Pension Kampenwand Frasdorf

... festival was taking place. They had far crazier uniforms than the gauntlets and plumes we endured. The bands were great though, even the younger kids sounded professional.

We ended up being "done" way earlier than the meet up time. Jon found us Kaktus popsicles, covered in pop rocks, not bad. Good day for exploring. We're probably ready to brave the autobahn and drive next time, for the few hours range that is.

... out. Main train hub to connect to other regional trains.

Met up with Stef and we drove to Kufstein in Austria. First time on an autobahn!!! Woohoo!!!
Checked out the Kufstein Festung (fortress) which was completed in 1522 with some parts dating back to the 1100's.
Overlooks the Inn river and nice views of Kufstein and the the surrounding area.

Ate Kaiserschmarrn and spatzle for the first time which are both ...

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 ...

... legs began to whimper and ask whether it wasn't time to gently ride back to base for a nice, cold beer. However, they quickly came to their senses and marshalled themselves for the coming onslaught: a long, hard fire road climb up 9 long switchbacks. Bigger than anything in South East England, for sure. The reward was worth it: a long singletrack descent with lots to offer in ...

... a little drop into a berm and I managed to confuse myself into doing something stupid and taking a brief trailside lie down. This is a trail with big, steep, fast, bermed sections and is fun to ride in sections and a bit scary in others, particularly on a 4" lightweight XC racing bike. Down at the bottom it goes a bit 4x and you can walk back up and practice this section, which is good, fast ...

... technical singletrack which was much more of a challenge for me and I had to work on shifting my balance on the bike, keeping the weight much further back, and trying to take a more balanced approach to braking, as I was heavily favouring the back brake (to such an extent that the rear tyre showed significantly more wear at the end of the week). Mountaintop lunch was a "Strammel Max" (ham, eggs ...

... for days after all! Our tour guide freaked us out slightly by telling us he had something special to tell us, then not telling us what it was. Had we won a prize? Had our holiday been cancelled? Would we have no accommodation? We had to wait till halfway to Kitzbuehel to find out. It was that there was a triathlon going on right around our hotel so we might not be able to get to the Welcome meeting the next morning as the road was going to be closed ...

... back to our lodgings across the road from George and Anna's farm, dropped our stuff, and walked across the road to tea. A look at the cows which are actually housed inside for five months of the year. The cow barn is actually the ground floor of the family house. The first floor is occupied by George and Anna, and the top floor which used to be the guest quarters are now lived in by George junior and Anna Lisa. Had a nice meal, made decent conversation thanks to Andrea ...

... our passport stamped. He rolled his eyes and directed us to the office. In the office a bored border guard looked at us questioningly when we presented our passports. He didn't seem to mind that Kim was an American in Switzerland with no stamps in her new passport. We got our stamps and walked back to Switzerland. The Swiss guards gave us a funny look as if wondering if we were denied entry into Austria. In any case we got our stamps so we now have three more months to ...

... saw the most delightful parade! All the vehicles were decorated with flowers, from horse drawn wagons to cars, trucks, even the fire engines. The parade stepped off with the town band, playing that wonderful Bavarian music. We just stood on the side of the street with the rest of the people to watch the parade. It was a great experience, and one that we just happened upon! The festival with music, food…the works…was going on in town afterward ...