ACROSS AUSTRIA

Fruhstuck today (we were told by the old lady) was at 8:00. Unlike all other places that will say 8-10 or 7-9 or whatever...this place was at 8:00. So we were there exactly at 8:00. It was a small fruhstuck...nicely laid out, of course, as they all are. The old lady entertained the troops during breakfast...there were 2 other couples. She talked and talked...and the German spoken here is not high German...it's low German and then some! I can hardly understand anything!...even numbers! Anyway, the breakfast was mostly a blur except for one single item. The little bowl with the most amazing apricot marmalade I have ever had. The apricots here are called Marillen....they are a certain variety of apricots grown here in Austria in this region...and they are very tasty and very colorful. Well I asked the lady about the jam on the table and she proudly put her open palm over her heart, expanded her chest, and said in German, "I made it"! It was so cute. But that jam was the best I have ever tasted. I noticed that there were some jars on a shelf in the breakfast area. I asked her if that was some of her apricot jam and she said yes...would you like to buy one. Of course I HAD to say yes! So we paid and left with our pint sized jar of amazing apricot jam. I don't know how we are going to get it home (it's over 3 oz) or if we will get it home. I just may take a straw to it one of these days. Here's what it looks like. This is taken on the railing outside the door to our room:




another view from the railing


and this is the view off of our back porch. And all the grape vines are LOADED with white grapes!


So off we went down the road. We very quickly hooked up to the autobahn and we made good time. It was fairly uneventful since we just headed in the direction of Salzburg.

Well, kids, Dad found his life time dream come true photo. I mean, he was more excited about this than last night's schnitzel. I took the magic photo as we were going down the autobahn. This will be no surprise to any of you:



No further words are needed here.


Well we pulled into Lofer, Austria around 2:00. We have been to Lofer before and so we went back to the same hotel...the Hotel Dax. We were hoping to see the same lady as last time...she was quite a character, but she wasn't here. We got a room and went upstairs to check in and it was a room to one side of the hotel...and you could hear cars going by. We knew on the back side was a nice river so I went back downstairs and asked if we could have a room on the fluss (river). The man checked and said there was one. So he took us upstairs and opened the door to the room...and the view out the back was amazing. Then he opened the door to the deck outside and the roar of the river was amazing! Dad and I looked at each other and at the exact same time and the exact words, we said "Now we're talkin'" !! Oh, yes, sleeping will be good tonight with the door open and the sound of the river heading down the mountain, filling the room! I'll show you the photos off the balcony...but I wish you could HEAR the sound, too.




The river is down below with the alps in the background.


After a bit we went into the center of the town and walked around a bit. Here are some sights:














I thought this was interesting....stacked kindling wood...every inch of this area was utilized!


And this is also in the town. It is a house that Mozart and his father slept in for one night in 1769. Pretty amazing...because we could have just walked by this and not read the little sign telling the story.


Another sight in the town:


Came back and relaxed for awhile. I did some posting on the blog. This is looking into the mirror across from me....called "me and my iPad".



We went downstairs and had dinner there. Of course we started dinner off with some local beer. It was delicious as every beer is. The dinner wasn't great but it was dinner.


Here's the view from our dinner table of the alps on the other side of the valley we are in...we are surrounded by mountains!


We came back to our room and brought 2 more beers with us. We sat out on the deck drinking our beers, being very thankful for this opportunity,


and watching the sun go down on the alps.





The sun is almost down and the beer is gone.

Location:Lofer, Austria