When the larches turn gold and morning mist lies on the lake, the Ausseerland shows what may be its most beautiful face. Autumn school holidays, All Saints, long weekends – the most restful time of the year, especially for families.
Summer departs, and the hurry leaves with it. What remains is the best part: clear air, empty paths, a lake like a mirror – and light that painters once travelled far to find.
In September the stags bell on the Loser, the larches begin to glow, and the lake walk belongs to the locals again. October brings the cattle drives down from the alps, game weeks in the inns, and those stable spells of fine weather when the summits are already dusted white while the sun still warms the lakeshore below.
Mist lies on the water in the morning, the views run forever at noon, and the evenings smell of woodsmoke. If you only know Altaussee in summer, you don't quite know it yet.
Around Austria's National Day on 26 October and All Saints lie the Austrian autumn school holidays – and many German states are off school too. It may be the cleverest holiday week of the year: no high season, no crowded roads, and a valley in its finest colours.
By day, the level lake loop with a stop at an inn, the Altaussee salt mine in any weather, the Loser panoramic road up above the mist line, chestnuts and kite-flying on the meadows. In the evening everyone draws together indoors: the tiled stove crackles, the long table is laid, and breakfast is at the door again in the morning.
The house is built for three generations – grandparents sleep step-free on the ground floor, the children upstairs, everyone with a bathroom of their own. High chair and cot are provided, and the fenced garden keeps children and dogs reliably in view.
First snow on Loser, Sandling and Trisselwand, the still lake below – this is what autumn looks like when it is at home in Altaussee.
Autumn landscape photos: Dromedar61 (CC BY-SA 3.0) and Mykola Berkash (CC BY 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
Autumn is the season this house was built for at heart: the light goes early, and indoors the better part of the day begins.
Downstairs the green tiled stove warms the parlour; upstairs the open fire crackles. At the 1930 baby grand someone always turns out to know one more piece – and if you would rather listen: in early September the Beethoven plus Festival closes its concert summer in the Ausseerland, most recently with Brahms's A German Requiem.
And the best comes at night: sleep in Swiss stone pine beds, proven to calm the heart. An autumn does not get more restful than this.
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