Travel and Tweets

The lake in Bluntautal Valley is a beautiful alpine spring with a surface like stained glass. This valley looks like it was pulled directly out of a fairy tale story. This valley is surrounded by a beautiful forest and huge mountains that jut into the sky like the teeth of an enormous saw. Bluntautal Valley is a good place for fishing, landscape photography, and relaxing strolls. The clarity of the water in the lake and the nearby river made them look like they were made out of polished stone. After the beautiful first lake, we went down to a less impressive second lake and made some trout quite happy, by throwing them a hail storm of fish food that is sold in a dispenser on the shore. After we told the concierge at the Schloss Fuschl where we went, he told us that Bluntautal Valley is a local’s favorite. Bluntautal Valley is a 100% bucket list destination for everyone traveling to the SalzburgerLand region.

That same day, we went to visit the Salzachöfen Gorge, which is a beautiful stone groove cut into the ground by the Salzach river many years ago. A very cool thing about this place is that it has immense value to both paleontologists and geologists alike with its rich mineral deposits and wealth of fossil discoveries. As a souvenir, I got a snail shell fossil with such defined curves that it looks like an enormous marble drill bit. My favorite part of the gorge is where this gigantic slab of rock stabbed into the walls of the gorge just after a fork in the river. The strength of the river depends on how much snow melts near its origin. You can usually expect the gorge to be quite lush and beautiful. On the way back up to the car, I saw an awesome black and orange snake snoozing on the stairs. Overall, stopping at Salzachöfen Gorge was very worthwhile.

If you want fun activities, relaxing luxury suites, amazing wildlife, great scenery, and rich history, look no further than the Schloss Fuschl; it has all of this and more!!! This incredible hotel is actually a refurbished palace in an amazing rural lake setting. It is on a small peninsula overlooking a crystal-blue alpine lake in the SalzburgerLand region of Austria, surrounded by hills and a picturesque forest. The rooms and the staff at the hotel were also amazingly great in their own ways. Overall, this incredible hotel was actually my absolute favorite hotel in the world, and I have stayed in a ton of great ones.

Our room was a large spacious suite with lots of natural light and amazing views of Lake Fuschl. The first thing that I saw when I looked out of the balcony window of our hotel room was a family of coots teaching their chick how to fish. The most impressive thing about the Schloss Fuschl was not even the super amazing rooms, but the even more amazing environment that it is set in. One of the highlights of the environment is the lake and its amazing birds. One of the most amazing birds in the lake were the great crested grebes and their chicks, swimming around the lake like feathery speedboats.

I feel like the most incredible part of the Schloss Fuschl was the lake itself. The water-sports on Lake Fuschl are a very fun and relaxing experience. My mom’s favorite part of Lake Fuschl was actually swimming in it. After we ate lunch at the restaurant, we put on our swimming clothes and took a refreshing swim in the lake. The lake was mildly cold and extremely beautiful. We got in the lake using the stairs and ladders that came down into the water from the deck at the restaurant. Getting into the lake was actually almost like getting into the world’s largest and most spectacular swimming pool.

My favorite part of the lake was the putt-putt boat ride across the crystal clear turquoise surface of the lake. The putt-putt boat that we rode in was green with a beautiful mahogany frame and amazing cushions. This boat put so much emphasis on putt-putt that paddle-boarders were going faster than we were. The way to get a boat, was to order it at the restaurant. The boats were listed directly under the dessert menu. Most of the space behind the restaurant was actually a large boat garage with two putt-putt boats and a small ferryboat. The boat was quite a bit faster the second time that we rented it, but was still quite slow. On our second boat ride, a swan actually swam up to our boat and followed us for a long time.

One of the best parts of the hotel was the food. Among the most scrumptious foods at the breakfast buffet was the Fuschl torte, something that looked more like dessert than breakfast. Even better than the torte though, was the juice selection. I think that the Franz Josef Rauch Organic Apple Spritzer Juices were the best beverages in the world… and I discovered them right there at the Schloss Fuschl. It came in three flavors: I tried them all and the apple-elderflower was the perfect combination of sweet and tangy for my taste (you can find the apple-elderflower in the bottle with the green label… but if you miss them at the Schloss Fuschl, you probably will never see them again because they are hard to find in Austria and seem impossible to find in the United States). The sausages and granola were also top notch, and I learned that I love dried papaya (especially in granola). Though a completely different experience, I think that the hotel’s restaurant on the lake shore is definitely worth going to as well. At the restaurant, we all had fresh grilled fish from the lake. If you like cold smoked fish, then I recommend the fishery. Even though I did not eat there, everyone else that I saw looked happy.

If you want recommendations for the best food in and around the lakes region of Austria, look no further than the concierge at the Schloss Fuschl. The first restaurant that they recommended to us was Gasthof zur Post: we went here twice and the schnitzel that I got both times was amazing. Perhaps the most amazing food on our entire trip was the schnitzel and venison from Batzenhäusl. On the way out of the restaurant, we spotted a magnificent rainbow cresting the hills beyond the lake. The third restaurant was located on the shore of a lake called Wolfgangsee, and was named Gastof Fürberg. This amazing restaurant served fish fresh from the lake that it looks out across. In all, every one of the restaurants was amazing in its own way.

Every part of the Schloss Fuschl, no matter how big or small, contributed to how amazing it was. This amazing hotel is definitely high on the list of must visit places and was almost certainly my favorite hotel ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!