E5 Stage 9: Cable Cars and Living Large

Zams to Mittelburg

Friday, July 26

We enjoyed a restful night and woke up to have breakfast with another hiking couple who were also on the E5. After leaving the hotel, we stopped by the tourist office and uploaded some blogs while we have Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi Is sometimes hard to come by when you're traveling in Europe.

After uploading, we went straight to the cable car station further down in Zams. We rode up thousands of meters to the top where we would start the trail. Our guidebook recommended the luxury of the cable car. We were resistant at first, however, seeing the steep ascent passing below us, within minutes we were convinced we had made the right choice. After all, we did finish the Haute Route in 2 weeks, so we had already proven ourselves as capable hikers.

Once we got to the top, we made our way down alongside the green mountain overlooking hills and the valley below with a city.  Further beyond that, alpine mountain ranges made for a beautiful view. We passed along noisy cows,  who looked a lot happier than any California cows I had ever seen.

Along the trail we passed two alms, or alpine cafes/restaurants, and ordered refreshments. The first was a cheesemaking establishment that caught the interest of my dad for future projects.  The next alm had a nice panoramic view and we stopped for a beer and to rest our feet.  

We continued to descend down into the next valley in search of the town of Wenns. It would be there that we would catch a bus to ride up into the next valley.  Another "short cut" we shamelessly took.  It was a lot further away than we would have liked to walk. 

The bus ride took us 50 minutes up into the mountain valley of Middleburg. We got off the bus and went to the first hotel we found, however, it was already full. We walked down to the town of Middleburg and checked next options for rooms, comparing prices. We decided to go with Anger Alm, a four star hotel that made us feel like we were living in luxury. He had one of the nicer showers we ever seen, which included stone tiled walls and floor, glass barrier, ventilation, a slitted drain, a huge 16 inch diameter showerhead that made you feel like you were standing under hot rain.  

For dinner, we stayed in the restaurant ad dined in style!  Following a beer, we enjoyed our firs self-serve salad bar which included lettuce, tomato, corn, and cucumber.  The next course was a tasty broccoli soup.  Then a spinach type tart, thy was surprisingly good.  The main dish was roast beef with sauce, on mashed potatoes with asparagus. Our final course was a sweet melon suflay.