Free day

August 7

Here is the view that I woke up to this morning :)

We woke up excited to go paragliding today! Walked to the gondola to meet the guys that were going to take us and they warned us at the bottom that this isn't a for sure deal. They had to check out the winds and weather at the top of the mountain before they could promise anything. 

I was so excited but then I suddenly didn't get my hopes up! When we got to the top the winds were so strong and they told us we couldn't do it today. We then planned on tomorrow at 9 am. 

We didn't really have a plan for the day other than spending it in the mountains. We went to the supermarket and had sandwiches made to pack a picnic. We took a bus from Niederau to Auffach so we could take the longer gondola up the mountain.  The gondola was about a 20 minute ride up the hill to Schatzbergalm which is 1776 m in elevation.

 I felt on top of the world with mountains in a panorama view all around us. 

We just hiked around and took in the beauty of the Austrian alps. It is unbelievable how so far on my trip since i left Denmark, it is only getting better and better. I may have just hit the peak (literally). 

We hiked around for about 4 hours up in the mountains to hahnkopf (1902m). 

Food in the mountains just tastes so much better! This is the bench we ate lunch on. 

We were debating hiking down to catch the middle gondola all the way down but it would have taken us much longer to do so we just hiked back up to the top to catch the gondola ride down. 

We met a couple staying at our hostel and went to the pool with them for the rest of the day! It is just such a great way to end a hike. Especially flying down the slide! I felt like a little kid :)

We went back to the hostel to shower and freshen up. Mal (the Aussie who is working at the lodge) wanted to come to dinner and took us to this incredible Italian restaurant. The food was so incredibley cheap and it was WAY better than the food i had in Italy. 

I had a Hawaiian pizza & chillies with a glass of red wine! 

We had heard of this festival going on with live music and beer so we headed into town. 

It was a blast! Many people dressed up in  lederhosen and dirndls drinking beer and listening to the German band! So festive!

A sweet old man had a tent and was selling everything made out of honey. Right when we walked up he gave us a shot of honey schnapps (at least that's what I think it was). Mal and I loved him and bought hard candies with honey in the middle and honey lip slave. 

We walked away and both wish we had taken a picture with him. We ran back and he was so happy and told us to get behind his counter.  

He was holding us so hard around the waste and like tickling us! He couldn't speak English so it was so cute how much we all enjoyed it. Mal and I were cracking up and so glad we did it :)

It was a cooler night so I slept like a baby in my bunk!!