Donausteig - Day 3 - Kramesau to Haibach

Day 3: Kramesau to Haibach ob der Donau

The hotel cat simultaneously said "pet me" and "don't touch me."

The daily routine: from the Danube, up the hill through the woods...

...to the fields above...

...back down through the woods. I took a detour to a waterfall...

12th-c. non-ruined Burg Marsbach, privately owned.

More clear cutting. Perhaps beetle-decimated spruce?

Hey, there's the Danube again--but to my left instead of the usual right. The hill on the right of the bend is surrounded by Danube on both left and right--one of the most famous points on the entire Donausteig. 

Toward the end of that hill, 12th-c. Burgruine Haichenbach. It makes sense that a fortress would have been built here, with good views of the Donau both to the left and right. 

Approaching Haichenbach, I finally found a good dozen other tourists, plus a gaggle of elementary school students, because easily accessible Burgruine are especially hard to resist. One gentleman, sitting with two companions, warned me, "Sie haben keine Kaffee mehr." I had to ask him to repeat himself, and then explained that I was from the U.S. and clearly still didn't understand Austrian accents very well, because I thought he had said "They're out of coffee." "Du verstehst es ganz gut" ("you understand just fine"), came the answer from one of his friends.

No coffee here:

Props to the acrophobe, who climbed these stairs.

Donau on the left, Donau on the right.

The views get better the higher one climbs...

"Warning: Falling hazard! Enter at your own risk." Props again, acrophobe who did not fall. 

A 21st-c. labyrinth at the 12th-c. Burg ruined in the 16th-c.:

As though ruins alone are insufficient to entertain kids, the signage-makers of the Donausteig offer yet another story: Spuck auf die Rache (Spit Your Revenge). Summary: The greedy robber barons who controlled the fortress kidnapped assorted folk and locked them in the dungeon until ransoms were paid for their release. One victim, a merchant, managed to spit a cherry pit over the wall before he was locked up, entrusting his revenge to the pit. The pit eventually grew into a stately tree that enabled enemies to storm the castle, which then fell into ruins. Years later, two poor women picked up some coal near the tree; it became heavier as they walked home, and when they unpacked it, it had turned to gold. 

From the ruins, I descended to the Danube...

...where I caught a ferry to the south side of the river.

I crossed from the north side to the south side in order to climb up to the iconic view of the Schlögener Schlinge (Schlögener Loop) 

The river loop reminded me of Horseshoe Bend outside of Page, AZ, which we visited last year. Horseshoe Bend is about 4 million years older than the ~1.8-million-year-old Danube.

From the river bend, I then headed uphill and away from the river toward Haibach.

I passed through an enchanting transition from open fields to forest through a leafy tidily trimmed doorway:

Sculpture on the east side of Haibach.

After checking into my hotel, I walked back into Haibach to buy some dinner at the grocery store--grateful to be in a village large enough to have a store.

On the way back to the hotel, Carly insisted on stopping to talk to a rubber chicken about the benefits of sunscreen.

The local frogs were either intensely happy or intensely frustrated:

Ta da! 17 miles hiked, ~3,200 ft elevation gain.