from my mind.

The Schlossberg is one of my favorite parts of Graz and I have so many great memories of spending time up there.  My family stayed right around the corner from the steps up to the Schlossberg, I loved being that close.  You really work up a sweat walking up these stairs to the top.

I of course had to venture up this everyday.  I did get tears on my last journey up.

The view from our apartment was the Mur River and all the beautiful buildings. We would hear the church bells every morning.

The Murinsel was not there when I studied in Graz, but we could see this right from our apartment so of course we all wanted to go explore it.  It is a super funky looking island over the river that houses a cafe and an area for concerts.  We even got to hear jazz being played one night.  Of course the kids wanted to grab a drink in the cafe there.

We did do a walk to the university and also some of our favorite places.  The fountain in the Stadtpark wasn’t the same without Kyle there.

We had fun visiting the food carts in Hauptplatz.

Speaking of food, Brad really enjoyed his Austrian breakfast.

Really cool parks in Graz.  It was fun seeing Gretchen, Lewis, and Hanna speak German with kids while playing.

Kimberly is in contact with her host family and very close with them. Ilse had us over for a fun night.  Many, many schnapps.  Such fun conversation.  We also went to Kimberly’s host sister’s home for a fun night of grilling.

We went to Zotter Chocolate Factory.  This was a really fun tour.  You taste chocolate from it’s raw state all the way to it’s candy bar and drinking chocolate state.

You can make custom chocolate here. Ella did this.

Zotter has a very funny sense of humor.

A really cool playground at Zotter Chocolate.

Zotter makes breakfast and lunch for his employees and has his Tieressenzoo.

We did a quick stop at Graz’s Kunsthaus which is new since I was there.

A fun dinner off of Hauptplatz.

Before we left Graz, we visited Pichler-Schober Buschenshank and celebrated Kimberly’s 40th Birthday.

From here we said goodbye to the Wong’s and headed to Altausee.  Sweet Murray has to say goodbye for now to his big sister’s.

Ryan rented a big transport van and I rented a SUV to drive from Trojir to Graz. We stopped at Krka National Park to see the waterfalls.

When you arrive there is a big parking lot with easy access to restrooms.  We were there on a hot day so to make your trip more enjoyable bring a light snack, water, and sunscreen.  Also, this National Park allows you to swim by the 7th waterfall.  Wear a swimsuit and have water shoes because it is slippery on the rocks.

We purchased our entrance tickets and then got on a bus that drives you down steep switchbacks.  You exit and I recommend going on the 2KM loop instead of going directly to the main waterfall.  It is stunning landscape and there is a boardwalk.  It is a great lead up to the large waterfall.

At the end is the spectacular 7th waterfall that you can swim in.  The current was strong by the rope.  You can swim on both sides of the bridge.

You walk up a lot of stairs to get views of the upper falls and to get back to the bus.

We drove to Austria and the scenery and landscape of Croatia was just incredible. By the coast you get a mix of arrid and tropical.  Inland there are mountains and lush green hills.  You drive through long tunnels.  There is a tollway.  The A1 was voted Europe’s most beautiful highway and we all could see why.

Leaving Croatia and entering Slovenia you do go through passport control.  Austria seemed to be more of a lottery if you are stopped or not.

Graz is where Kim, Kimberly, Ryan, and I studied and met in 1997.  We are doing a mini reunion here, missing the others we studied with of course. To me, one of my favorite places in Graz is the Schlossberg, so my family is staying in an apartment overlooking the river on one side and right around the corner from the Schlossberg Steps.

Our final day of sailing.  The Porin was a great home on the water for all of us!

We walked to the bakery in town with the kids for breakfast.  The majority of us enjoyed the ham and cheese roll.  Hanna of course got chocolate.

Our kids had a great time for the last few days collecting hermit crabs.  They researched what they eat and how their habitat should be.  They spent time collecting other shells to provide the hermit crabs with different ‘home’ options.  They even collected algae to feed them.  Friday morning while the adults were enjoying a coffee, it was time to release the crabs back to their natural habitat.

The kids were in a great mood today.

We motored over to the Blue Lagoon.  This place is so great for snorkeling.  There were a lot of boats anchored so you do need to be aware of boats motoring while you snorkel.  This was the best snorkeling that I’ve experienced in Croatia.  The rock formations created a fun haven for fish, sea cucumber, star fish, urchins, and plant life.

We spent a lot of time swimming, playing on the paddle boards, and enjoying our last day on the sea.  I didn’t take pictures here because I was too busy playing.

It was hard to leave the Blue Lagoon because we knew our time sailing was coming to an end.  We were able to sail though and did enjoy that.

The line of boats coming back to the marina was impressive.

We had our best Med Mooring for our final Mooring.

Our celebration toast.

The ladies….