Still, we broke an umbrella that day. And solemnly betrayed the urn on the shore of an alpine lake. Probably, every umbrella would like to serve faithfully for five years - and end its cloudy rainy days in a place that is extremely beautiful.
And all because the bad weather catching us all the way from Tula to Austria on the first morning of our precious five-day vacation still overtook us.
But now, to sit at home and not go out?
Well yes!
Nevertheless, on this day we were able to see several interesting places, and if the photos were not so bright in cloudy weather, then the cloudy sky only added romanticism and charm.
Grundlsee
This is the largest lake in the Austrian land of Styria - its area is 4.22 square kilometers.
Internet sources claim that water from Grundlsee can be drunk.
In summer, the water in the lake warms up to 18-25 degrees - this is during the particularly hot months.
Unfortunately, the weather did not contribute to finding out the temperature on their own skin.
There is a ban on boats equipped with an internal combustion engine on the lake. At the same time, a yacht club and a rowing club operate on the lake. It is also said that the boats in this lake float on a special environmentally friendly engine. Electric, shtol? At least these boats moved really silently.
The eastern tip of the lake ends with a picturesque village called Gößl. From here, the most inspiring views of the lake surface open.
We met one of the Gösl residents: she kindly, for six euros, drove us from a nose to a horse-drawn cart to Lake Toplitzsee. As far as I understood from her German, only employees of a fish restaurant located on the shore and residents of the guest house located there can drive by car.
It is impossible to get to this secluded lake in your car; this can be done on your own or on four horses. The cart delivers tourists from one lake to another for a completely humane six euros.
The horse from Gösl to Toplitzsee moves slowly, stopping according to his physiological needs. At the same time, the air resembles a wonderful Viennese atmosphere near Michaeltor - there are also horses with an apron so tied under the tail, important ones are no less than their drivers.
The journey to Toplitzsee takes about thirty leisurely minutes. On the way, our charioteer is welcoming greetings to people coming towards them: those whom she drove away and left on the shore of this unusual lake.
In it, unnaturally green transparent water, in which an incredible amount of snags and felled tree trunks is really submerged (the name says by the lake). And the number of shades of green in the lake and around it evokes analogies with the sensational - just some kind of “fifty shades of green”!
While escalating mystery, someone during our lounging along the shore started an incomprehensible sad song in a forest with a thin voice.
- Mermaids! - Andrey and I exhaled in chorus.
Further beyond Toplitzsee is another lake - a very small one - Kammersee. Maybe we would like to go there, but the local burgomaster strongly objected to any walks to this place. And he even threw a few trees across the path and wrote in a demanding German language a few objectionable phrases.
One could ride a boat on the lake, but somehow we missed the right moment. But they were able to admire the boats themselves: their local variety
The vaunted fish restaurant on the shore did not seem to impress us; inside the galley, numerous children who didn’t come from. A lot has been done under them, for example, a dragon monster or a goblin from a stumpy stump.
And here an information board is installed telling about the filming in these places of a completely unfamiliar film from the life of the Nazis.
Back to Gösl, we decided to return along the bank of the stream. Toplitzbach creek originates in Toplitzsee - and flows into the Grundlzeev district of Gösl.
In the clear waters of the stream, trout shapes are visible - oh, grab a couple!
The path winds along a stream between flowering thickets and lush greenery: in the rain it seems even greener.
At some point, the restrained color scheme explodes with bright spots of the tents of the children's camp. Children, after all, are optimists: they manage to dry wet towels on the clothesline in a drizzling rain.
At a certain moment, you have to choose: move left, along the channel of the stream, to the lake itself, or turn right and between slender woodpiles of firewood go into a flowering meadow on the outskirts of Gösl.