Hotel Weererwirt

Again it was snowing when we woke up but again it wasn't sticking although it was still on the trees at the Alpine Zoo which we went to in the morning. This was Tara’s choice as usual. Greg's favourite was the brown bear which was lying with its head on its paws on a log, probably contemplating whether it was time to hibernate. My favourite was the lynx which was high up in a tree. By the ...

... amazing to see how close the Golden Roof came to being bombed during World War II by the Nazis. The Austrians had bricked it in to save it and some of these bricks were actually destroyed while the Roof and building were saved.

We then walked up the City Tower which was built in 1440 and had an incredible view over the city and the surrounding mountains. It had stopped snowing by this time and you could see a clear line above ...

Walked to the train station and did an expedition to the supermarket to spend our last Swiss Francs as we are back to Euros in Austria. Had a stopover in Zurich for a while and then caught the train to Innsbruck. Again this was a scenic trip over the mountains and it started snowing and was very deep as we got higher- just beautiful scenery. Innsbruck is surrounded by mountains, all of which had snow on them.

We checked into our hotel where we ...

... Maybe he was showing off - I was very impressed, especially with the head turn and keeping his balance!

I'm alone in my travels now... and have to admit that I would likely have been extremely lonely if I had spent the 2 months alone as I originally planned. It is nice to have some solitude, but I really do not think I opened my mouth yesterday more than to say "Danke."

... struggled to find us, it looked like we were doing circles, travelling in rivers and going 902km at our "highest" speed...funny, felt more like 50km/hr..anyways.our GPS caught up to us when we were out of the ravines and on the tops of the mountains was the best.
We headed back to Mittersill and did the Gerlos pass..and 8.50 Euro toll at some stage and $12.50 for the pass..the tolls were starting to ...

... what the catch was as we all agreed this would cost
at least $100 at home. Were they going to try and sell us a time share or
something or make us buy something at the end? Apparently not. I guess the Austrains love showing off their
land to foreigners and are more than glad to do it for free. AWESOME! The hike
ended up being around 10 miles and was stunning. It had everything one would
associate with the alp… ...

... been cleared and there was a wrapped set of cutlery that they left behind when clearing the table, and he got stuck with this one. The waitress refused to give him a new set. It was a bit strange as it would cost her nothing but 5 seconds to get him a new one and make him so much more comfortable eating his meal. He took the risk and hoped that the cutlery hadn't been played with by the previous occupants of our table.

It was time to move on so we piled into the car and ...

A museum mom and I had been anxious to visit while in Austria, Swarovski Crystal Worlds was our next stop on route. Visitors enter the "museum" under a curtain of water spewing forth from a giant's head. Once inside, there are a series of rooms with low lighting and unique displays, all involving crystals of course. The first room has a beautiful (fake) horse dressed in crystal studded tack ...

The tour headed back into Austria again this time on to Hofgarten. On the way to Hofgarten, we went to Tyrol for white water rafting. What great fun it was! The river we went down was grade 3 with the highest grade being 6. The rafting went for about an hour and all of us in our boat ended up in the water at some stage. It gets pretty hard trying to swim back against the current to the raft when you've got your paddle in ...

Sadly, I dont remember much about Austria. Too bad because I have read so much about it lately as the music and art centre of Europe in the 1700s, I'd love to check that out.
I asked my dad recently if we had been there before. He said, 'oh yes, many times, we loved it'. Hmm, what a pity. I suppose it still counts because the images of scenery must be in my mind somewhere... curse this short memory of mine!