Austria

Unfortunately my pictures of Austria from the first day were lost when my camera had problems, but these pictures are from the second time we entered Austria from Italy.  After leaving the dolomites behind we rode through some really beautiful scenery , past houses perched on the hills surrounded by green grass.  When we stopped to take pictures we all burst into a spontaneous rendition of "The hills are alive with the sound of music", it was a sight to behold.  The roads were nicely paved and the vistas wonderful.  There were little churches that looked like they could hold a maximum of 10 people.  After a great day of riding we rode in to Leinz past a river that was a turquoise green from the glacier melt and into the parking lot of our hotel.  That night we had a great dinner and then adjourned to the bar where we decided to get our guides drunk.  It worked, Axel was not looking in top condition the next morning.  We stayed here for two nights.  During the next day most of us rode back to Italy for a BBQ prepared by our guide Hans and then rode a big loop through the dolomites and then back into Austria.  We had a great dinner that night at the hotel followed by a little more drinking, but we kept it light as we had to get up and ride early the next morning.