Hotel Mitterhofer Schladming

After 2 days of biking mayhem, hiking down the Planai mountain watching practice and qualifying, it was finals day. Unfortunately we broke our camera trying to take a timed picture on top of the mountain. We rested it on a rail, i pressed the button and ran to where Clare was standing only to find when turning round the camera was not there anymore.... It had fell off and broke ...

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 ...

... a church and through some trails in the woods. We spent a lot of time along the river - beautiful, totally clear water coming straight from the mountains. We enjoyed a couple of beers in the park and tried to go see this afternoon concert that kept being advertising. It was supposed to be free but it was inside a really fancy restaurant and I'm sure you had to buy something - I mean 5 Euros for a bite of chocolate! So we passed on that and spent more time on our awesome balcony.

... at a place I had seen with a great lakeside view. I got a "grilled sausage", but it tasted like a hot dog to me. When I was finished I had just enough time to catch the boat across the lake to the train station. It was definitely the smallest train station I&#8217;ve seen. It was just one little building and one track going by.<br><br>On the train ride I just looked at the scenery again while we were still in the mountains. But after I ...

... The train to Vienna had just arrived and I didn&#8217;t think there was time for my train to arrive at the same platform. So I went back to check the departure board, and it did indeed show a track number change for my train. <br><br>I remember reading in Rick Steves guidebook about watching out for track number changes, and just watching if people all of a sudden ran to another platform. But I was pretty much able to figure it out on my own, so I was very ...

... 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.

... bmx & downhill, with 4 riders taking on a short (but tough) circuit at once, with only the first 2 places moving through to the next round. There's lots of jumps & a few spills along the way!) There were no aussies in 4 cross, so we just sort of cheered for everybody. Unfortunately it started to rain pretty heavily not long into the final rounds ... and a couple we spoke to said it was due to rain ALL weekend!! The next day it was up & out for the downhill - those guys ...

... the museum is full of dodgy wax figuerines that have nothing at all to do with Mozart. The museum was just using him as an excuse for curious (and stupid) tourists to go inside and to part with their money! Ken and I burst out laughing and thankfully the American couple did to! We also wanted to check out Werfen Ice Caves, which are apparently the largest accessible ice caves in the world but they wanted an outrageous amount of money for the experience, so we ...