A Quick Walk

Way back when I was telling you about Vienna there were some go pro videos I wasn't able to get up on YouTube.

Well, last night I figured it all out and for 2 and 3/4 minutes we are going to take a 30 minute walk through downtown Vienna.

Have fun.

Don't get dizzy.

Laugh, if you can.

If you're not too dizzy.

OK.

The Café at the Top and the Goodbye and the Bottom

 We got to the top of the trail and took a cool elevator to the bridge that led to the café. Before walking to the café I had to sneak this shot.

Achim took the camera over for a bit and got some great shots. I just can't get over the fact that this is a photo of Marc and me in the mountains of Austria! What? Look at that!

 And the hills are alive with music there if you listen closely...

I love this shot Achim took. These mirrors were so cool.

Achim took this picture of me while I was taking the picture just below it. It makes me laugh a bit because the shot on my iPhone matches, almost exactly, the one Achim took that is at the top of this post.

In this shot Achim took, if you look closely on the bridge you will see me on the bridge, 

leaning over to take the shot shown underneath this one.

 This was one of the first pictures I posted to Instagram trying to be vague about where we were, I think it worked...


Of course, Thomas was way ahead of us and waiting for us to join him at the look out pier.

They had this awesome pier that hung out over the side of the mountain. It was a tad scary and a lot beautiful!

I took the camera over for a second...

The village below and the reflection of the sky in the lake

 Then I relinquished it to another tourist to take a picture of the 4 of us.

Dude with the black spy jacket... could you move to your left just a tad?

Nope, OK, I will just try to take a different shot... but you're still there...

I then wanted to get some good shots of our friends

 No shades or shades?

iPhone

iPhone

iPhone

 I love getting shots of just shapes and things that you don't always see in the way I see them through my camera. This is one of those shots. I'm just glad they had a railing to keep my fear of heights at bay.

This picture... this is the picture I told you about in the previous post. Not only did we have a tour guide at almost every corner, but they even had one that you could put your face in so that you could remember his duties with even more laughter

After enjoying the pier we decided to get something to eat at the café.

It was so quaint... I mean the place was large, but the people were quaint... not little or dainty, just quaint. I mean that in the sense that it came across as a family run and owned place. It was all just part of the Austrian experience. I am kicking myself for not getting a picture of our waitress. She was dressed in traditional Austrian attire and she was so sweet and soft-spoken.

Hey, Thomas, act natural... I think Achim snapped before he was ready...

I know he definitely snapped before ready this time... uh, your finger's in the way dude...

We got our menus and we all ordered our lunch. Achim and I ordered the würst and fries and Marc and Thomas ordered the Bratwurst and Sauerkraut. Thomas and Marc definitely won the best choice contest that day. Mine and Achims were, basically wieners and fries... meh.

I made up for it though when I ordered the Apfel Küchen!

Since I was little my dad has talked about his grandma's apple küchen and how great it was. He would try to explain it to my mom but she didn't quite get it just right. Well, I guess because of my admiration of my dad whenever I would go to a restaurant that offered Apple Cake here in the US, I would give it a try... it always tasted, pretty much like a dry apple pie and sometimes it tasted like apple crisp. I wasn't that impressed since my mom made the world's best apple pie. I didn't think I was missing out on anything, but, hey! I was in Austria, in a region my great grandma came from. So when I saw something delicious in the pastry display labeled "Apfel Küchen," I just had to give it another try.

When they brought it out to me, it looked nothing like apple cake I'd been served in the US before. In fact, it actually looked like a (drum roll please) cake! Not a pie or a crisp, but a cake. My heart fluttered with excitement to try something that my dad remembered so well and had such a memory of his grandma for.

I took one bite.

Mmmmmm.

I took another.

Ooohhh mmmm.

Marc was looking at me by now wondering if I would share. Thomas and Achim were surprised at my excitement and joy in such a thing as Apfel Küchen.

I let everyone who wanted to, take a bite... which was only Marc, since Thomas and Achim don't seem to be fans Apfel Küchen.

Then I remembered, "Oh, I need to take a picture of this so that I can show my dad that I tried real Apfel Küchen.

It was as big as the plate... I was enjoying it too much to remember the picture before it didn't look as pretty. I did enjoy it though, and was actually one of the highlights of my vacation. It made me that happy.

We love Snapseed for editing our iPhone pics... just more fun 

Marc took a few snaps on his phone before we headed back down. On the way down Thomas and I were cursing ahead and Marc and Achim walked slower behind. To be honest, I hate hiking down hill because it hurts my knees but I didn't even notice this time because Thomas and I were talking the whole way down, and frankly, I didn't want Thomas to win... I'm kind of competitive that way...

Once we were altogether again we teased each other about who was fast, who was slow, who was old, who was young... I like the older and younger argument because I'm the youngest... 

Anyway, on our way to the parking lot, we heard a lawn mower. Now, remember this is a cute little village with cute little people and cute little yards and cute little houses. So when I saw this cute little lady mowing her cute little lawn I just had to sneak a shot from the hip and it turned out pretty good.

 Isn't that just cute?

Gives you an idea too just how beautiful it is there.

We talked a little on the way home in the car but it was a bit of a somber mood knowing that we were just saying "goodbye" to Achim when we got back down in Fushl.

photos Marc took from the car on the drive back to Fushl

It was a sad goodbye and Achim asked us not to walk him to the car so the goodbyes didn't have to drag on any longer.

I know that it took weeks for me to put it all down here in the blog, but our time with Achim was too short. We were sad to know we didn't have more time together as the 4 musketeers and he would have to get back to real life while we continued to have fun touring a country he lives in. It's pretty crazy to be continents away and then be right in the same country and not be able to see each other.

It was tough to watch Marc and Achim tear up while saying goodbye and not knowing how long that goodbye would be. I'm not sure if I teared up only because I knew I'd miss Achim or if it was hard watching Marc say goodbye to a dear and treasured friend.

We decided to drown our sorrows in ice cream so we walked to the market down the street from our hotel and picked up a few things. Marc got a photo of us on the way back to sit on the benches behind our hotel, near the church.

Marc got some great shots of this church with his phone and the clouds just add to the beauty.

After sitting around and chatting for a bit we went went to dinner at the hotel restaurant. I got the local FushlSee Trout, Thomas got the wienersnitzel and Marc got the meat and sp atzel (pasta) that was called Morhenpfandel (or something to that effect, you say it MORE-EN-FENDLE, sort of... you need to add the little german dialects in there... anyway). Remember the word "Morhenpfandel" because it holds some significance for later posts...

We all enjoyed our dinner, but Marc was especially thrilled with his Morhenpfandel. My trout was good as long as I didn't look into its eyes.

After dinner we had dessert... and I can't even remember what it was called. Dang it! I'll ask Thomas later, anyway, it was really good and we all shared one.

After eating all that food we decided it would be a good idea to go for a little walk before hitting the pillows.

Thomas led us to the dock on the Fushl See and we snapped phone pictures of the late sunset and other points of interest.

Thomas liked this scene so much that he requested I take a professional picture the
next night so he could hang it on his wall at home. You'll see that in a later post too.

just the lamp posts lighting our way

It was a restful end to a fun-filled day.

When we got back to our hotel room I got this picture from home:

It was Spring picture day and Lindsey and her sister got Baby all dolled up for the day. This made me smile really big and I tried to reach through the screen and squish her... Adorbs!

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.