Austria

Our journey continues and so after our days in the Lucerne area we caught a train in Zurich and headed toward Innsbruck, Austria. Switzerland was beautiful with tons of amazing outdoor adventure, but it is also super expensive and six days there was about all our pocketbooks could handle.

Austria has tons of outdoor adventures as well maybe not quite as amazing water colors and large lakes, but the prices are much easier on the wallet.

We arrived at our apartment in Pettnau in the afternoon. We had a wonderful garden area our first and only stay with barefoot grass available. C loved the farm below and spent lots of time talking with the alpacas. it was right next door to a tiny church which was of course amazing as all of them are here. Every little town has at least one of these small churches. They are literally everywhere here. Driving through the country give us the opportunity to see a bit more and explore not only the countryside but also the architecture of the little towns and the silly road signs.

Instead of calling them out we have begun a game of punch church. The first person to see a steeple can punch (gently) the person next to them. This has lead to loads of laughs and something for C to do as we drive.

We only spent one day exploring Austria but we had an Innsbruck City Pass which gave us free gondola rides along with other things. We took advantage of this a made our way to two different mountains.

On Axamer Lizum we rode up, enjoyed the views, played with the marble run, and had lunch. It was cold so hot chocolate was a must as well.

On the second mountain Rangger Köpfl. We took two gondolas up to the top. Then we hiked down to the first one. During our hike it started pouring but the trees were good cover. When the rain let up we continued on our journey. along the path were little ponds, swings, a ropes course, and other play areas. It made the hikes much more interesting. Our local ski areas need to take on this idea of making the mountains a year around activity area. Who knew there was so much to do during the summer on a ski slope.