We spent a few days at Hotel and Naturresort Handeck in Handegg. It was a great little trip. We were up in the mountain a little bit, right next to the Gelmerbahn. The Gelmerbahn is an old funicular they used when they were building the dam at Gelmersee. It is the steepest funicular in Europe. (every funicular is the something-est) It was super steep though it’s hard to tell form the pictures. (I forgot my camera this trip!)

We did two different power plant tours in the region. There is an extensive underground network of pipes that connects water from dams and lakes in the mountains to a couple of power plants and other lower elevation lakes. They even sometimes pump water back up to the higher elevation lakes when they needs to bleed power off the grid. The first tour was of the oldest power station with vertical generators. The second used horizontal generators and also showcased a 14 meter cave of quartz crystals. The second tour actually put us in a van and we drove to different location in the underground power plant. It’s insane how big these stations are, all underground. There is 160 km of underground piping/tunnels for water flow to and from the dams. Probably what I found the most interesting is that they build their generators by hand on site. During the tour we happened to walk past a couple workers mixing ceramic for the insulator caps. There’s also a tiny battery powered train they can use to reach the higher station during winter when the roads are snowed out.

There were also some nice hikes from our hotel. Both that we did were fairly short but after sitting at home for a year during the pandemic, I think we were all a bit out of shape and wouldn’t have wanted to hike much longer than we did!

We had a great time and I would definitely consider going back. We had really excellent food at the hotel and we barely touched on the great amenities. They have a small heated pool, a hot tub, sauna and they even let you use their electric car for the day.