Walking the Pilgrims Way to St Gilpen

First day walking after living the life of a tourist so I can expect a few aches and pains tonight.
We set off after breakfast to walk to the town of St Gilpen at the head of the lake.The trail goes over an old pilgrim pathway so there were a number of religious shrines along the way plus the stations of the cross and even a little church to climb up to which was built into the rock face so there were interesting things to se along the way.
The first part of the walk was through the local area and followed the road through some very upmarket houses and accommodation places which all have lovely gardens with hanging baskets and pots planed up with a riot of color. The road lead around the lakeside for about forty minutes before disappearing up into the treeline and over the pass.
We were impressed with the neatly packed woodpile outside the houses,testament to a cold winter.
The climb was not too strenuous,about 260 metres upwards and a steady gradient so we were full steam ahead.We even overtook a few folk on the way up!
The forest path was a nice section of the walk and the hermitage marked the top point of the walk so familiar names to see here.
There was a lookout to scramble up to but we opted for the safe way down. No heroes this year.
We walked down quite a steep descent though,my knees never enjoy this section but we made the lakeside in good time and set off around the lake towards the town of St Gilpen,the home of Mozart; so of course we had to photograph his house with his statue outside.
The photos will have to come later as they are on my camera.
After a nice coffee and a snack we explored the town before catching a ferry (all part of the package) back to Wolfgansee just as the rain started...And did the heavens open!!!Thunder and lightening again but by then we were back inside the hotel having a cup of coffee and chilling out.
Later an even more severe storm struck and the power went down along with emergency sirens because of an accident caused by the storm.
Fortunately we had booked for dinner at our hotel so we did not need to go outdoors at all.
Heavens knows what tomorrow will hold.No point walking in these conditions.There is even snow forecast for the mountains.
We will sleep on it......