Walking to Italy - Day 6 - Hallerangerhaus - Hall in Tirol

Day 6: Hallerangerhaus to Hall in Tirol

Now that we were in the mountains, our daily hikes were becoming shorter, but the number of photos I was taking shot up.

From Hallerangerhaus, we headed up and over the Lafatscherjoch (the saddle between the Lafatscher Roßkopf and the Speckkarspitze) and then down down down into Hall in Tirol.

Sunrise was almost as nice as sunset.

We ate breakfast, donned our boots in the stinky room, and headed south.

The hike began with a rather dramatic zigzag across scree, during which I somehow failed to take a single photo. Beyond the scree, there were more wildflowers. 

Crosses can be found on lots of saddles and peaks in Europe...

Fortuitous shot of the sun rising over the mountains:

Looking back...

At the saddle stands a 2-meter tall pine sculpture by Lukas Pittl:

Looking ahead...

...and back again...

...and ahead again...

We ascended a mere 950 feet, after which we spent the rest of the hike descending ~5,000 feet into Hall in Tirol.

It was a steep descent...

After spending a few hours activating muscles that, until the next morning, we weren't aware we had, we arrived in Hall.

Burg Hasegg, originally built to protect the town salt mines and salt route, later housed the town mint:  

Pedestrian bridge over the Inn River:

Our hotel was right next to the freeway in an industrial section of Hall--cheap and practical, but a stark contrast to the family Pensionen, monastery accommodations, and hut we had availed ourselves of over the previous few days. On the bright side, there was a giant Japanese restaurant two long blocks away, where we topped off our weary dehydrated selves with vegetarian ramen delicious enough to warrant a photograph.

While enjoying dinner, we scanned our maps for an evening walk that would get us out of our industrial location, and discovered there were ruins up in the hills. S looked up from his soup and out the window and said, "oh, there they are"--thus it was that we followed Hiking-to-Italy Rule 4 and added another 6 miles of walking to our day.

First we passed through abundant fruitful farmland...

...past amber waves of grain...

...through the village Thaur...

...with its funky residential architecture in the hills...

...and onto the Romediusweg (a pilgrimage trail that runs from Thaur to Romeno in South Tyrol)...

 

...onto a stations-of-the-cross trail...

...past the Romedi chapel above Thaur...

...to the Thaur ruins. The ruins were set up for a theatrical performance--Der Falsche Graf (The Fake Count, a comedy)--but we arrived long enough before the performance that the ticket takers were happy to let us tromp over the stage.

On our way back down the hill, we heard brass music setting the scene for the performance up at the Thaur ruins.

Ta da! 18 miles hiked, ~2,350 ft elevation gain, ~6,175 ft descent. Oof, we felt this one...