The lake promenade and the Elisabethpark

Zell am See stands on a gravel fan pushed out into the lake, so the old town has water on three sides. The Esplanade runs north from the Elisabethpark along the western shore, past the grand hotel on its own small peninsula, and it is the easy, level hour of any session here: jetties, moored boats, the Vogtturm and the Romanesque tower of St. Hippolyt behind you, and across the water the Kitzsteinhorn closing the valley in snow.

Morning is the frame. Before nine the lake is usually glass, the mountains double in it and the promenade is empty except for swimmers; by midday the boats are out and the light is flat. The evening light lands on the far shore at Thumersbach rather than on the town, so it is worth crossing by boat or driving round if you want the town lit.

The water turns properly turquoise in June and is warm enough to swim in from late June to early September. October is the clean, empty month — still mornings, colour on the slopes, no crowds. In a cold winter the lake freezes hard enough for skaters and a marked path across to Thumersbach, which is a photograph nothing else in Austria gives; but the ice is never a promise, so check the current state before you plan around it.

Everything here is public and free. The Elisabethpark's benches and old trees give shade in July and August, and the covered arcades along the Esplanade are the fallback in rain.