21 Austria Mountains (1)

12 comments

After Vienna we travelled south and west to the village of Kaprun in the shelter of the Kitzsteinhorn mountain, about three hours south of Salzburgh.

Kaprun is a ski centre set in a wide plain which is used extensively for agriculture – mostly grass for the cattle which only have a short season to be outdoors. Kaprun is the village at the foot of this ridge.

To find flowers you don’t have to be a mountaineer or be very energetic. There are alpine meadows all around the village with flowers like these geraniums.

A short distance along the road is a huge car park for the winter skiers. Alongside is a large rock but I wonder how many tourists notice the saxifrage growing on it.

These took absolutely no effort to admire.

Just above the village are the ski slopes, now devoid of snow, covered in mountain flowers. The pink ones are Primula halleri and the blue one Gentian verna, the spring gentian.

Along a mountain path above the village we found this magnificent trumpet gentian, Gentiana clusii. Coming back from our walk we decided to have a last look at it and found this!

What had happened – a group of naughty children picking flowers? No, it was these guys having had a good lunch. Nature, red in tooth and claw or, in this case, blue.

These pictures were taken on a grassy ridge high above the village. There were many, many more flowers along the ridge but I will finish with this little yellow violas and a sunny rock rose.

We took many more pictures (800 frames on just one camera) but don’t worry, I won’t inflict them all on you. I intend to put up one more blog on this topic, next week if it rains again, when we will go deeper into the mountains.

(This picture should follow the Trumpet Gentians, the cows being the culprits. I omitted it first time round and when I tried to put it in later it came up at the end of the blog!)

17 Jul, 2009
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Comments

Pottygardener

Very enjoyable blog bulbaholic, lovely photo's. Looks like you are having a lovely time. Thanks for sharing.

17 Jul, 2009

Louise1

Lovely photos, beautiful Gentians.

17 Jul, 2009

Mookins

wowee

these are amazing photos, it makes me laugh I would probably have been one of those tourists not seeing these last year, now I snoop everywhere

thanks for sharing

x x x

17 Jul, 2009

Spritzhenry

How lovely - thanks for the photos and the memories of this beautiful area. We spent two holidays in a village quite near there, and I loved the flowers. I didn't have a digital camera then, so I haven't got many photos at all.

I do remember that one morning it snowed! In August!

17 Jul, 2009

Terratoonie

Brilliant blog... fantastic photos.
Thank you :o)

17 Jul, 2009

Bulbaholic

Thanks for the comments. A digital camers does help. I could take several pictures of every plant, each on a different setting, and not have to worry about the cost of the film or processing

17 Jul, 2009