Austria

August 7 to 29, 2010

filzalmsee

filzalmsee - giant's path

After a slow start to the day, we walked over to Brixen and tried to get our silver hiking pins but the tourism office is closed Sundays. So back to the lift and up we went.

We hiked the yellow path (a.k.a. the "Giant's Path") around Filzalmsee which looked like it would be a short 15 minute trail on even ground but turned into an hour long hike with quite a bit of up and down. Along the way we had fun discovering all of the Giant's treasures... a xylophone, a huge scale, his comb, etc. We enjoyed beautiful scenery as we passed the Siller Alm and eventually made it back to the lake and playground at Filzalmsee.

We woke up to pouring rain... not very motivational!

However by the time we were ready to go, the clouds had cleared and it was nice and sunny.

Look, a train must have just gone by... I can still see it's tracks!

The little shop and education center at Filzalmsee.

The Giants' Scale... we can weigh our whole family on this scale!

The Christophorus helicopter!

A pre-historic forest in mini-version...
ferns, horsetails and insects like dragonflies give an idea of what pre-historic forests were like...
just imagine them all the size of gigantic trees!

Creative construction of a garage's foundation wall.

A little brook playground. (we used to play at streams like this for hours when we were little!)

A family of tribal Austrians. ;-)

The Giant's Comb - when you strum your hand across the comb it starts to sway and creates a "swaying" sound. Because the teeth of the comb are all the same length, their similar sounds cause acoustic interference which leads to swaying.

Hiking along... it turned out a lot hotter than expected!

Another alm where you can stop for a drink or a bite to eat.

They use witchcraft to stack their wood so perfectly here... and the woodpile also serves as broomstick parking.

The note on the wall indicates this is the Siller Alm with hosts Sepp and Martha.
It also indicates that milk drinkers are better lovers. Go Sepp and Martha! :)

Hmmm, is that Martha?

The Austrian equivalent to the Newfie weather rock. When the donkey's tail is dry - it's nice, when wet - rainy, when moving - windy, when white- snowing, when frozen - cold, and when the donkey falls there's been an earthquake. Not sure what it means that the tail is missing...?!