Friday, August 04, 2006
JULY 29th THROUGH AUGUST 5th FRANCE
Bonjour!!
We arrived in Salzburg about 4:30 pm in a rainstorm. We had to return our rental car by that time. Our train did not leave until 12:45 AM., so we had several hours to pass waiting for the train. We had luggage so we couldn’t go out and wander around in the city. We checked with the information people for the station and they told us about a first-class passengers lounge. It was open until 10:00 o’clock so we were able to stay there for about five hours. Those lounges are a big perk for first-class. They have free soft drinks, coffee, tea and even beer. They have free snacks, newspapers and electrical outlets where you can plug in your computer. There was wireless internet access for a fee. We passed on the wireless at this station because it was too much fee. I seem to recall that they wanted 12 Euros for an hour. At supper time we were able to go out and get food and bring it inside to eat. The lounge was not crowded, it was quite and it was a lot more comfortable sitting on couches and easy chairs than on hard benches which were in the other waiting rooms. We kinda splurged when we bought the first-class passes, but there are some real benefits to them. Mary said that she thought that she was a first class girl.
We met some interesting people during the time we were waiting. There was a young Japanese girl sitting at a table next to us. She spoke very little English and it was hard to understand her... She really took a liking to Mary and talked to her quite a lot. Mary got a little irritated with the communication problems and tried to keep the conversation short. I don’t believe that the girl realized this. Mary felt really bad later when the girl was leaving to catch her train. She gave Mary two little Origami Birds, made from pretty colorful paper. She told Mary that she made those and she wanted to give each of one for good luck on the rest of our journey. Mary packs them very carefully so they do not get destroyed.
We also met a couple from British Columbia, Canada, who were doing much the same thing we were doing, but for just half as long. They were having as much fun as we are. They said that they envied us because they had to go home and go back to work. They were on the same train that we were going to Zurich, Switzerland. Mary and I thought that we were traveling light. I think that those folks had everything packed in one back pack. We never saw them with any other luggage.
We had a sleeper on the train from Salzburg to Zurich. It was so small that we had to go out in the hall to turn around, but it had comfortable beds and we did alright after we got laid down. They gave us breakfast on Saturday morning. We had to eat fast before we got to Zurich. If our connection time had not been so short we could have gotten a voucher and eaten after we were in the station restaurant. From Zurich we went to Geneva. I would have liked to spend a few hours in Geneva, but we did not have the time in our schedule. From Geneva we went to Chambrey, France. On this leg of the journey we traveled through a lot of grape vineyards and wineries. We also rode along side Lake Geneva for a long way. It is a massage lake. The last forty five minutes of our trip to Chambrey was on a bus. We had to change lines to get access to our rail destination which Bourg St. Maurice, France. At Bourg St. Maurice we rented a car and drove to Tignes where our hotel is located.
I knew that our hotel was at a ski resort in the mountains. What I didn’t know was how tough a drive it was to get to the resort. BIG MOUNTAINS!!! We never got above third gear on the five speed transmission because of the hills and curves. I’m not real sure how long the trip should have taken us because we took a wrong road and had to backtrack to get back on the right road.
I must say that the mountains, valleys and waterfalls are beautiful, but we decided that we were going to entertain ourselves on site and not drive over those roads every day to get to the train for site seeing. We did, however, make it to our hotel at our reserved time to check in.
Tignes is a huge development. It is on three levels going up the mountain. Each level has a village with shops and restaurants and ski lifts. Our hotel was above the village at the top level. They have huge elevators just to take you from our level down to where the shops are.
The river has been dammed and there is a sizeable lake at the middle level. This a great family vacationing place. They have organized activities for all age groups.
I have seen groups getting instruction in horse back riding, archery, golf, canoeing, kayaking and maybe evening hang gliding. There are hang gliders in the sky most of the time.
They do things to entertain you even if you don’t join a group activity. Yesterday we went to a craft fair and all the business places had side walk sales. There were clowns, artists, woodcarvers
(one guy even was carving with a chain saw). They had the RUNNING OF THE MILK COWS like the running of the bulls in Spain. Mary and I were shopping so we missed most of that. We did see what they left on the street, and Mary got a picture of the cows after they were out at the edge of the village.
I tried to get her to take a picture of what they left on the street, but she would not. There were several musical groups playing. The best was a group with the long wooden horns that sit on the ground about fifteen feet out in front of the player.
We talked to them after they finished playing and they told me it was called “Cor des Alpes”. The lady who talked to us said it took her three years to learn to play it. She had played trumpet for 20 years before that.
There is a centrally located tourist center with information, bathrooms with showers for campers I guess, and a computer center where they had wireless internet and also for a little more money they had cables where you could connect to their high-speed broad band network. Across the lawn from that they had a big pool and a sports fitness center. We joined the fitness center for a week so we could keep up our weightlifting and cardio work. On Mary’s first visit she was sent out for not having the right kind of shoes so we just got our money back and got our exercise by walking in the beautiful outdoors.
There are a bunch of hiking trails around the valley which go up and down the mountain. They range from about an hour and a half to four hours of walking. There is also a nice path around the lake which takes about two and a half hours.
On top of the mountains there are some sizeable glaciers. Some of them are large enough that they ski on them all summer. We have pictures of some pretty large waterfalls that must come from the glacier melt. You can tell by the color of the water in the streams and the lake that it is glacier fed.
Today is Friday. All day yesterday and today it has been cloudy and rainy. Yesterday in the late afternoon we had some snow flurries.
Today the clouds are not as low on the mountains as yesterday and you can see a good dusting of fresh snow the fell yesterday and last night. We have been inside most of the last two days. We have an indoor pool and a sauna which I have used. We did our laundry today and we will pack tonight and get ready to leave.
We changed our plan for next week. We are going to spend two days in Berlin, one day in Amsterdam, one day in Brussels, and two days in Paris. We have passed through Berlin and Paris, but we want to spend some sightseeing time. That will be a busy week. I am going to try to write in my journal every night so I don’t get behind. We will spend two nights on sleeper trains and five nights in hostels.
Bonjour!!
We arrived in Salzburg about 4:30 pm in a rainstorm. We had to return our rental car by that time. Our train did not leave until 12:45 AM., so we had several hours to pass waiting for the train. We had luggage so we couldn’t go out and wander around in the city. We checked with the information people for the station and they told us about a first-class passengers lounge. It was open until 10:00 o’clock so we were able to stay there for about five hours. Those lounges are a big perk for first-class. They have free soft drinks, coffee, tea and even beer. They have free snacks, newspapers and electrical outlets where you can plug in your computer. There was wireless internet access for a fee. We passed on the wireless at this station because it was too much fee. I seem to recall that they wanted 12 Euros for an hour. At supper time we were able to go out and get food and bring it inside to eat. The lounge was not crowded, it was quite and it was a lot more comfortable sitting on couches and easy chairs than on hard benches which were in the other waiting rooms. We kinda splurged when we bought the first-class passes, but there are some real benefits to them. Mary said that she thought that she was a first class girl.
We met some interesting people during the time we were waiting. There was a young Japanese girl sitting at a table next to us. She spoke very little English and it was hard to understand her... She really took a liking to Mary and talked to her quite a lot. Mary got a little irritated with the communication problems and tried to keep the conversation short. I don’t believe that the girl realized this. Mary felt really bad later when the girl was leaving to catch her train. She gave Mary two little Origami Birds, made from pretty colorful paper. She told Mary that she made those and she wanted to give each of one for good luck on the rest of our journey. Mary packs them very carefully so they do not get destroyed.
We also met a couple from British Columbia, Canada, who were doing much the same thing we were doing, but for just half as long. They were having as much fun as we are. They said that they envied us because they had to go home and go back to work. They were on the same train that we were going to Zurich, Switzerland. Mary and I thought that we were traveling light. I think that those folks had everything packed in one back pack. We never saw them with any other luggage.
We had a sleeper on the train from Salzburg to Zurich. It was so small that we had to go out in the hall to turn around, but it had comfortable beds and we did alright after we got laid down. They gave us breakfast on Saturday morning. We had to eat fast before we got to Zurich. If our connection time had not been so short we could have gotten a voucher and eaten after we were in the station restaurant. From Zurich we went to Geneva. I would have liked to spend a few hours in Geneva, but we did not have the time in our schedule. From Geneva we went to Chambrey, France. On this leg of the journey we traveled through a lot of grape vineyards and wineries. We also rode along side Lake Geneva for a long way. It is a massage lake. The last forty five minutes of our trip to Chambrey was on a bus. We had to change lines to get access to our rail destination which Bourg St. Maurice, France. At Bourg St. Maurice we rented a car and drove to Tignes where our hotel is located.
I knew that our hotel was at a ski resort in the mountains. What I didn’t know was how tough a drive it was to get to the resort. BIG MOUNTAINS!!! We never got above third gear on the five speed transmission because of the hills and curves. I’m not real sure how long the trip should have taken us because we took a wrong road and had to backtrack to get back on the right road.
I must say that the mountains, valleys and waterfalls are beautiful, but we decided that we were going to entertain ourselves on site and not drive over those roads every day to get to the train for site seeing. We did, however, make it to our hotel at our reserved time to check in.
Tignes is a huge development. It is on three levels going up the mountain. Each level has a village with shops and restaurants and ski lifts. Our hotel was above the village at the top level. They have huge elevators just to take you from our level down to where the shops are.
The river has been dammed and there is a sizeable lake at the middle level. This a great family vacationing place. They have organized activities for all age groups.
I have seen groups getting instruction in horse back riding, archery, golf, canoeing, kayaking and maybe evening hang gliding. There are hang gliders in the sky most of the time.
They do things to entertain you even if you don’t join a group activity. Yesterday we went to a craft fair and all the business places had side walk sales. There were clowns, artists, woodcarvers
(one guy even was carving with a chain saw). They had the RUNNING OF THE MILK COWS like the running of the bulls in Spain. Mary and I were shopping so we missed most of that. We did see what they left on the street, and Mary got a picture of the cows after they were out at the edge of the village.
I tried to get her to take a picture of what they left on the street, but she would not. There were several musical groups playing. The best was a group with the long wooden horns that sit on the ground about fifteen feet out in front of the player.
We talked to them after they finished playing and they told me it was called “Cor des Alpes”. The lady who talked to us said it took her three years to learn to play it. She had played trumpet for 20 years before that.
There is a centrally located tourist center with information, bathrooms with showers for campers I guess, and a computer center where they had wireless internet and also for a little more money they had cables where you could connect to their high-speed broad band network. Across the lawn from that they had a big pool and a sports fitness center. We joined the fitness center for a week so we could keep up our weightlifting and cardio work. On Mary’s first visit she was sent out for not having the right kind of shoes so we just got our money back and got our exercise by walking in the beautiful outdoors.
There are a bunch of hiking trails around the valley which go up and down the mountain. They range from about an hour and a half to four hours of walking. There is also a nice path around the lake which takes about two and a half hours.
On top of the mountains there are some sizeable glaciers. Some of them are large enough that they ski on them all summer. We have pictures of some pretty large waterfalls that must come from the glacier melt. You can tell by the color of the water in the streams and the lake that it is glacier fed.
Today is Friday. All day yesterday and today it has been cloudy and rainy. Yesterday in the late afternoon we had some snow flurries.
Today the clouds are not as low on the mountains as yesterday and you can see a good dusting of fresh snow the fell yesterday and last night. We have been inside most of the last two days. We have an indoor pool and a sauna which I have used. We did our laundry today and we will pack tonight and get ready to leave.
We changed our plan for next week. We are going to spend two days in Berlin, one day in Amsterdam, one day in Brussels, and two days in Paris. We have passed through Berlin and Paris, but we want to spend some sightseeing time. That will be a busy week. I am going to try to write in my journal every night so I don’t get behind. We will spend two nights on sleeper trains and five nights in hostels.
JULY 22ND THROUGH JULY 29TH, AUSTRIA
At 2:00 AM as we started to the train station Mary got some of the prettiest sunrise pictures I’ve seen. It seemed so strange for the sun to set at 12:30 and rise at 2:30 and never really get dark. We made it to our train and departed at 5:35. Our route took us to Stockholm, Malmo where we got a night train to Berlin. We crossed the Gulf of Bothnia again on a ferry. I think that our trip was about three hour and forty five minutes, so we went to a different port into Germany than the one we left from to go into Denmark. From Berlin we went to Munich, then to Salzburg where we rented a car and drove to Murau. We made it to our lodging on time. For the first time we did not have any train connection problems.
We had a great hotel, the Club Hotel at Kreschberg. The hotel was located in St. Lorenzen, which is in the region of Marau. Kreschberg is a ski resort. It evidently is world class; it is the host site for the 2006 Snow Board Championships. Our room was nice and it had a balcony which overlooked a mountain with a ski lift. Our bathroom also had a bidet.
I had never seen one and I don’t think that Mary had either. She asked on of the staff to make sure that was what it was. She even asked the lady how to use it. The response she got was; “I don’t know, I don’t use one.” The hotel staff was really nice, not all of them spoke English, but we managed to communicate. In the information which we received with our reservation confirmation they told us that we had to have a car to enjoy the area. We found that to be true. The nearest rail station was probably 75 km away. There were rail stations in every little village, but they were narrow gauge rail and didn’t go to the main rail lines without changing a lot from small company to small company. It is very likely the most scenic area we have visited.
We had beautiful mountains and valleys, rivers and small tumbling streams and lots of historic sites. One of note is a bridge which we had to cross to get to our place from the highway. It is the largest wooden bridge in Europe.
On Sunday, we visited some of the small local towns and looked for a grocery store and checked out the train schedules from the narrow gauge stations. The towns look like what I thought European towns should look like.
The streets are so narrow that you can hardly meet another car if you are driving. A lot of the market area and city center are closed to traffic and are strictly walking areas. The buildings face right up against the streets and usually have no porch on any kind of awning. It’s just a straight up wall with a door and windows in it. When you consider that some of these towns date back to the twelfth or thirteenth century then it appears to be a very efficient design.
These towns have car parks located on the outskirts of town where you can leave your car and walk into the center of town. When it got to be lunch time we stopped in a small town at a Pub which appeared to be the only thing open. The lady who came to serve us did not speak English. She went to a table near us and got a young woman from that group to come over and help us get an order together. Mary made a picture of her as we were leaving.
She is the pretty tanned, dark-haired lady in the white shirt. During the rest of the week we found that someone in every place we went spoke English and were willing to help. On Monday we went to a town named Tamsweg where there was a market festival in progress. We looked but did not participate. We had lunch at a hotel with a sidewalk café out front. Our server told us that their building was 500 years, but most of the building were older because there was a “burning” and some of the building had to be rebuilt.
On Tuesday we drove into Salzburg railroad station and got our reservations lined up for our trip to France next week. We traveled some distance on Austria’s Autobahn. There is a great picture of a castle we saw from the road.
We spent some time sightseeing and took a tour of the city. Our guide wasn’t sure how long there had been a settlement at Salzburg’s site, but the city was founded in 696 by Catholic Priests. It was ruled by Bishops, called “Prince Bishops until 1803. The wealth of the area which caused the settlement was salt mining. Today the economy is primarily tourism and white collar.
The influence of the Church is evident in the history of the city. The old historic district was all built by the church or by individual Prince Bishops. Today there are 150,000 population and there are 49 churches; 46 of them are Catholic.
We visited or viewed several things of note. The Fortress Ober Salzburg sits high on a point overlooking the city.
Its construction began in 1077 and it served in the defense of the city.
We saw the Palace of Arch Bishop Leopold Firmian which was built in the mid 1700’s.
The funding for this construction came from wealth left behind when Leopold forced all Protestants out of Salzburg but allowed them to leave their assets with him.
Hellbrunn Palace was built in the 1630’s and is most noted for its gardens and a water garden which has 20 fountains.
The garden has been the same since its origin. Plants are replaced by the same plants and in the same spot as the original.
Perhaps the highlight of the day was a visit to Mozart’s Museum in one of his homes. We saw original instruments, sheet music with Mozart’s notes on them as well as a lot of history of his life and the way he and his family lived. We had lunch at a restaurant on the bottom floor.
The next day we went to Vienna.
It is a beautiful, old city which is very confusing to drive in. Of course their main product is cultural, both in art and music.
We took a tour and we were very disappointed in the way they presented the city. The emphasis was on the modern instead of the history. We did see the Danube River
and also the Vienna International Center, which is their branch of the UN.
We left the tour at the half way point and decided to cut our stay short and take a driving tour. I’m glad we went to Vienna. I told Mary that without Strauss and those guys Ernest Tubbs would probably never have sung WALTZ ACROSS TEXAS.
We spent the rest of day riding and looking at the countryside. The northern part of Austria is vastly different than down where we are staying. It is flatland with big farms which raise mostly wheat and sunflowers. The towns, even the larger ones, have entire blocks of houses connected like a big row of townhouses or condos. We crossed into three other countries. We went into the Czech Republic,
Slovak Republic,
and Hungary
on our way home. Our journey through the Czech Republic was uneventful. All we saw was towns and farms. In the Slovak Republic we got lost in a sizeable city named Bartislave. We wondered around for half an hour, finally came upon a cop. I stopped and asked directions. He just pointed and said keep going straight you are on the right road. I think that the God of the lost tourist is taking care of us.
We made it to the border of Hungary and were passed through. In the first town we reached we stopped and had dinner at a big yellow Hotel with an outside dining area.
Mary has come to the conclusion that most restaurants have outside seating because they have no air conditioning. For that same reason, most of the restaurants have doors open and flies coming in at will. After dinner, we turned back toward Austria and home.
When we were at the border, the policeman looked at our passports and said USA? I said yes and he called across to the guy in the next booth that we were from the US and his picture was going to be on the internet. So here it is!!
Mary took a picture of the speed we were driving on the Autobahn.
Keep in mind that this is KM per hour not miles per hour. After we got off the four lane road and back into farm country it was mostly rolling hills and grape vineyards. We drove in wine country until well after dark.
The next day we went down south of our hotel about two and a half hours and went into Slovenia.
It was a beautiful drive up and over a big mountain the last 30km before the border. It took a long time to cover that distance on hairpin switchbacks.
When we got to the border crossing we were not allowed to cross.
The guy asked for our rental contract and Avis did not allow us in Slovenia. We made a U turn and went home. We did have a nice Bavarian lunch at a small town on the back to Maura.
We stayed up late that night and called Bill to try to get some help loading pictures up to our blog. We are a month behind now, but we are sending pictures to Bill and he will upload them after I post the text.
We loved this area. It is the most scenic place we have been. It has a lot of towns with castles and a lot of history. The main industry is dairy farming and skiing. Anything to do with wood from lumber to carving is big. They even have wood museums.
We would like to come back here sometime and rent a small RV and just tour. There are a lot of very small trailers and motor homes. We see a lot of camping parks. Maybe another time. It has gotten to be Friday and it’s time for us to go to France.
At 2:00 AM as we started to the train station Mary got some of the prettiest sunrise pictures I’ve seen. It seemed so strange for the sun to set at 12:30 and rise at 2:30 and never really get dark. We made it to our train and departed at 5:35. Our route took us to Stockholm, Malmo where we got a night train to Berlin. We crossed the Gulf of Bothnia again on a ferry. I think that our trip was about three hour and forty five minutes, so we went to a different port into Germany than the one we left from to go into Denmark. From Berlin we went to Munich, then to Salzburg where we rented a car and drove to Murau. We made it to our lodging on time. For the first time we did not have any train connection problems.
We had a great hotel, the Club Hotel at Kreschberg. The hotel was located in St. Lorenzen, which is in the region of Marau. Kreschberg is a ski resort. It evidently is world class; it is the host site for the 2006 Snow Board Championships. Our room was nice and it had a balcony which overlooked a mountain with a ski lift. Our bathroom also had a bidet.
I had never seen one and I don’t think that Mary had either. She asked on of the staff to make sure that was what it was. She even asked the lady how to use it. The response she got was; “I don’t know, I don’t use one.” The hotel staff was really nice, not all of them spoke English, but we managed to communicate. In the information which we received with our reservation confirmation they told us that we had to have a car to enjoy the area. We found that to be true. The nearest rail station was probably 75 km away. There were rail stations in every little village, but they were narrow gauge rail and didn’t go to the main rail lines without changing a lot from small company to small company. It is very likely the most scenic area we have visited.
We had beautiful mountains and valleys, rivers and small tumbling streams and lots of historic sites. One of note is a bridge which we had to cross to get to our place from the highway. It is the largest wooden bridge in Europe.
On Sunday, we visited some of the small local towns and looked for a grocery store and checked out the train schedules from the narrow gauge stations. The towns look like what I thought European towns should look like.
The streets are so narrow that you can hardly meet another car if you are driving. A lot of the market area and city center are closed to traffic and are strictly walking areas. The buildings face right up against the streets and usually have no porch on any kind of awning. It’s just a straight up wall with a door and windows in it. When you consider that some of these towns date back to the twelfth or thirteenth century then it appears to be a very efficient design.
These towns have car parks located on the outskirts of town where you can leave your car and walk into the center of town. When it got to be lunch time we stopped in a small town at a Pub which appeared to be the only thing open. The lady who came to serve us did not speak English. She went to a table near us and got a young woman from that group to come over and help us get an order together. Mary made a picture of her as we were leaving.
She is the pretty tanned, dark-haired lady in the white shirt. During the rest of the week we found that someone in every place we went spoke English and were willing to help. On Monday we went to a town named Tamsweg where there was a market festival in progress. We looked but did not participate. We had lunch at a hotel with a sidewalk café out front. Our server told us that their building was 500 years, but most of the building were older because there was a “burning” and some of the building had to be rebuilt.
On Tuesday we drove into Salzburg railroad station and got our reservations lined up for our trip to France next week. We traveled some distance on Austria’s Autobahn. There is a great picture of a castle we saw from the road.
We spent some time sightseeing and took a tour of the city. Our guide wasn’t sure how long there had been a settlement at Salzburg’s site, but the city was founded in 696 by Catholic Priests. It was ruled by Bishops, called “Prince Bishops until 1803. The wealth of the area which caused the settlement was salt mining. Today the economy is primarily tourism and white collar.
The influence of the Church is evident in the history of the city. The old historic district was all built by the church or by individual Prince Bishops. Today there are 150,000 population and there are 49 churches; 46 of them are Catholic.
We visited or viewed several things of note. The Fortress Ober Salzburg sits high on a point overlooking the city.
Its construction began in 1077 and it served in the defense of the city.
We saw the Palace of Arch Bishop Leopold Firmian which was built in the mid 1700’s.
The funding for this construction came from wealth left behind when Leopold forced all Protestants out of Salzburg but allowed them to leave their assets with him.
Hellbrunn Palace was built in the 1630’s and is most noted for its gardens and a water garden which has 20 fountains.
The garden has been the same since its origin. Plants are replaced by the same plants and in the same spot as the original.
Perhaps the highlight of the day was a visit to Mozart’s Museum in one of his homes. We saw original instruments, sheet music with Mozart’s notes on them as well as a lot of history of his life and the way he and his family lived. We had lunch at a restaurant on the bottom floor.
The next day we went to Vienna.
It is a beautiful, old city which is very confusing to drive in. Of course their main product is cultural, both in art and music.
We took a tour and we were very disappointed in the way they presented the city. The emphasis was on the modern instead of the history. We did see the Danube River
and also the Vienna International Center, which is their branch of the UN.
We left the tour at the half way point and decided to cut our stay short and take a driving tour. I’m glad we went to Vienna. I told Mary that without Strauss and those guys Ernest Tubbs would probably never have sung WALTZ ACROSS TEXAS.
We spent the rest of day riding and looking at the countryside. The northern part of Austria is vastly different than down where we are staying. It is flatland with big farms which raise mostly wheat and sunflowers. The towns, even the larger ones, have entire blocks of houses connected like a big row of townhouses or condos. We crossed into three other countries. We went into the Czech Republic,
Slovak Republic,
and Hungary
on our way home. Our journey through the Czech Republic was uneventful. All we saw was towns and farms. In the Slovak Republic we got lost in a sizeable city named Bartislave. We wondered around for half an hour, finally came upon a cop. I stopped and asked directions. He just pointed and said keep going straight you are on the right road. I think that the God of the lost tourist is taking care of us.
We made it to the border of Hungary and were passed through. In the first town we reached we stopped and had dinner at a big yellow Hotel with an outside dining area.
Mary has come to the conclusion that most restaurants have outside seating because they have no air conditioning. For that same reason, most of the restaurants have doors open and flies coming in at will. After dinner, we turned back toward Austria and home.
When we were at the border, the policeman looked at our passports and said USA? I said yes and he called across to the guy in the next booth that we were from the US and his picture was going to be on the internet. So here it is!!
Mary took a picture of the speed we were driving on the Autobahn.
Keep in mind that this is KM per hour not miles per hour. After we got off the four lane road and back into farm country it was mostly rolling hills and grape vineyards. We drove in wine country until well after dark.
The next day we went down south of our hotel about two and a half hours and went into Slovenia.
It was a beautiful drive up and over a big mountain the last 30km before the border. It took a long time to cover that distance on hairpin switchbacks.
When we got to the border crossing we were not allowed to cross.
The guy asked for our rental contract and Avis did not allow us in Slovenia. We made a U turn and went home. We did have a nice Bavarian lunch at a small town on the back to Maura.
We stayed up late that night and called Bill to try to get some help loading pictures up to our blog. We are a month behind now, but we are sending pictures to Bill and he will upload them after I post the text.
We loved this area. It is the most scenic place we have been. It has a lot of towns with castles and a lot of history. The main industry is dairy farming and skiing. Anything to do with wood from lumber to carving is big. They even have wood museums.
We would like to come back here sometime and rent a small RV and just tour. There are a lot of very small trailers and motor homes. We see a lot of camping parks. Maybe another time. It has gotten to be Friday and it’s time for us to go to France.
