Alpine Club Schladming

... focusing lens :-( We took it to a shop later and they said it would cost more to fix it than to buy a new one. Oh well that camera has been through a lot and was due for retirement, and what better excuse to buy a new one!!

Anyway.... The finals were brilliant. We got the gondola to the top of the mountain and walked down the track watching the riders come down. First up ...

... room.... but it got the thumbs up as it was clean, tidy and modern. The view from the room was amazing, perfect view of the Planai mountain slope, so good we could have sat there and watched the biking from our room!! Dropped our bags and went for our first meal out since leaving home, chilli fahitas and chicken burgers went down a treat, god bless Papa Joes!!!!

... and her husband couldn't speak English - which is fine, they were pretty laid back.

They served us breakfast everyday which was nice. It was basically bread and spreads. Where's the omelets and bacon? Oh we miss that! Nice breakfast though and the table looked like it was set for a king. When we sat down, she left and we could hear footsteps upstairs (in our room). We kept wondering what she was doing. Turns out she was remaking the bed and hanging towels ...

I woke up this morning still not feeling like being a tourist. So I stayed in my room as long as I could, but I had to check out by 10 am. My plan was to just take a quick walk around town and then catch a train to Salzburg. The town was really small, so it only took about 15 minutes to see it.

But it was really pretty, so I lingered. And I went to a church that had a bone chapel out back. There wasn't much space in the town, because of ...

So today I was really, truly sick of being a tourist. I never thought it would happen, but I guess after almost 4 weeks I finally got burned out. I didn't feel like doing anything at all. But I had to take a 4.5 hour train ride to Hallstatt in the morning.

Yesterday I stopped by an English bookstore in Vienna and bought a book, because I was already thinking about doing nothing today. So I spent a lot of the train ride reading (it was a book called "City of ...

... black striped socks up to my knees
to protect me...oh and my handbag! Yes, I know I'm so cool..... It was
a nice walk tho and we even got to build some cairns (rock
formations)... with 100s ofothers in the river. We spent the afternoon
sunbaking - again. And ate Pasta for dinner, again.... at this rate im
going to get fat.

... were all in the water in a matter of seconds, jumping off the stone wall’s diving board (literally, a board, no spring at all) into the lake. First experience with others dressing and undressing in the middle of the park (going "full Euro," as we call it). The water is glorious. Walked to town for dinner, then did the after dinner tour. Saw an oompah band in the square, had the mandatory eis, and called it a day with the stroll back to the camping.

It rained heavily all night (quite unusual for Hallstatt, I'm told.) Our plan for today: visit the Ice Caves at Dachstein and head for Hungary for our visit with Attila's family.

To reach the Ice Caves, we took a gondola (our third in as many days) to the top of the mountain. For there we hiked 20 minutes up the mountain to the caves. On our way up the gondola, Attila made friends with a ...

... br>When our musician packed it in for the day, we decided to check out the Salt Mine. Hallstatt is the site of the world's oldest salt mine. For three thousand years people have been mining the mountains about Hallstatt for their valuable salt deposits. The visit starts with a ride up the funicular and a short but intense walk up the hill. Once you arrive at the Visitor Centre, you don miners' coveralls and wait for the tour guide. We ...

... one night (they have to watch it every night they work there and must be absolutely sick to death of it) but we'd only caught the tail end of the first viewing because we had been getting a little drunk in an awesome "local" beer garden in a non touristy section of town (but I was paying good money to stay in this hostel so I didn't feel too guilty ... just a little guilty). Anyway, it was great watching it and seeing all of the places we'd visited that day and ...