Erlaufsee

About 20 minutes from Mariazell is the small Alpen lake, called the Erlaufsee. There are many fun activities there on a hot summers day, including swimming and sun bathing on the beach, enjoying ice cream at the lakeside cafe, paddling around on rented boats, or taking an hour long walk around the lake, which I decided to do with a group of other students.

Our walk began by following the lakeside road from the beach toward the other side of the lake. Eventually reaching a small side street where we walked through a small neighborhood of sorts and out toward green pastures and huge Austria cows. Especially coming straight from California where the cows eat brown grass in large herds, seeing an Austria cow, who noms bright green grass with maybe another cow or two, is quite a sight.

We wandered quite a ways away from the lake, taking mostly small one way roads. As we headed back into the woods we found many adorable lakeside cottages, which were very well maintained with an incredible attention to detail! Even the fences to keep the tourists off their lawns had hand painted wooden decorations!

As we continued on our way, we came across an alter for the virgin mary, which are found all over this very Catholic country, in what I thought of as odd places like on a trail in the mountains.

The trail eventually returned us to the lake, where we found a plaque which told the legend behind the silver and black colors of the lake. It was in german, but I think I got the jist of it and basically, there was a miller who lived by the lake with his beautiful wife. Every night she would go down to the waters edge to hear a flutist play and the miller got very jealous, so one night he threw her into the water and she drowned, at this spot the water turned a silver color. Eventually, the miller regretted his actions and was so distraught that he threw himself into the lake as well, and there the water turned black. What a lovely little story, eh?

Well, none of us threw ourselves in and so we headed back to the beach. Although the water was deemed by many to be too cold, another girl and I jumped in off of one of the many public docks and we splashed around for a bit, before heading back to the rocky shore and beach. There were several public water slides available, but some were nicer than others and the one closest to us was on a floating platform covered with bird poop, so we avoided it.

Eventually it was time to head out, so we all piled on the bus and headed back to Mariazell for more orientating! As much fun as it's been, I can't wait to get back and see my apartment!!!