In the Car or On the Hike?

It had been sprinkling most of the time we were in Hallstatt walking around, but it was certainly not dreary.

We had walked through the town and were debating on taking the cable car up to the Salt Mines.



Achim said if we were going to do that he would hang out and wait for us in the car...

Really Achim?

...

Let's at least take a hike up this trail that's next to it. I mean, come on! It was our last day with Achim, we were gonna milk it as much as possible.

So after a little stop at the market for chocolate and drinks (yes, chocolate... did you forget we are in Austria?) we headed on up the trail not knowing exactly what we were going to see.

At the beginning of the trail we were able to get in some good laughs... who knew we would have a trail guide?

This "guy" was everywhere along the trail. It became quite comical so I am glad we got some comical pictures to go along with it. Thomas got in trouble, by the way, for leading the wrong direction in the second shot... Thomas, you're such a rebel, good thing we have Achim to keep us on the straight and narrow (wink).

I had to get in on the action and give the "sign."

Just to give you an idea of what a great hike we ended up going on, thanks to our "poster boy" guidance... I will show you the photo of the very beginning.

Around the first clearing of trees was this beautiful view:

Then we got up to another bend and I took this shot of the castle across the lake.

I had decided that I wanted to be in a photo so I asked Marc to take a picture of me in the gazebo to show how cool the gazebo looked there on the trail with the scenery in the background...

He did get me...

 Do you see the gazebo?

No?

Oh, that board behind my head... that's the gazebo...

So I figured out what he was doing and tried to specify again what I wanted.

He got it.

Just after this gazebo there was a switchback that led out to a bridge and a waterfall. It looked a bit rickety and a tad dangerous so Thomas offered to go first.

Wew! Let's just say, I'm glad it was him and not me...

No one was hurt in the set-up of this shot. It was all done in fun. 

We are just thankful that Thomas is a professional actor.

I guess Thomas made it look pretty scary because Marc and Achim refused to join us for a "selfie" shot. I reminded Marc that I am his wife and he has to do what I say... that usually doesn't work... but, it did this time.

I can't tell if Marc is upset about having to do what I said to do, or if that's just how cool he is all the time...
Thomas looks a bit worried about Marc possibly being mad... ME? I'm just happy to be alive!
Oh, and this shot is on the bridge facing the waterfall.

In this one, Marc looks a little scared... hee hee! This is on the bridge facing the lake that the falls feed into.

I took a few last shots with my phone from the bridge then, finally, heeded Marc and Achim's warnings to get off the rickety thing.

Then we took the official "4 of us selfie."

I know, Achim is looking somewhere else... but there was an awesome reason for that. He was taking our first ever "selfie of a 'selfie'"

Thanks, Achim for the pic! By the way, that is my hand coming out from his shoulder. Tricky!

 As you had seen, from my rosy complexion at the gazebo, I was a bit tired of hiking with the camera so I let Marc take over. He was having all kinds of fun.

Ya, Thomas sometimes has to mix work and play

Achim and I being studious hikers as we stop to read one of the informative boards about Hallstatt and the royalty who where there at one point in time and the significance of the salt mines...
but, I guess I'm not that studious because I don't remember, at all, what I read.

 I tried to capture a few scenes with my iPhone:

Marc continued to capture the beauty from the trail on the steep and dusty switchback.

He took this picture for Brother. He loves trains. You'll see more shots of trains when we get to Berlin too.

Marc seemed to be pretty sad that I took my camera back...

Probably because he knows I can't shoot in "auto" mode... 

I kept forgetting to switch back to manual after he or anyone else was done using it. 

For the most part, I got rid of those pictures I made boo-boos on, but, blurry or not, 

these pictures just show our brothers' personalities, so I'm showing them anyway.

We came to a house on the trail (the one you see behind Thomas and Achim above) and across from that there was a crypt, I think. That's all I could figure. It was a large stone building with an iron gate in the front.

I just had to take a picture of it, but wanted my hottie hubby to be there to add to the scene... mm hm.

Achim wanted me to take a picture of the tunnel 

behind the closed gate so he could see what was down there.

Achim, there was a door.

Now you know.

This was actually a tough picture to capture between the bars of the gate without bouncing light and shadows in the wrong spot. So that's why I kept it, too, it was a tough shot, that actually turned out pretty cool. There's a lot of color.

These stone columns that must have held chains at one point, were intriguing to me, not to mention the funky cloud wiggling across the mountain.

It was the middle of the day and there were still rain/dew drops on the leaves of the plants along the trail.

Did I mention that this was a steep trail?

 Ya, made me wish I had my better shoes for this hike. What? You don't remember why I am wearing different shoes? Remember Red Bull? The marble floor? The water?

Yep, still funny.

I'll take you further up the mountain and to our final hilltop destination and our other encounter with our "tour guide" in the next post!

Here at home? Marc planted a red Japanese Maple and a Burning Bush in our yard this weekend, along with some dogwood bushes. He really likes to make me happy and is starting to add my favorite color, red, to our yard. It makes me so happy to look out my window and see red maple leaves.

Joy.

Sometimes it's just that simple.