Wheels Around Europe . . . . . . . : Mittenwald to Mondsee Austria

Friday 7^th June

What a contrast with the weather today.

Yesterday cool and cloudy, this morning lovely clear skies and warm sunshine lighting up the mountains and pastures surrounding Mittenwald.

I went to the village to take some photographs and noticed that the cable car was working, going to the top of Karwendel which is the mountain that rises steeply above Mittenwald.

This is German's second highest cable car and I knew the views would be amazing, so I couldn't resist.

I was indeed correct about the views, it felt like being on top of the world !

There was still quite a lot of snow around, I think the 18-19 winter produced a bumper amount and much is still on the peaks. There were a number of viewing areas that couldn't be accessed due to the snow.

Below are some photographs.

Next it was off to Mondsee which is in the Vocklabruck district east of Salzburg.

There is a cloister church in the town used for the wedding scenes in the Sound of Music so we'll go and find that later.

The journey here was a bit of a nightmare.

Google maps suggested it was two hours 39 minutes, which seemed quite a leisurely drive.

Except I think we got caught up in the Friday rush south out of Munich !

There were holdups on the German autobahn and the Austrian motorway around Salzburg.

Coupled to that, trying to find the correct place to buy a Go Box Grrrr (see below) got me quite worked up.

I queued at two service stations only to be told it was the service station further on I needed.

Eventually we arrived at our destination, the pretty little town of Mondsee with a lake of the same name.

Our parking for tonight is just the town general car park that appears on web sites as suitable for motorhomes to overnight.

It's free, quite, not overlooked and I don't think anyone will bother us here.

Best of all it's just a short walk into the town.

We`ve just returned from a walk around the town and down to the lake and it is a very smart little town. A little bit of Austrian perfection.

We found St Michael Basilica, the church in the Sound of Music. In fact it turns out we can see the tops of the two spires from where we`re parked.

There was a bit of a party going on down by the lake with a live band, and people enjoying the warm evening sunshine.

If only Austria was as easy as Germany for the visitors in motorhomes.

The road toll system in Austria for motorways is quite complicated.

No barriers or toll booths, here you have to stop at a service station near the border and if over 3500 kg, which I am, and therefore classed as HGV, you have to purchase a device called a dars Go Box.

This sits on your dashboard and when you pass overhead gantries it clicks to recognise your presence and a hand reaches into your bank account for cash !

Last year we managed to avoid all Austrian motorways so avoided any tolls here, but with going into Vienna I fear we have no option but to purchase this device.

It would have put quite a bit of time onto the journey avoiding motorways.

There are heafty on the spot penalties for those that try and avoid payment.

It remains to be seen how much it`s going to cost but I`m hopeful it will not be too expensive.

The Go Box is returned for a refund on leaving Austria from what I can gather.

We eventually got our Go box and off we went.

Sure enough every now and again it beeped as we passed a reader.

We paid 80 euro and I`m hoping that when we leave Austria we can return it to another service station for a refund of whatever we`ve not used, a good bit I`m hoping !

Tomorrow we head further east and hope to reach Vienna or Wien as the Austrians call it.

We`ll probably have a few days there chilling and enjoying the scenery.