I’m in north Wales relaxing before commencing a 600 mile cycle ride to Paris from blackpool. Just testing out all my social media outlets before the big day.email I’m in north Wales relaxing before commencing a 600 mile cycle ride to Paris from blackpool. Just testing out all my social media outlets before the big day. …

Well, it does Kate. Running up this hill hurts. Although I’d say that running up any hill hurts.

Here is where I ran in Ellmau. Up the hill to Riesen. There’s a great view from the top. And on the way up too. You run along a road that takes you through piney forests and then through meadows. To the left the mighty Wilder Kaiser mountains, to the right on the other side of the valley mountains and more mountains.

This is the ultimate mood enhancer. I combine it with A Perfect Circle. Adrenaline levels rocket and here I am in the middle of the most incredible scenery. Just magnificent.

The Wilder Kaiser

We stayed in Wern Cottage in the village of Capelulo. In itself, this was a fabulous little holiday. It’s a lovely cottage, beautiful decor and well equipped. We didn’t spot that it was 5 star when we booked it, but it really was like a cross between a hotel and a holiday cottage. Thoroughly, one hundred percent recommended. We arrived after twelve due to work commitments, which meant a short sleep before bike ride. I set out all of my bikey things ready for the morning.

I left the house at about 6.40 and went to wait for Joby at the Fairy Glenn pub. I’d put on many many layers of clothing, a few too many. It was very cold though. And dark. And completely quiet. And a bit spooky. I stood under the pub sign, which creaked as it swung in the wind. For a moment I imagined I was in the intro of a horror film and decided to move around a bit to keep warm and pretend that I wasn’t scared. I thought about Joby coming over the Sychnant Pass and hoped he had some decent lights.

Soon I saw a tiny light in the distance. Turns out it wasn’t a willow the whisp, or a mad axe murderer (on a bike) it was Joby. He was cold and mentioned something about that being the most frightening experience of his life. And later, in the cold light of day on examining the pass, I think he was probably right. Worse still, he could have just ridden on the sustrans. The website said it was closed between Llandudno and Penmaenmawr, but it was only closed between Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan.

This is the view up the Pass

Thr route that Joby took in the pitch dark.

The route was quite steep initially, and dark. And also cold. I have a constantly running nose and eyes in these conditions. I wonder if this is a universal experience or is it just me and my beginners nose. I was wearing specs as I generally suffer with running eyes.

I managed to make us go massively off course and down to the exact spot where the route was closed between Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan. Which meant a nice climb back up a very steep hill.

In general the road is much smoother and better cared for than anything around here. It’s a lovely route through farmland with stunning views of sea on one side and mountains on the other. When it’s light of course. The majority of the roads are very light on traffic, which was wonderful. It was also quite tough with the inclines. One hill in particular was steep and I threatened to stop and stand with the bike, but I refused to. On the icier, nearer sea points the road was very slippy and I provided some comedy moments as I slipped and fell off. I said something along the lines of “I’m going”. As I couldn’t find purchase on anything. But I wasn’t travelling at speed and I had so many layers on I almost bounced back up.

A couple of things I noted were that I probably ate and drank too much before leaving the house. I had two cups of coffee and two welsh cakes. Not huge amounts, but enough to make it less enjoyable to cycle. I’ll remember that for next time. Very very small amounts and eat as you go I think.

Another thing was that I wore my cycle trousers under my waterproof trousers. I was very warm but felt restricted and uncomfortable. I need maybe just padded boxer shorts and some thin thermals leggings instead.

The day before I bought some new gloves and some seal skin socks from High Peak Cycles. Both items were brilliant. I wore the seal skins with thermal inners and my feet were toasty warm. Not warm and boil in the bag effect. Nice and toasty warm. The gloves were so much better than the endura ones I bought before. The fastener on those has broken, they are not breathable and make gear changing difficult and uncomfortable. Plus the lining comes out when you take them off. These ones are made by Chiba and they do the job brilliantly. Warm, comfortable, easy to move while wearing them too.

A further and final thing to note was the need to drop some weight for the hill climbing. Joby climbs with ease. I know he rides a bike more than I do, but in general I do a lot of exercise. I will never be any good up the hills until I drop more weight. One reason I need to do more bike riding is I forget this fact. So, onwards and upwards with the training and I better lay off the chocolate.

We were out for about two to two and a half hours and I think I did about twenty miles. According to Joby we were very close to Anglesey.

I’m going back to the same place at the end of the month, so maybe I’ll make a journey to Anglesey. Maybe it will be light at seven am too, which will be a bonus.

In the afternoon I walked to Conwy over the hills and from a distance I saw the route that Joby took. Yes. Very scary.

Included in the shots below are images taken from the morning bike ride, one of the iron age settlement on the way to Conwy and a few on the beach the following day. See me run on the beach? That’s how fast I am

The Wilder Kaiser Mountains

If you like to go places to sit by the pool getting skin cancer while drinking sangria and listening to a shrieking hen party from Grimsby shredding “Angels” at a nearby karaoke shack, then this is not the holiday destination for you. It’s much livelier in the winter when it is hugely busy as it is a massive ski resort, but in the summer Ellmau is stunningly beautiful, fairly quiet and offers a variety of activities if you are fond of hiking, climbing or mountain biking.

It is a pleasant family holiday too, but the weather is not Costa Del Sol, so you can’t be guaranteed el scorchio. There are plenty of activities in the rain for kids, and when it’s sunny you can take them to the Kaiserbad, a water slide/swimming pool/playground/ kids paradise. There’s also other excellent swimming pools, outdoor swimming areas and alternative activities if you can get them into hiking. It’s quiet in the evenings and devoid of Elvis impersonators or karaoke bars. I better add that the winter sees Ellmau quite differently and it becomes a bit of a apres ski party town, although it remains family focused (how the exotic dance bar fits into this picture I’m not sure, but never mind).

Getting to Ellmau

Ellmau is in the Austrian Tirol, close to Salzburg and not too far from Munich. Those are the two airports you are best placed to fly to. If you are getting there by train, travel to Kufstein, Wörgl or Kitzbühl.

We stay at a house in Wimm area of the Town, which is across the road from the town centre and five minutes walk from the Kaiserbad. There are three apartments in the house, each one is exceptionally well appointed and very reasonably priced in both winter and summer, prices being a bit lower in the summer as it is the low season. Contact Maria Haas for further details. She speaks excellent English as do most people in the area, so don’t worry if you don’t speak German.

House in Ellmau

The mountains around there are stunning, and offer a wealth or mountain-based recreation. We stick to walking up mountains and biking.

Wilderkaiser from Hartkaiser

We hired bikes from Intersport Winkler. You can also get bike from Friedl Fuchs (yes that’s with a C)  at the opposite end of the town. Both had the same price at e65. Bikes weren’t bad at all, but next time I want to take my own.

The Bikes that we Rented

There are cable cars along the mountains and a funicular railway on the Hartkaiser that can help you to cheat and get up in the mountains without all of the uphill pedaling. Once you get into the mountains there are some brilliant mountain biking opportunities.

Our major outing took us from Wimm, walking to Sheffau, walking up to Brandstadl, across the “Panorama Weg”, down the Hartkaiser and then back home. It was tough, really steep on the climb up the and then miles to get down. I think we might have overdone it slightly.

the route we took up Brandstadl and back into Ellmau

An event of note on that expedition was being attacked by four pugs who chased and then wheezed at us for a short section of the climb. I think they wanted to stay for the duration but I told them to go home in German, and they dutifully turned around and did as they were told.

The friendly pugs

In terms of cycling Ellmau to Söll is a really nice ride. There’s a section where you go through the forest, but otherwise the road is quite smooth. There isn’t much of note in Söll, but bee enthusiasts can stop off at Bee world and check out the honey and bees. I’ve not been there, but it looks very informative and exciting from the outside .

A very pleasant ride was from Ellmau to the Hintersteiner See (Lake) which is behind Scheffau. It’s an easy ride to Sheffau and then… very, very, very steep. You go through the village (which is steep) and then you can either go through forests or on a nicely surfaced road (again, very steep. I think you’ll recognise a theme developing here). You’ll need a mountain bike for the forest road. Again, it’s nice and steep and it was a hot day. The end reward made it worth it. The lake is gorgeous, crystal clear and surrounded by mountains. It is as Maria says, “Sau Kalt”, which you could translate into English as “sodding freezing” and the swim was incredibly refreshing.

The Hintersteiner See. Lovely.

I wish we had the bikes for longer, but it rained for a few days and they were pretty expensive. As I say, next time I’ll take my own.

Oh and here’s a ride I was proud of. From Wimm up to where the Riesen restaurant once was. It was tough and I nearly passed out at the end. I raced against my husband, who ran. He won! On a road bike this would be a different story. Here’s the route from an mountain opposite, so you can see it is nice and steep.

The route to Riesen

Here’s me enjoying a cold one in Munich. Mmmmmm beer. This was taken a couple of years ago on an earlier visit.

This is me in Munich, which is close to Ellmau, although in a different country.

]]> http://www.emmarush.com/2009/08/24/recommending-ellmau/feed/ 2 http://www.emmarush.com/2009/08/16/flying-with-ryan-air/ http://www.emmarush.com/2009/08/16/flying-with-ryan-air/#comments Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:27:57 +0000 EJ http://www.emmarush.com/?p=142 I started writing an entry about my recent holiday to Austria, but I’ve decided to break it down as it was getting convoluted.

Ellmau is in the Austrian Tirol, close to Salzburg and not too far from Munich. Those are the two airports you are best placed to fly to. This year I was unable to find reasonably priced flights there and there were no direct flights to Salzburg from Manchester at all, so I extended the holiday by flying to Frankfurt. We stayed overnight and then got a train from Frankfurt to Kufstein, which is about twenty minutes from Ellmau by car. While this worked out cheaper, it was only cheaper because we flew with Ryan air to Frankfurt Hahn.

In theory my travel arrangements were great because they saved us about £200 and we got to see some of Germany, thus I thought, an extended vacation. OK, Frankfurt isn’t a the new Prague, but I enjoy looking around cities. And yes, that’s a great idea if you don’t mind flying on what feels like the airplane equivalent of a magic bus in Manchester, sans tramp. In practice, once you land in “Frankfurt” Hahn you have a one hour and forty five minute journey to Frankfurt on a cramped bus that costs 12 euros each way. So don’t forget your 24 euro bus journey tax on the flight, because Hahn isn’t near anything apart from somewhere farmers might need to travel to. Don’t get me wrong, it looks like a nice enough place, although I only really saw it in the dark. The important thing here is it isn’t anywhere near to Frankfurt, so don’t be fooled into thinking it is.

I’ve flown with Ryan air before to Salzburg and Alghero, and it wasn’t so bad. The airports were where they said they were. However, this is definitely the last time I’ll be flying the cut price way. I accept it is cheap and I selected this travel option because it saved me money. And that’s fine. I’d rather pay extra and avoid all of the extra hassle you get with low cost flying. While I’m sure that some people might enjoy all of the additional perks and excitement that come with a so-called £5 flight, I do not. First of all there’s the booking process. What starts of as £5 ends up being about £45. This is because of your take luggage with you tax, your paying for your ticket tax, the get on the plane first to avoid the scrum for seats tax and then the just normal tax that you normally associate with buying a normal air ticket. Don’t forget that you’ll have to pay a further £10 to get to a city that anyone has ever heard of and add a couple of hours onto your journey. So now you are at £60, and that’s just one way. But if you enjoy a challenge, then this way of flying is most definitely for you, most especially if you like to look at German motorways in the dark. Don’t forget that you have to find some way of printing your boarding passes out. And you can’t print them out before 15 days of your flight. Which means that if you are away for more than fifteen days, which we were, then there’s the find someone who’ll print this out for me challenge. Most fun of course is the “Can I take some books with my pants luggage weight guess in” Where you spend several hours carefully selecting your most lightweight clothing and books so that the items don’t weight too much and you don’t have to pay more to get your knickers safely back home.

The airport that we flew to was reminiscent of Glossop indoor market, except without the charm or the ice cream van. The people on the desks looked like they’d just finished the decorating before leaving for work and then forgotten to change. Either that or the cleaning staff were standing in for the usual counter staff. Whatever the reason something had annoyed them because they were mightily pissed off at something. Fortunately my ability to speak English and German meant I didn’t get a massive bollocking for standing in the wrong que, unlike some other Spanish speaking travelers on the flight to Dublin.

The flight was really not that bad at all, if you can ignore the constant encouragement to buy any manner of scratch card or panini from voice overs and any spare wall space. The garish Ryan air colours are there I think to remind you are experiencing bargain basement travel. And this is not such a bad thing as you can ignore it and the flight is fairly short, but it makes the plane feel cheap, which is a feeling I don’t relish at thirty thousand feet, especially sitting next to my airplane hating husband. I’m not a nervous flyer at all, but the whole low-cost flight experience made me feel uneasy.

Next time I am able to convince him indoors of the need to travel out of the UK, we’ll be going by sea/tunnel and train. It’s expensive but bring it on.

It’s a great pub with tasty and interesting food, served by cheerful staff. If you are ever in Anglesey, it is well worth a visit.

The beach at Rhoscolyn is also worth a visit, especially for entertaining the kids. Next time, we must remember to bring some.