I have had two trips away since the pandemic out of normality, and both have been to Austria. We know that Corona is still about, but restrictions have been lifted - the latest benefiting me on this recent trip - but our lives have been allowed to return to some sort of normality. It was nice for me to be able to return to Austria six months after my last visit, and once again on the trail of Where Eagles Dare filming locations.

An odd thing happened when I was returning to England after my last trip there in October 2021. On the way to the airport, my laptop was offered one (or both) of the Austrian and German versions of Google and, half-heartedly, I tried my luck in finding the blown-up bridge towards the end of the film. I have seen places which might have fitted the bill but there was always something gnawing away at me: something which cast a doubt on whether I really had the right place. And, of course, it is too easy to want to believe that one has the correct place and to find convincing reasons for believing oneself. This is where either google.at or google.de came up trumps.

Putting the film's German title in the search and adding the word bridge i.e. Agenten Sterben Einsam Brucke - sorry, if my keyboard has an umlaut to put over the u in Brucke, I have yet to discover it: maybe I should have put Bruecke - lo and behold, up came an article showing Bad Ischl's mayor opening a bridge (which was part of the scheme for a new cycle path between Bad Ischl and Weissenbach am Attersee) which commemorated the place where the bridge was blown up towards the end of the film and It has been named after Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton: a nice touch. It took a little research and an odd email to a presumably surprised tourist office to ask for the location and off I later went. Damn it, if this isn't the bridge then I shall - well, keep looking... It's named after the two star actors and therefore I must believe that at long last I really have found the correct place.

My short trip started by flying to Vienna from Heathrow on a Wednesday afternoon. It was disappointing that everything went smoothly only to be boarded fifteen minutes before departure. It was a full flight - that's a nice sign - and the boarding took twenty minutes and, for whatever reason was given, we spent the better part of the next hour waiting to leave. Time was made up, and Vienna's airport was very quick.

Austria is - and who would blame them? - very careful about the Coronavirus but their terminology was a tad difficult to understand. Restrictions had been lessened but I remember reading something which suggested that fully-vaccinated people could travel to Austria but were required to fill out a passenger locator form and quarantine. There were exemptions, the main one being that a booster jab overrode the need to quarantine etc. It may have been me being dim but I found the way that it had been written confusing. In any event, armed with a new passport, I was waved cheerily through passport control without as much a request for my vaccination certificate to be shown.

I spent the first night in the Hotel Hadrigan in Vienna's Ottakring district. I even found my way easily to the hotel and had a simple yet comfortable room which was very good value for a hotel fairly close to many of the city's highlights. One thing which struck me was, with the window open, how little traffic noise came from the main roads by the hotel. Many people will have heard of Austria's capital city, but few will have come across my home village yet the extraordinary difference in noise levels was astonishing. Nothing in that part of Vienna yet, at home, we contend with many speeding cars and others presumably proud of their engine and exhaust noise (or both) throughout the day and night. Silly me for once or twice asking why something isn't done about it, especially with everyone so traceable - dear me no, traffic noise complaints are apparently not entertained...So, I wear muffles at night (and am already deaf). No need for muffles in the Hotel Hadrigan.

I was pleased to have just enough time to visit the beautiful Schonbrunn Palace. It is many years since I last saw it and it was an easy U-Bahn ride from Ottakring. It is one of Vienna's many highlights and doubtless Andre Rieu has made it even more popular. There is no entrance fee for walking around the grounds, only to visit the inside and the zoo, to my knowledge. I probably made for an extraordinary sight dragging my suitcase around the grounds but was grateful for the opportunity of seeing the palace again.

The onward train to Ebensee (via Attnang-Puccheim) was very comfortable and a seat reservation was included within the ticket price. What wasn't mentioned was that the adjoining seat was left empty, a legacy, I suppose, of the virus restrictions but a welcome added luxury. No-one without a reservation tried to take the many "empty" seats. Only FFP2 masks were obligatory.

I had booked into the Gasthaus Auerhahn in Ebensee. I usually book hotels through booking.com but the Auerhahn isn't available through them so, somewhat surprisingly for me, I booked it directly through the Gasthaus owners. It is a few seconds walk from Ebensee Railway Station - there is another station in the centre of Ebensee called Landungsplatz, presumably because of its proximity to the Traunsee - and I was given a very large and comfortable room (which too, given the closeness to the trains, was quiet from train noise, if not quite motorbikes and the odd car). The restaurant seems to be hugely popular and all told was very good value.

I revisited the Feuerkogelbahn cable car valley station, an area which features quite prominently in Where Eagles Dare. This year marks the fortieth anniversary of my first visit and subsequent travel on what we believe were the cable cars used in the film. Although I did not go in the cable car, I had a good look around the valley station: the stairs leading up from the inside are still slightly recognisable - look out for the part of the film where Heidi comes down from the castle (and attracts a less-than-surreptitious look from a guard).

I had read in one of the stuntman's autobiographies that there was a suggestion that some filming took place on a road below the cable car route. If it did, nothing jumped out at me (however hard I tried to make it do so) but the road does lead past the huts and dainty chapel to the side of the river Langbathseen. It was rather nice.

Another little treat was later walking past a shop in Ebensee whose exterior showed the history of the town and the Feuerkogelbahn. I would have to say that one of the cable car photos was almost certainly pre-Where Eagles Dare. The latest model is the third I have seen in all of my visits to Ebensee since 1982. I did look for the other cable car believed to have been used in the film which was last time in someone's garden nearby. I was pleased to find it still there. It's likely the No.2 car, No.1 still to my knowledge being outside a hotel on top of the Feuerkogel.

My reason for staying in Ebensee was, however, as a base for visiting the Eastwood-Burton bridge at Mitterweissenbach the following day. It was never, knowing me, likely to be straightforward and the boots came out and a passage found via Google Earth and many other maps, there being no public transport along this road near Bad Ischl to Unterach am Attersee. Well, there is but it doesn't stop any longer. Sadly, what would have been a very convenient stop at Jagdhaus Aufzug seems to have been discontinued recently. Short of hiring a bike or, heaven forfend, car or taking a taxi, it was a case of Shanks's pony. The walk would likely be around ten miles, a distance increased significantly when I alighted the bus too early and added another four miles to my trek. It was, I felt, a perfectly understandable mistake to have made: I knew that I had to get down at a stop with Traunbrucke mentioned and did so. Sadly, there seem to have been two such stops.