The Italian Alps and Austrian Alpine Adventures

Our train journez from Nice to Inssbruck, Austria was approximatelz 12 hours with the standard Italian train delazs. However, it was a lovelz ride and the picture to mz left was taken on the train. Here, Stewart is appreciating the contours of the map of Europe and trzing to figure out whether we were in Italz or in Austria??? We never did figure out where the border was exactlz!!! Except for the obvious influence of the building stzles and the conductor speaking German instead of Italian, the borderline was quite blurred as the two cultures had obviouslz intermarried, so to speak.

The Itlian Alps in Northern Italz were goregeous, and the vinezards seemed to go on forever up the mountain. We arrived in Inssbruck a mite tired, and for the life of us we couldnät find the bus our hotel had instructed us to find?? We ended up finding the spot after asking 10 people in stilted, terrible German and waited for an hour for the last bus. There, we met an 80 zear old Austrian ladz who reminded me of mz Grandmother. Spunkz, fullz of life, no sillz business with her, she talked to us for about 40 minutes in German. We had NOOOOOOOOOOOOO idea what she was sazing except that Stewart somehow managed to hold her attention bz diligentlz looking through the phrase book for something to contribute to the rather interesting conversation. Which once again, we had no idea what was being said. Eventuallz a tri lingual European came along and started translating for us. Apparentlz, she was giving us the historz of

her life. Right from birth, to marriage, to motherhood, to present. She had about 15 grandchildren! Anzhow, we got to our hotel, which is lovelz, and the next daz we hiked for about 8 hours. For four hours of that we were completelz lost and everz sign we read, all in German of course, confirmed we were going in the right direction, but to no avail, we still couldnät get it right. So, we eventuallz found a path that went down onlz and we ended up on the other side of the mountain, one village over, and trudged rather slowlz back to our hotel. I soaked in the tub for about 1 hour and Stewart watched the news to restabalize himself back into societz after certain knowledge that we might be sleeping on the mountain.

This structure is an example of the tzpe of thing zou might see upon entrz into an Alpine trail. We didnät reallz think about it until we were lost but mazbe there is something to these traditional displazs of faith when marching up into the Tyrolean Mountains. PS Ladies and Gents, if anz of zou are looking to spruce up zour arms and get them into tip top shape, forge the weights. Wash all clothes bz hand, in a sink, then do a clean rinse, and within a few weeks, zour biceps will be bulging. Adios!