Am Sonnenhang 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!!<br><br>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 ...

Early start had us at Verona station for 8.30am and we were soon on the train heading for Innsbruck, Austria. After Clare scoffing a chocolate custard doughnut in record time we boarded our connecting train in Innsbruck to Scladming, finally arriving at 6pm. Clare was sweating at the thought of a similar room to Verona, so it was an anxious walk up the stairs to ...

... Maybe this was a good time to go alone but we stuck with our group and did pretty good, but the singles definitely kicked our butts in speed.<br><br>All together we spent about three hours in and around the mines before going back down the funicular to find mom and Lincoln. They enjoyed their relaxing time so in the end it was a nice day for everyone.<br><br>And now, back to the highway!

... radiators, hung them in the bathroom, behind the door, in the closet, everywhere. Brian said it was like an Easter egg hunt. What was she doing in our room again and with my underwear? Best part was I couldn't find one of my socks. The next morning after breakfast I asked her where it might be (in broken German and using my hands) and she left, and came back 15 minutes later with it. Still don't know where exactly she got it from.<br><br>For breakfast I decided to ...

... steep mountain behind it, which meant they didn&#8217;t have much room to bury their dead. So people were only buried for 12 years. Then their bones were dug up, cleaned, and placed in the bone chapel. So it was a room full of decorated skulls and stacks of bones. Supposedly, it&#8217;s the only place like it in the world. It was a little creepy.<br><br>I also decided to ride the funicular up to a viewpoint above town. This was a very ...

... in the same vein as the Twilight books). I actually had to transfer trains for the first time, and I was a little worried because there was only 12 minutes between connections. The train I took from Vienna went directly west towards Salzburg, but I had to get off in Attnang-Puchhein to catch a train south to Hallstatt.<br><br>When I got to Attnang-Puchhein it was a very small station. I went to check the departure board to see what track my connecting train ...

We arrived in Hallstatt in the Austrian Alps on Monday. Its so<br>beautiful! Reminded me a lot of NZ in one way but also very different<br>at the same time. Its one of the top UNESCO world sites. We got there<br>in time for a sunbake and swim but by god the water was FREEZING!!!!!<br>Took your breath away! You could tell we were in the ...

8/19 Austria, Salzburg. This morning we drove to town and parked in a parking lot next to a Chrysler minivan of all things, who was driven by a guy from Utah and his large family. He is civil service of some sort, and wanted to know all about our most excellent luge experience, as that is high on his family's list as well. We walked the old town, toured the Hohensalzburg Fortress, marveled at the primitive decadence those in medieval power seemed to enjoy ...

It didn't feel like it could come soon enough - we took our first ski weekend. Since we had attended the Florists' Ball the night before, we chose a resort that was fairly easy to drive to - Schladming. This village dates back to the 1300s and is ...

It's been a whirlwind tour of Austria; Vienna for two nights, Hallstatt for two, and one night in Salzburg. This is the land of music and mountains, where appreciation of life is in every stranger's face you see, and the smell of falafel wafts from every corner (oh wait, that's everywhere in Europe...) And to top it off, the sun hasn't stopped shining since I crossed the Czech border. Vienna was beautiful; the locals strewn on ...