Letizia Cesena

I have a new favorite question. Where should we go this weekend? The only limits, how far are you willing to drive or where is the USO going? Since the autobahn still intimidates us a bit, we looked into the USO tour. Herrenchiemsee, one of crazy King Ludwig's castles, is on an island in Southern Bavaria. Turns out he idolized King Louis XIV and wanted a Versailles of his own, so he built one, sort of.

We learned a ...

Caught the train to Rosenheim which is about 50 minutes south of Munich and then another train to Schechen which is 1 stop back north of Rosenheim. Schechen is so tiny, sparse and quiet - there is 1 train track that is used by trains going both north and south!! ... when you only get 1 train every 1 or 2 hours that isn't a problem I guess :)
Rosenheim is a lot bigger and busier. No high rise, but a large shopping area and quite ...

... 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.

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 ...

En route to the airport, Keith needed to do a bit of shopping for next week's guests so we paid a visit to Kufstein while he shopped there. Kufstein is a town with big history, owned by Bavaria in the middle ages but long one of Tirol's most northerly towns. The historical centre is hard to miss: an ancient castle perched atop a hill.

The lower Altstadt is cute but consists ...

... all of it but enjoyed what I could.

We lunched on snack bars and fruit after another big climb then did more challenging singletrack descents. I get a bit of vertigo on some of the trails where there's a steep drop to the side.

I was now on my 6th day of riding and when Keith asked whether I was up to another big climb to sample yet more singletrack descending ...

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 ...

... and a half tour. We were in a group with about 40 Americans on a tour. The guide was very good, and the castle was magnificent. Much nicer and more opulent than Versailles. Never finished and hardly lived in, but just amazingly over the top. Grabbed a lovely sache torte from the cafe. Ignored the horse and carriages, and walked back down the mountain, and caught the bus back to Fussen.

Back to our hostel to pick up the gear, then lunch at Nordsee say before catching the ...

... road... quite a good idea since it was only 25euros and the motorways were quite good.... But it was tunnel after tunnel.... Better then hill after hill though!!! What we saw of Switzerland was beautiful... can't wait to go back! Just to get another country on the list we stopped and had lunch in Liechtenstein! A little country which is just 27km by 6km. Nice scenery but we were on the road again! Austria also is a beautiful country, full ...

... KitzbuhelWe woke up at 7:00 am, feeling refreshed and ready to go. There was a buffet breakfast consisting of cold meats, cheeses, fruit, fresh yogurt, bread, cereal, jams and sweet bread… a very filling meal for our first full day in Kitzbuhel. Off we went, browsing our way along through town. All the buildings and homes were beautifully decorated and neat. Flower boxes hung everywhere…from every house. Every yard, no matter how small, had ...