Ferienalm Aparthotel Schladming

... the women then the men to follow. Got to the bottom of the track just in time for the final few riders. Sam Hill won for Australia by 3 seconds with Fairclough of Great Britain in 5th. Great day. The riders partied through the night so we put our ear plugs in and got some sleep ready to move on to Salzburg the next day.<br><br>Here's some pics before the camera broke....<br><br>

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 ...

... was really cool, and I think a good change from all the castles, at least for my boyfriend. The tour takes you through various sections of a working salt mine and at the end we were given a small shaker of salt from Hallstatt. The funnest part was definitely the slides. They are quite long and we could go in groups of three so of course we did. On the last slide the tour group had a speed ...

... etc. First time ever someone has cleaned our room, besides being in a hotel. Actually, I don't think that's normal in a B&amp;B either.<br><br>That day we went to Hallstatt. A famously beautiful town on the water. We went to the Beinhaus - Bone House. It was a little building behind the main church. There is a small graveyard, and because of the size they have been digging up bodies since 1600. They let the body stay in the ground for about 20 years, then get the ...

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

... were all in the water in a matter of seconds, jumping off the stone wall&#8217;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.<br><br>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 ...

... a little all to our delight...very strange. The end of the night found Will kissing some Austrian girl who smelled like meat (called kebab over here) while whispering some of the cheesiest lines ever heard - strange thing being that they were totally working! Other highlights were Aussies dancing with bar stools, renditions of Sweet Home Alabama from some Irish pub crooner, and headbanging with the locals! Fun city, but too expensive.