NCC Pertisau holiday, 21 July 2025

Maurach-am-Achensee, Tirol

The weather took a turn for the worse, we are not made of sugar, so a considerable number of us boarded the bus to Jenbach - Robert and I were actually quite lucky to get on at Maurach; we squeezed on and spent the journey on the driver's platform - nice of him to let us.

One of these days, I'll see Jenbach in the sunshine, but today was not that day.  Some people went up to the church; others, more sensibly, went and sat in the local café opposite the station. I did try to go to the church, but it was very wet, and very steep, so eventually I gave up and went back to join the sensible ones with a very nice cup of coffee.

Eventually everybody turned up and we foregathered at the station to take the Achenseebahn up to Seespitz.

We had a reserved carriage, and made the most of the journey. The first part is a rack-and-pinion railway, which is fun, but not very scenic as it is mostly in woodland. At Eben, however, the plateau begins and the engine stops pushing the train but runs round to the front to start pulling it the rest of the way, via Maurach and Maurach Mitte to Seespitz.

The boats meet the train, so we all piled off and found our reserved tables on the boat, where we were served coffee and apfelstrudel with squirty cream. Delicious, especially as the apfelstrudel was not too sweet.

The boat took us round the lake, to Gaisalm, Achenkirch and Scholastica, before calling at Gaisalm again on the way back to Pertisau, after which the formal part of the day was at an end. Some people got off, but many stayed on - we went as far as Seespitz where we then caught the train as far as Maurach Mitte to do some shopping before getting the bus back up to our campsite, where we had a couple of hours to relax before the Centenary Gala Dinner.

This was held at one of the big hotels in Pertisau, and was extremely good.  We started with pancake strips in consommé, followed by raviolis with a herb filling.  There was a choice of main courses - we had made our choices earlier.  I had lake trout with new potatoes and almonds, and the Swan Whisperer had spare ribs with potato wedges and coleslaw.  The other choices were wiener schnitzel, which may have been delicious but which smelt of hot fat, and which came with chips, and, for the vegetarians, some kind of spinach dumpling. Pudding was Kaiserschmarrn (chopped up pancakes with, in this case, a scoop of cinnamon ice cream and the most delicious stewed plums).  I had white wine, and the SW had red.  The hotel had printed commemorative menus for us,

and there were speeches, and a presentation to the person who had done 99.9% of the organising - incredibly efficiently! 

We shared a taxi back with someone else who is staying in Maurach, and went straight to bed!