Saturday July 4

Off to Austia - Langenfeld, the drive took about 3 hours. We had been quite put off by prior communication from the host but when we arrived the "cleaning lady" met us and showed us around. Off her our bat she let us checkin early (On arrival @ 3pm) and reduced the, never mentioned until the day before, security deposit from 400 to 200 Eur - she also told us we could use their laundry even though the "owner" doesn't like people using it.

The apartment is quite amazing and even thought surrounded by other houses it has spectacular views.

We then took a walk around our village which was more substantial than I expected.

We stayed home for sambos.

Sunday July 5

First day out we drove to Solden (about 10-15 minutes) and used our complimentary guest card to ride 2 gondolas to 3100m where the Ice Q restaurant is also located - it is a fine dining restaurant- we planned to return for lunch one day. Solden seems to be the mountain biking capital of the world - even the local busses tow bike trailers. Every second gondola was allocated to bikers.

We wandered around on top, taking photos etc then headed down. We walked around the village looking for a a place for lunch - alas not much seemed to be open and we ended up at a place where we had the worst meal of the whole trip - it wasn't really a meal as we left nearly all of our shared kaese spaetzli. The village of Solden was an also a bit disappointing as there is no pedestrian-only area.

We headed home for one of our standard dinners - pasta and salad.

Monday July 6

As forecast it was a bit of a cloudy drizzly day but much better than expected. Due to the changeable conditions we opted to stay close to home (Langenfeld which as it turned out was a really nice village - 2 grocery stores, many hotels and sports shops). We did some shopping in the morning then did a local hike in the afternoon - about 2 hours with 250m ascent/descent and across an amazing hanging bridge built only 5 year ago. We opted for the longer route back to the village and stopped at a mountain restaurant for an afternoon refreshment.

By the time we arrived home it was time for showers and dinner at home (pork chop, green beans, porcini mushrooms and a few left over ravioli).

Tuesday July 7

 It started out as a fine day - cool as usual (7C) in the morning. We did a really tough walk in Otz - up to Hoch Otz - we started by going up the Acherkogelbhan gondola and started on a loop track but due to insufficient signage we hiked to to the top of another chair lift from which there was no way back except by retracing our walk up - at least it was downhill. We stopped at a mountain restaurant only 10 minutes from the top of the cable car for a light lunch (eggs and potatoes - Dieter's favourite). 

We went out of dinner at Hotel Ritz which had a 5 course menu for 58EUR - it was excellent.

Wednesday July 8

We drove to Umhauser where there is a waterfall which is amazing, not because it is so great a water fall but there is a suspended staircase which goes up 700 steps - it is an engineering marvel. Dieter went all the way to the top but I had to stop short and wait for him due to my vertigo on open steel staircases. It was still a vigorous uphill hike. We came home for a late lunch and had dinner at home (pasta/salad).

Thursday July 9 

We took one of the Solden gondolas up to Gigglijoch and hike down to Hocksolden then continued onto the mid-station of the Gaislachkogl gondola which also starts from the Solden town center. It took 2h20m and was a good work-out with a few hundred meters of altitude (down then up). Once we reached the mid-station we stopped for lunch then headed home.

We tried to go out for dinner at Hotel Stern but alas we were again thwarted as they had some sort of guest-only BBQ. So we headed over to Hotel Rita, expecting something similar to our previous visit but they had a different format - which was disappointing. 

Friday July 10

Last full day - we drove to a nice mountain lake then did a walk around stopping for lunch at a great restaurant. Then it was home for packing up and sambos at home as we had a 9:30am departure on Saturday.

Saturday July 11

We left at 9:30 for the 2.5 hour drive to Tegernsee - see next entry.