When we woke at the Soboth, the sun was shining and the snow glittered around us. What a beautiful day! We took a walk along the lake and enjoyed this picturesque winter landscape.
The lake is actually a reservoir used to generate power, but also serves as a tourist attraction with crystal clear water for swimming in summer and beautiful spruce forest surrounding it. The lake is 2,6 km long and 1080 metres above sea level.
At the beginning of the lake lies St. Vincent, once one of the most important places for glass production in the entire Austrian monarchy. In 1839 over 700 people were still engaged in the production of hollow, sheet and mirror glass.
At the Austrian trade exhibition in Vienna in 1845, mirrors from St. Vinzenz were described as “the largest (approx. 216×112 cm) made in Austria so far, blown in one piece, completely pure, white and faithful“. So it’s no wonder that the glass products from St. Vincent were delivered to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Versailles, according to a report in the daily mail.
Of the former buildings only the small church, the manor house, the forester’s house, the building of the carpentry and model woodworking shop and the former schoolhouse have been preserved. A small cemetery is hidden in the middle of the forest.
Reluctantly we left the Soboth, driving down into the fog which covered the lower regions, to get to Graz, where we had to drop some radio equipment at Funk- Elektronik, one of the most reliable dealer for radio communication.
We also used the big caravan parking in the south of Graz to do our washing and use the service station for emptying our tanks and filling up with water. From here we are circling back to the west, but still have no concrete plans. Lets see where we will end up in our next post.