As I promised a few days ago, I’ll be posting photos of nature and historic places on this site from now on. The first area I went to was the Thaya valley on the Austrian side, in Lower Austria (i.e. Niederösterreich in German), to which an earlier university co-student and friend of mine, Prof. Dr. Dénes Lóczy from Hungary, drew my attention. When we studied Geography together, we never ever heard of the river or the area but now I can assure everyone that it’s worth visiting for a wide range of reasons. See below some of what I’ve seen in the area on my first journey – I’m sure I won’t stop short at this stage, health permitting.

You could see the river in my previous post, now I’m starting out with a view of the sight of the castle of Kollmitz and will lead you inside.

A little view of the rocks of the surroundings as we look back from the bridge:

The Thaya in August, and below the dam, looked little more than a stream – I’m feeling deeply for the locals during the difficult times of the heavy rains in the middle of September, when I’m writing this post.

Now, on into the ruins.

Here we can have a good look-around towards the South-South-West:

Climbing the towers, though one feels really high, is worth the effort:

That was it. Great pleasure, so much so that I felt I had to let the guards know how much I appreciated my visit – so I told them in my brand-new German. Learning with Duolingo for hundreds of hours wasn’t a complete waste after all…

But not enough for me – I’d seen that the ruins can be seen from across the river after it has taken a sharp left turn. So I set out to find such a place. Again, I had to ask local help in German – no English, please.

Well, I couldn’t really get to a point where the ruins were visible together with the river but perhaps you can try it with a drone next time. Until then, hope you’ve enjoyed these photos. Other places are coming later.

By P.S.