Aussies in Austria

We're now in Venice, and have an internet connection (albiet a dodgy one in our apartment, or more precisely sitting on the steps downstairs) so here's a recap of our past few days in Austria ...

Back on Friday 18 June we took to the ski lifts which were operating in the mountainous area we stayed at despite it being summer. That said, the locals told us it was an unusually cold period and the temperature was consistently around 5 degrees at the top of the mountains and around 10 degrees at the base. We stayed at a beautiful three-storey house in the tiny town of Hopfgarten which is about 100kms from Innsbruck in Austria (see the pics of our house in the blog entry below which I've just added). Our Dutch friends took to the bottom level and we had the first floor which was great to spread out after the cramped conditions of the campervan back in France. 'Our' house was about three-quarters of the way up a mountain called Hohe Salve, with lifts going down to the town below as well as the summit. After purchasing a four day pass for the price of one winter day we went up to the summit for lunch, with some of the most impressive mountain views you could imagine. However, it was incredible how the view disappeared in an instant when the fog rolled in (see pics), then cleared a few minutes later as a reminder that we indeed had our heads in the clouds.

The restaurant at the top of Hohe Salve was great and it was fantastic to start spending some time with our friends Sofie and Daan and their adorable (almost) two-year-old Paul. They're great friends and one of the very cool things about this trip so far is that we've not only caught up with them, but Sandra's brother Darrin in Paris and our long-time friend from our Ballarat days Janelle while in Dubai.

Later in the day while the others settled in to make dinner (Sandra cooks / I drive ... that's the deal!), I caught the ski lift back down to the base with the aim of running back up the mountain to home which was just over 5kms (see video post above).