Hiking and Groceries - Mon, Sept 15 (UK trip day 34)

Started the day by walking across our lawn along a private path and found a gate which put us more quickly on the road/highway.  Walked 15 minutes to Sankt Martin bei Lofer (St. Martin by Lofer) for breakfast in a cute cafe where I spotted eggs on the menu (having heard the girl yesterday say the word in the campground store).   Jim's granola/yoghurt/fruit breakfast was more like a sculpture.  Of course I was ecstatic to have scrambled eggs - but after 4 days have now confirmed that the egg yolks in Germany/Austria are orange and not yellow.  Googled it and found out that the color of the shell is based on the type of hen that laid it and the color of the yolk is based on the food the hen ate.  Free-range hens have access to more caretonoid plants so the yolk is deeper yellow or orange.

After breakfast we headed for Lofer to grocery shop.  The hiking paths are so well marked and look so interesting that we decided to explore and follow the yellow pathway sign that said 50 minutes to Lofer.  The walk was absolutely beautiful and exciting.  We'd chosen the path that took us along the base and a short way up the mountain.   We couldn't resist stopping - more than just occasionally - to take pictures of the path and then down to the town and fields below. At one point we also detoured a short bit to go up to the first viewpoint on the way to Maria Kirchental church but retraced and decided to do that trip another day.   It was fun to greet other walkers, most with hiking poles, "guten morgen".

Arriving in Lofer we went to several outdoor stores we'd seen yesterday - wanted to ask about hiking maps and poles.  But they were all closed - some said on vacation - so we assumed they only opened in the winter.  Then we found a restaurant near the river for lunch.  The server spoke about as much English as we spoke German so we pointed at something on the menu.   Jim got a plate of sausages and I had another goulash - yum. 

As we strolled further into the town, taking pictures, we noticed one of the outdoor shops was now open!  As soon as the young man realized we were American he just lit up and became totally animated.  Apparently he loves the US and had lived in Canada.  Chatted with him about an hour and he answered our questions about where to get hiking maps and assured us that we would do fine on "blue" and "red"  (easy and intermediate) paths and would not need hiking poles.  He also recommended places for us to go and pathways that had waterfalls or were really picturesque. 

GROCERIES - MPreis Supermarket was the first store we came to as we left Lofer and since it appeared larger than the Billa that we'd passed yesterday we decided to shop there.  If we thought it was confusing ordering from a German menu, it was even more confusing in the grocery store.  Jim finally decided on a bag of coffee that he hoped was ground based on how the bag felt. Wine was easy to find, in fact the section was huge and included hard liquor also.  Eggs were not refrigerated, but we'd already encountered that in the UK. It took us several passes through the store to find milk and orange juice - on a regular shelf and NOT in a refrigerated case - and the containers were marked with expiration dates 4-9 months in the future!  Butter and cheese - like in the UK - were in a single  block - no such thing as 4 quarters or slices. 

Unfamiliarity with the language and needing just about everything made us forget we'd be carrying the groceries for the 25 minute walk back to our room - until we checked out and ended up filling both backpacks and 3 other reusable grocery bags that we'd brought.  Just 5 minutes of walking with our burdens, we got to the Billa grocery store that had a small trailer out front with a man selling rotisserie chicken.  Since we'd only bought staples and food for breakfast and lunch, not dinners, we debated about eating "in" tonight with thoughts of sitting with wine on our patio with the beautiful view of the huge lawn surrounded by trees with the alps just beyond.  I ended up going inside Billa and bought some frozen vegetables whilst Jim purchased a hot rotisserie chicken.  Now we had 1 more bag to carry for the remaining 20 minutes (1 mile) walk back to Grubhof.

Unlike US timeshares, we had daily maid service here.  Interesting that, because the weather was getting warmer,  they opened the windows - which swing outwards and have no screens.  Standard so far overseas but unthinkable in the US.

DINNER - Shortly after Jim started setting up the folding table and chairs on our patio - they were stored inside our room - a black cat came to check us out.  When we clinked our glasses and enjoyed our glass of wine with a view, the cat first did figure 8s around our legs then laid down under our chairs.  It disappeared after we successfully it from dashing into our room whilst we got our plates ready to bring out.  SO, we had a nice quiet dinner with the changing landscape of the clouds as they embraced the mountains and moved on.

A second wonderful night of sleep high in the alps with total quiet and darkness.  (The forest of chestnut trees at the far side of our lawn next to the highway totally masks any noise that we probably wouldn't hear anyway because we're really quite far in from the road.