Auhof Kaprun

... hand at an ariel assault course....he came back a shell of his former self after 3 hours in the trees hanging from bits of wire and trying to keep up with 9 year old girls who were more agile than him..for my penance I had to play pitch and putt with Lauren using carved putters and wooden balls..no danger i'll be joining a golf tour anytime soon. 

Definitely worth a visit in winter for you keen boarders out there.

... took us right up through the mountain to the top. An elevator in the middle of the mountain! It was made of such good brass and the engineering was so good, it has ever been serviced. But it also caused the deaths of 12 construction workers when it was made. Or thats what we were told. After the war, the UK and USA blew up most of his buildings in this area but Germany managed to save the Eagle's Nest because it was so amazing and ...

... ago. At that time we had entered the bunkers from that staircase and there was just our little tour and it was all very awesome and personal. In the new center, one enters from a well lit hallway (with aforementioned storyboards). And there were crowds of people coming and going everywhere. To me, it just didn’t have the same atmosphere.

We had to hop onto a second bus to head up the mountain to ...

... legs began to whimper and ask whether it wasn't time to gently ride back to base for a nice, cold beer. However, they quickly came to their senses and marshalled themselves for the coming onslaught: a long, hard fire road climb up 9 long switchbacks. Bigger than anything in South East England, for sure. The reward was worth it: a long singletrack descent with lots to offer in ...

Now for the heavy stuff! After our customary farm-fresh, home-made breakfast, a 45-minute drive took us to Leogang. €25 bought a day's lift pass and I donned my arm and leg pads.

The beginner-freeride level trail is called Hangman II and runs from the midway lift station. It's a fairly wide trail with fine-gravel surfaces and big corners, with berms that weren't as high as I was ...

... and a small Franziskaner Weissbier.

We descended to Westendorf on the other side of the range, then crossed to Brixen and took another lift up to the top. Plenty of technical riding and learning today.

Dinner was served up by Keith back at the apartment: home made vegetable soup, followed by ham and sauerkraut and banana cake for dessert. Keith taught us to play German Whist.

They even have a special word for the rain that falls in Salzburg - it's something like Schnurlregen - but I'd have to find my Austrian book to check the spelling. Well, that was my fear for my holiday! And here we were, landed in Salzburg, and guess what? rain!

Luckily by the time we'd waited for the passengers from Glasgow to arrive so that our coach could leave it'd stopped raining - so it couldn't have been that special Salzburg rain that ...

... we had to alter the brain again. Lorraine's basic German skills from high school tried to immerge but it was very limited 'molto limitato' (woops, Italian again!). After arriving in Kaprun finding our Villa was not so easy....we did get there eventually and were greeted by lovely Katerina and her little daughter. She showed us our apartment, then the office, the computer we could use, the laundry and then the saunas...one infra red the other hot rocks ...

August 26-Monday
We left Kitzbuhel at 8:30. There was a brief stop in Berchtesgarden, in Germany, at 10:00. Up on the side of the mountain, we could see Hitler's Eagle’s Nest. It was rather chilling to see that part of history. The bunker is now a restaurant. Our rest stop overlooked a valley filled with wonderful homes. What a view! Back on the bus and on to Salzburg. Time 10:35.

... a view it was! Kitzbuhel looked just as beautiful from there as it did while we were walking through it. We could see the way the narrow streets wound all through the town. When it was time for our ride to the top, off we went. The ride to the top of the mountain was slightly different than that to the middle station. This time, we stood in a box-type car, apparently used for skiers and their equipment in season. It was quite the ride up, looking down at ...