St. Wolfgangsee

St. Wolfgangsee

Hey everyone! Today I'm giving you a post about a trip I made a little while back in July, around Germany and Austria. We visited St. Wolfgangsee on the last day of our trip. Our plan was to visit this little lakeside village to have a quick dip and a bite to eat. At the end of the day we would head back to Bratislava. Unfortunately, the weather put pay to the majority of our plans so the first thing we did once we arrived was have breakfast in a café in St. Wolfgangsee.

Kaffeewerkstatt

We ended up in Kaffeewerkstatt, a strange and seemingly unpronounceable name. This café was super strange. As you can see in the photos, every inch of the place was decorated. This could seem a little chaotic, what with all the paintings and ornaments arranged willy-nilly, but it's all planned out. Ultimately, this excessive display of bits and pieces create an harmonious atmosphere and give the place a lot of character. As it was raining and the temperature wasn't ideal, the café was busy. We were a large group but luckily we were able to find a table to seat us all. For breakfast, they had sweet dishes as well as savoury dishes: for example, avocado on toast, or pancakes with forest fruits. Lots of us also ordered coffee (3. 59 Euros) which despite the price tag, gave us the energy boost we needed to start the day.

St. Wolfgangsee: the village

As I said, we wanted to see this quirky little lakeside village but it was raining so early in the morning we already had people dropping out of the trip, lots of people didn't fancy seeing St. Wolfgangsee whilst it was chucking it down and so decided to wait in the car. However, we thought "now that we're here, we might as well see what we came to see", so we headed straight to the village centre, which was only five minutes away by foot, maybe less. We must have looked quite odd: Paloma and Tijana were walking with Decathlon towels over their heads due to their lack of umbrellas, and I decided to put my black swimsuit on my head, it would dry quicker than an item of clothing made of cotton. And so that's how we visited St. Wolfgangsee, walking through its streets in that get up. Luckily, little by the little, the rain eased and the raindrops became smaller and smaller and more and more intermittent, so eventually we almost had no need to cover our heads.

In terms of the village, I thought it was super cute. First, we visited its church which, being the tallest building and white in colour, without a doubt stands out amongst the other, smaller buildings. In the church, there is a sort of "balcony" where you can see the whole lake through the "windows". From here, we could also see just beneath us, there was a hotel with a jacuzzi on its terrace. There were people in the jacuzzi and we thought "what a luxury to be in a jacuzzi in warm water whilst it was raining and cold out". Afterwards, we imagined how much it would have cost to spend a night there and we were no longer so keen on the idea.

We continued walking along its, perfectly-kept narrow streets which were soaked in water, little streams flowed down the sloping streets. I was dumbstruck by the architecture and the detailing of the buildings and little houses, something which really characterises Austrian villages - as do, of course, the flowerpots on all the balconies. Furthermore, there were all kinds of shops, boutique clothing shops, cafés, shops selling Tyrolean clothes and bakeries which filled the streets with a tasty smell.

St. Wolfgangsee: the lake

After, we arrived at the lakeside where there were a lot of restaurants with soft lighting that accompanied the day. Here, we found a little swan that kept getting closer to us, I guess he was looking to see if we had any food to give him. It was here that we decided to test the water, and to our surprise, it was perfect. In the days prior to our trip to St. Wolfgangsee, we had been to Attersee and Konigsee, and the water was quite cold, I could barely swim for more than 5 seconds. But now, in the cold temperature and the falling rain, the water in St. Wolfgangsee was really warm.

We didn't think twice and plunged into the water. I didn't even have to go back to the car to get my swimsuit because I already had it on my head. We enjoyed the last dip of our trip in warm water, something we didn't imagine to be possible. It was better in the water than out. Also, the view we had from the lake was priceless, you could see the silhouette of the little village perfectly. Right at that moment I thought about the people in the jacuzzi and I felt very lucky because the lake is definitely better than any jacuzzi of even the very best hotels.

I also reflected generally on our visit and Hallstatt, the most famous lakeside town in this country, came to mind. I thought about how crowded it is because it has become super touristy. It's true that it's beautiful, I'll give credit where it's due, but it's worth remembering that villages like Hallstatt are located around any lake in the area around Salzburg. Also, we had the advantage of visiting it when its streets were empty. As a joke, we call St. Wolfgangsee "the poorman's Hallstatt". Although we visited it whilst it was raining, I really liked it. I don't want to think about how much I would've liked to have seen it when the sun was shining, with crystal blue waters and lots of light in the streets.

In short, I fell in love with this romantic lakeside town. I really really want to go back, because although I didn't have high hopes for it, in turned out to be my favourite part of this trip. Now, I will bid you farewell. I hope you liked the photos and I'll see you in my next post. Thanks for reading.

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