The sound of the bells continued this morning, with the first ones at 6am from the monastery shortly followed by cows on the move....NOT impressed (but at least it was sunny with blue skies). We decided to go and have a look at said noisy monastery - the towers with their golden domes were visible from our pitch and merited further investigation so we walked down the road.


 It is a beautiful building, founded in the 13^th century by the Counts of Tyrol and now occupied by a Cistercian order. It has a beautifully decorated chapel and a distillery making special schnapps, but unfortunately when we got there we discovered it was all closed on Saturdays, so we had to content ourselves with admiring the exterior; it had been renovated in 1999 with beautifully decorated windows with fancy frames painted round them.


 We then panted our way back up the hill to the site, hitched up the van and set off for our next site in the Salzburg region at Lofer. Its always a bit of a gamble choosing a site from books/reviews, as one person's idea of perfection can be very different to another’s – but we really struck lucky with this one. Called Camping Grubhof, it lies next to the river Saalach 40kms SW of Salzburg, and has the most wonderful views of the Steinberg & Alm mountains.


 
 The pitches are arranged in such a way that you look out onto a grassy area with the nearest caravans being about 20m away, so there is a wonderful feeling of space. The facilities are warm and spotless, the people in Reception are very friendly and the amenities second to none with a small spa, cafe, bar and small shop. Children are well catered for (not that there are many here) with a playground and a superb area of sandpit with waterwheels and channels so they can dam and dig to their hearts content.


We sited ourselves then went off to the local village to do some shopping – a picture-box little place whose wooden houses had window boxes full of flowers, all with the backdrop of those wonderful mountains. There is also a Spar in the next village so we won’t starve.


 There was a nice looking camp restaurant by the entrance so we treated ourselves to our first Austrian meal, and what a meal it was – some of the nicest food we’ve ever had and at reasonable prices. I had a Salzburg Schnitzel of chicken stuffed with ham and mushrooms, parsley potatoes and a tasty dip & hubby had a stuffed chicken breast with "mountain cheese" & vegetables on a bed of rice, all washed down with the local beer. Yum.

The sun was setting behind the mountains as we walked down to the river to have a look: it is pale turquoise and extremely fast flowing, making the ducks sailing on it look turbo-charged. We looked across at one of the many traffic-free cycle tracks the site has access to and resolved to use it tomorrow, weather willing.