Raining again so we need to be creative with our activities. We went out of town to Flawil the Maestrami/Munz Chocolate Factory to see the favourite eats of the Swiss being made. Who would have thought that so many chocolates could be turned out in one minute – one per second it seemed. Who eats so many chocolates? Most Swiss it would seem. We came away with a nice little stash of chocolates to last for some time including a Swiss Army Knife chocolate to present to Neil and Karilyn on their arrival in the morning. “Welcome to Swizerland Herr and Fraulein Froude. Please accept this wonderful gift from TTAT’s tours on your arrival”. The chocolate is wrapped to look like the real thing. An interesting way to spend an hour or so. We drove back ... read more

It was a travel day today so not so interesting. We were picked up from the hotel at 8.20 by SMS and transported to Munich Airport where we were met by the Peugeot representative. He ran us through the car controls and we signed the appropriate documents. We were now the :owners: of a brand new car with only 15kms on the clock and registered in France. Straight on to the autobahn¦ Lindsay learned very quickly about driving on the right hand side of the road. I never took my eyes off the road............ Cars wizzed by at extraordinary speeds. Many at speeds of 180kph or more. The general speed limit is 130kph. Linds had to quickly drive much faster than he was used to or he would stay in the truck lane. After following the ... read more

After the peace of the mountains, sleeping in Central Innsbruck certainly required ear plugs. We are in the quieter, backside of the hotel, but it's still noisey. The clock chimes every quarter hour and bongs on the hour. At 6.45am the jets are allowed to start flying and I think we might be right in the flight path, then at 7.00am the church bells start ringing - real close bonging!!! Wake up, get up! We stripped the inner out of the duvet to reduce heat in the room so had a resonably comfortable night despite bells. We gather there is to be another day of hot weather then things should cool down. Following the usual European breakfast of cereals, fruit, eggs, meats, cheeses, bread etc we headed out on Maria Theresien Strasse which seems to be ... read more

Since it was to be another scorcher of a day we decided some more shaded paths would be a good idea and since we had not been in the valley above Obertraun we headed off up the road that would normally lead to Bad Aussee but it's still shut. There is more to Obertraun than initially takes the eye as it is spread right up the valley. Where the rail and bike path entered the gorge we parked our bikes and walked up to the Koppenbrullerhohle which is another one of the many cave systems in the area. This one doesn't always have running water but does have pools inside. We opted not to do a tour since it was just another cave and we have heaps of those at home. However, not far from the ... read more

Because the road and rail is closed between Obertraun and Bad Aussee, Larry took us and our bikes to a top of a hill near Bad Aussee where he would pick us up later in the day. The start was ominous in that the first few kilometres was downhill flat out - which meant we had to bike up it later in the day. Once we arrived at Altaussee, we took the R61 bike trail to Blaa Alm which was several kilometres up a valley to a ski field, through forest and on to open meadow. It seems to be a popular place in the weekend with many cyclists and motor bikers coming and going. Coming back down to the ski lift we had lunch and headed back down to the lake of Altausseer See where ... read more