Neue Prager Hütte to Salzburg

Our last day on the Venediger Höhenweg, starting from the Neue Prager Hütte, down to the village of Innergschlöß, then bus and trains to Salzburg.

Today is our last day on the trail, with a 3,500ft descent. The weather was clear and warm, and forecast to stay that way all day. Breakfast in the Neue Prager Hütte was the usual assortment of bread, cold cuts, yogurt & muesli, and berry jam. They also had hot milk which I used to make hot cocoa. Went back to the room to finish packing and met Allan outside.

We started down the trail at 8:15am. Stopped multiple times for pictures of the nearby glaciers.

Stopped briefly at Alte Prager hütte to check out the exhibits – it’s setup like a museum with artifacts from earlier days of mountaineering and hut life. We continued down the trail, descending from the alpine rock and snow/ice zone to where grasses/mosses begin to appear, then small wildflowers, and down to thick grasses and more wildflowers.

The trail was not easy, but not difficult – uneven in places and long – we descended a total of 3,500 ft!

At the bottom of the trail was a small car park, and a great view up at the raging Karlesbach.

We walked a mile or so down the road to the Venedigerhaus at Innergschlöß, which marks the end of our hiking.

I enjoyed a cold apple juice here, and then we rode a tractor-driven tram down to the Matreier Tauernhaus.

We were surprised we could not get any food there; only getränke (drinks).

From here we needed to get to Salzburg where we have a hotel reservation this evening. After some drama with selecting the correct tickets in the Deutsche Bahn app, I completed purchase of bus and train tickets with only a couple minutes to spare before the bus arrived. We rode the Verkehrsverbund Tirol (VVT) bus 955 to Huben, then 951 to Lienz.

We arrived in Lienz at the Bahnhof and walked around the town center. Lienz is a pretty town surrounded by mountains (as are most in Tirol). We tried to order lunch in a cafe, but they couldn’t serve us within the half-hour we had available before our next segment by train. We walked further and found Cafe Marmaris and had chicken kebab sandwiches. Not bad but was not the German/Austrian food I was looking forward to.

We walked back to the bahnhof and boarded the train for our ride to Spittal-Millstättersee where we had another nearly hour-long layover. We walked into town, found a shopping center, and a grocery store within – we bought cheese, chocolate, and Orangina. We walked over to a nearby park to enjoy our snacks before returning to the bahnhof to board our train for the 2-hour ride to Salzburg. It was an uneventful ride to Salzburg other than two schmoopie Americans across the aisle. Saw the Dachstein mountains before approaching Salzburg.

We rolled in to Salzburg on time and caught a taxi to our hotel, the Boutique Hotel am Dom. We have a nice room on the top floor, but it had a giant two-person jacuzzi tub in the middle of the room. We unpacked and cleaned up a bit.

We walked through the Aldstadt to a restaurant recommended by the hotel: the Stern Bräu restaurant. We chose the small portion bar menu over the full menu in the dining room so that we could sit outside and enjoy a bier. I had a cheese and meat dumpling of some sort which was delicious and just the right size for this late in the evening (around 9pm). Good food and good bier – I tried the house bier but liked the Gösser that we had in the huts better. I wanted to try a Nockerl for dessert, a local delicacy, but the waiter said it was too late (despite me stating earlier that I would want one). He offered a Sacher Torte instead, but it was more of a chocolate cake than a Sacher Torte – I don’t believe they got that from Sacher’s as he claimed (I’ve had The Torte at Sacher’s). We walked back to the hotel after discussing what went well and what could have been better on this trip.

Got back to the hotel and went to sleep around 11pm.