Austrian Alps and Ptuj

Saturday was a beautiful day as promised and we drove around to the other side of the lake where we took a gondola up Dachstein mountain from the town of Obertraun (which sounds like some villain from that movie... the Mudders will understand).

From Halstatt

Josh and Mary thought it was going to be lame, but they were wrong. The views were incredible. It seemed like we were at the top of the world with snowy mountain peaks in all directions. You couldn't ask for a more beautiful clear day, or a more beautiful place to spend it. As Dad said, "If you aren't going to take the gondola up into the Alps on a day like today, when are you going to do it?" It was much like we expected the Himalayas to look, had we done our hike on a clear day.

From Halstatt

We had fun watching the paragliders launching from the top of the mountain.

From Halstatt

Josh even did a little high-altitude sun-bathing.

From Halstatt

Then we walked on to the 5-fingers lookout where we stood out over the edge of the mountain and looked back at Hallstatt.

From Halstatt

When we got back down, we drove on for the town of Ptuj in Slovenia, which we chose to go to largely because of the name. In Slovenia, "J" is pronounced as a "Y", and name of the town really is pronounced just like somebody splitting. We even drove through the town Spittal to get there. I'm not making this up. Along the way we saw a whole flock of paragliders.

From Halstatt

We had just a little bit of time after we arrived and before it got dark to check into a hotel, walk through town to a restaurant on the waterfront where we had quite a feast (the meat platter for two and the fish platter for two). The river was lovely.