Mountains & Lakes in Austria - my favourite getaways on hot days

The lake "Fuschlsee" is locatede in the Austrian region "Salzkammergut" which is also home to many other gorgeous lakes like "Wolfgangssee" which I gonna mention later in this blog posts. There are various spots where you can get a pretty good view over Fuschlsee as it´s surrunded by hills and smaller mountains, but what I really like about "Ellmaustein" is that you can reach the top within about an hour, so you can also go on this little hike after work. Making your way up, you gonna walk through a forest, so you won´t really have a good view until you are at the top, but when reaching the summit cross, I am sure you gonna be pretty impressed by the view over Fuschlsee, the village Fuschl and the surrunding mountains. You can also do this hike on hot summer days as it´s really cool in the forest and anyway you can just jump in Fuschlsee after this hike! Therer are some really gorgeous spots where the water is even turquoise and there is a circular trail all the way around the lake, so if you got time you can just continue walking around the lake and making little stops to go swimming or make a little picnic and just enjoy the view! You´ll love it!

As already mentioned above, I love to combine hiking and swimming. Anyway this one was actually planned to be "only" a hike and we did kinda find the lake by pure chance (as Google Maps was leading us there on our way home). This hike was quite a spontanous one as we only decided the day before that we wanna hike up here, but I was really impressed by the view I got at the top. There are different routes up this mountain called Schlenken, but we decided to take a save looking one as mom is a bit afraid of heights. We´ve splitted it into two parts as there is a managed hut like half the way up, so we stopped for some food and an obligatory lemon shandy (which I am drinking on almost every hike). From there it was only like one more hour to reach the summit and get this extraordinary 360° view over the surrunding mountains. As it was quite a warm day, I did not expect "Wiestalstausee" - the lake we visited afterwards - to be this freezing cold, but I went for a little swim anyway and relaxed on the shore for a while before driving back home! A great day!

I´ve already seen "Bleckwand" on Instagram before planning this little hike, but it was even more impressive to see the lake "Wolfgangsee" through this unique rockhole. Also here there are different routes up the mountain, but all of them seem to kinda take the same time (like 1,5 hours) so we just went with one that was leading us over lush green mountainside pastures. Even thought it was really cloudy when we started this hike, it turned out to be pretty sunny at the end. The summit offers not only one, but various view points overlooking Wolfgangsee (where you can sometimes just spot little parts of it, but also get the chance to see the whole lake - which is pretty big). After hiking we did again go swimming (well, at least I did), so that´s why I absolutely wanted to add this one to the list! From the top you can see, that there are really turquoise and crystal clear parts on the shores, but I did not expect the colour to also be this stunning when being directly at the lake! Loved it!

I did already tell you about this small lake in another blog post, but it´s my all time favourite and definitely one of my happy places, so I just needed to add it to the list. When I was a child, I did already hike up here with my parents to go camping and that´s what I still try to do at least one time each summer. Berglisee is a little turquoise lake situated in the Tyrolean Alps - stunning, but also f****** cold, you gotta be brave to even keep your feet in the water! The hike only takes about one hour if you drive up by car as far as possible, but be, careful - the street can´t even be called a street! Anyway, it´s  absolutely stunning and peaceful there and even thought it´s located close to the (now because of Corona even more) famous Tyrolean village "Ischgl" it´s still one of those secret spots which are mostly just known by locals, so when visiting "Berglisee", you got a pretty good chance to have this natural beauty on your own! Every time I go up there, I fall in love with this place once again! Such a gorgous feeling to be surrunded by nature and nothing but nature! So if you wanna enjoy the delightful side of nature far away from the stresses and strains of everyday life - this gonna be the perfect spot for you!

Last year, my best friend decided that we should go on more hikes leading us to mountain lakes, so this is one of the results - a pretty beautiful one I think! To reach this lake, it takes about 1,5 hours and it´s just a stone´s throw from a managed hut called "Oberhütte" (picture number 4) . There are two different paths leading up, so you can either choose a steep small one or a bigger one (second image) which is also pretty good for those who wanna ride up there by bicycle. We went with the second one as we like kinda relaxed hikes. Even thought this is another one of those really cold mountain lakes, I could not resist to go for a little swim again. As you can see in the first picture, another thing that really stands out about this hike is the flora - we saw some stunning wild flowers on our way up! Definitely a nice hike (which is also suitable for beginners and those afraid of hights) leading to a gorgeous lake! 

As my cousin made an internship close to "Schladming", we visited her and took the chance to do this little hike. The way up there is again really suitable for beginners and those afraid of hights as there´s a small street leading you all the way up. Reaching our destination, the socalled "Duisitzkarsee", I loved seeing that they even had some horses up there. The whole place had a lovely atmosphere and also the seating area that was constructed just on the waterfront (picture number 3) was just absolutely gorgeous giving us this amazing view over the lake. After having some lunch, we started walking around the lake to find a perfect spot for swimming  - well, we found not only one, but various! Combined to the other lakes in this blog post, this one was not too cold (but still pretty cool anyway)! A great place to spend some hours or even the whole day!

Last but not least, I decided to tell you about a hike that includes not only one, but three lakes. All of them are pretty different, but I just absolutely love them. So the starting point of this hike is just next to the lake "Zeinissee", which is the one on the first picture. There is even a restaurant and a campside on the left side of the lake. The lake "Kopsstausee" (the one on picture number 3 and 4) is actually a reservoir is located just next to Zeinissee, but has got a totally different colour and looks really turqouise from above (which is one of my favourite colours as it always reminds me of tropical islands). So from those two lakes, just take the path leading in direction of the managed hut "Verbella" and after like 20 or 30 minutes you gonna reach the "Herzsee" which means "Heartlake" in German (because it´s shape kinda resembles a heart depening on where exactly you stand). Fun fact: Atypical for me but I did actually never swim in any of those three lakes (well, maybe I did as a child and just can´t remember as that´s pretty close to where my relatives live). Which one of those lakes would be your favourite?