Hotel Tiefenbrunner Kitzbühel

Stayed at a beautiful spot in Austria (Saalbach) with Hilly, Stu's old friend and new Father..actually felt sorry for him, the poor sod was knee deep in relatives, in laws, newly purchased crib and nappies, etc.....we stayed for afew days and it was neatly timed with the arrival home of new born Frankie. Hilly's place is 3 feet from a field of horses so Lauren was easily kept busy with feeding duties.

Stu tried ...

... down by the ankles to two vertical poles, then sawn in half down the middle. Right down the cleft. Thinking of all the roadside shrines and crosses I had seen in the Tirol, my mind strayed to wonder how the religious imagery of Christian Europe might be rather different had the Romans favoured this method of execution instead of crucifixion!

Behind the tower is a ...

Overnight rain had made little impact on the trails. Out here, they don't degenerate rapidly into mush like back home. Keith and I rode up behind the farm and up into the hills. The climbs were long and hard but rewarded by sweet woodland singletrack descents of varying levels of difficulty, peppered with rooty and rocky sections, steep and technical. Really big roots! I couldn't ...

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 ...

Another lovely farm-fresh breakfast. We had bought 2-day lift passes for Skiwelt so spent a second consecutive day there. Katie used the lifts and went walking along the top from above Scheffau toward Ellmau then down the funicular railway there.

Keith and I took the lift up from Scheffau. A lovely, blue, sunny day. The nature of the riding took a significant step up today. We practiced ...

After breakfast, we took a short ride along the cycle route to Söll where we bought our Skiwelt lift passes and took the ski lifts up to the hilltop.

There had been some rain overnight but it doesn't degenerate the trails here to the same extent as those around London. We practised gravelly switchbacks: moderately challenging and reasonably steep, then took the lifts up again from Söll for another go. We lunched at a mountaintop restaurant with it's own open ...

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 ...

Hello All! Greetings this week from Salzburg, Austria. We have just returned from an amazingly wonderful weekend in the hills of Austria. The town is known as the birthplace of Mozart and, as some of you may know, the location where the Sound of Music was filmed! Minus our absurdly early morning flight on Friday morning, the trip was a nice break from the hustle-busstle of the city and one ...

... Julie kept w*nd**ing if that meant th**e might be a DQ nearby?!?! *** Our apartment was n* sm*king but f*r s*me reas*n, it came supplied with ash trays. Strange. ============================== Well, that's it fr*m h**e. See ya aft** Italy. H*pe all is g*ing well with y*u. -Stephen ============================== As always, feel free t* pass this *n t* any*ne y*u think might enj*y reading my ramblings. Als*, y*u can eith** subscribe *r unsubscribe at any time at the t*p *f the page.

... sort of garden. The beauty of this town is everywhere…the murals on the buildings, the home gardens…everything is so colorful. We walked into the old part of town, with its curved wall entranceway, cobblestone streets and little shops and it’s just as you would picture it. We went to the Church of Our Lady, built in 1373. From the outside, it looks like it’s every bit that old, but on the inside, it is exquisite. The statues ...