Maria Alm June 2019

I have led several flower holidays, so was looking forward to exploring a new area & finding new flowers. This time it was Maria Alm, Austria, on a Ramblers Walking Holidays grade 4/FL holiday, which means relatively easy walking with time to look at the Alpine flowers.

View across to mountains

Maria Alm and the Hochkönig range
Purple crocuses
Purple Crocuses

To get us off to a good start we had a talk and slide show from Jan Ware, a local (but English) flower expert on what we might expect to see. We found plenty of species on the first local walk, but not as many as Jan had expected due to the cold spring and amount of late snow, meaning many summer species hadn't appeared yet. Indeed, there were still crocuses in flower!

Nevertheless, we saw many orchids, including the usual common spotted orchids and the more unusual Twayblade.
Common Spotted Orchids
Common Spotted Orchids
Spring Gentians
Spring Gentians
 Some paths were affected by storm damage, to the extent that on the second day we had to change the route completely as several paths were closed due to landslides! Nevertheless, we saw our first gentians (Spring gentians) and Alpine meadows packed with colourful plants.

The weather forecast for the third walk was bad, but remarkably although we almost walked up to the cloud base (from the top of a ski-lift!), it didn't rain at all. We were rewarded with great, if cloudy, views and a fine display of small colourful alpines clinging to the slatey rocks.
Alpine Toadflax        Moss Campion
Alpine Toadflax                                                                                 Moss Campion
Crossing a hayfield
Crossing the hayfields

After a well-earned rest day, we headed uphill from the hotel through meadows already cut for hay and reached one of the many mountain farms, alms, that also serve drinks and food.

Here we enjoyed the views and the sun before heading uphill again. Although it was generally dry there were always damp patches in the fields and woods, and that is where often we found interesting flowers like marsh orchids and the insectivorous alpine butterwort.       

Walking a balcony path
Walking the balcony path

Trumpet Gentian

Clusius’s Trumpet Gentian

Our final day was the most challenging! After a scenic bus ride (free with our ‘Hochkönig Card’) we set off on a balcony path that skirts the base of the Hochkönig mountain range.

Some snow patches remained in the valleys and some of the paths had crumbled somewhat during the winter, so our progress was slow. It was made slower by the number of new alpine flower sightings we had!

At the end of the last walk we had a well-earned drink at an alm, and took the bus back to Maria Alm. All in all a great week in a comfortable hotel and a quiet village which entertained us with two musical evenings in the village square. Oh, and plenty of photographs (flowers and views) to pore over back home.