Western Austria 2 - Part 2

Last night we stayed in Kaprun at this lovely chalet. The owner and his wife and family are from Northern Ireland and he was a policeman who owned a few grocery stores and decided to take a year off with his family in Austria. They bought this lovely old house and built a group of beautiful wooden chalets which are really little apartments and decided to stay. We loved the place...highly recommended if any of you go there.

Now those are Lederhoisen

Note the stairs in the background...that's where we were headed!

We left early this morning and went to the Kitzlochdamklamm. A klamm is a gorge and this was like no other gorge that we have ever seen. Every few stops presented you with new vistas of waterfalls cutting thru the narrow gorge. We hiked for two hours (hey, no gym for us this week!) from the bottom of the gorge to the very top (hundreds of meters up) and we were totally amazed how anyone could have built the walkways and bridges that took you for one side of the gorge to the other. The place has been functioning since the 1800s and is literally amazing.

We then drove to the Werfen Castle (called hohewerfen). It is about 1000 years old and sits high up on the hillside. The parking lot is way down on the bottom of the hill, so to get to the castle they have built an elevator that goes up the side of the hill on a slant. Pretty neat. We had an english tour of the castle via "audioguide" and then went outside on the grounds for the "birds of prey" demo which featured falcons and eagles upclose. 

Quite an amazing demo.

Guess this is the Men's Room!!! Sign in the castle.

Getting up close and personal

We made our way to Radstadt where we are staying for the night. We have an apartment in the home of a local family...lots of people here build apartments or hotel rooms in their homes; this one has three very modern apartments high on the hillside overlooking

the entire valley, which is where we are sitting (on the patio) typing out this update.

Dinner....mmmmm!!!

It is quiet, serene, with just the sound of crickets and birds and the occasional car passing by in the valley below. The town is a very old one with a wall around it and quaint narrow streets. We went tonight to the local sports centre and played a game of miniature golf, then had a quick walk around the town before coming back here for the night.

Tomorrow we are off to explore some more before reaching Salzburg where we will be for Shabbat. The weather thusfar bli ayin hora has been amazing...quite warm, sunny and beautiful clear blue skies. Even today which started out a bit cloudy turned totally sunny by the early afternoon.

Hope you are all well....

Best regards to all

Fran and David

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