Hohe Tauern

Having just been over the Großglockner, you could think we had seen it all and that the 'rest' would be a disappointment. You'd be wrong. Austria just kept impressing. Yes the highest mountain of them all in Austria was behind us, but we were still in the Hohe Tauern region and the small towns where we travelled through were literally built against the mountains. Narrow winding roads and beautiful scenery everywhere. Glorious sunlight too. Plus, although we were on our way to the border between Austria and Italy, there were still the Italian Dolomites to look forward to too!

Entering Italy was painful… look at Mike's hand hitting
the Italy sign...

In short, we had another amazing ride ahead of us. When we reached the Italian border, and made the photos in front of the border sign, we met a Canadian couple doing the same thing! 'I've never done the backpacking 'thing' when I was 20' he said 'so now that I'm retired I thought: Let's go to Europe, buy a car and travel around!' There was another thing he had always wanted: a Porsche. So, he went to Porsche, bought the car he always wanted, said he would pick it up at the factory and toured around Europe in it before shipping it home! What a great way to start your retirement!

Austria was behind us. Italy ahead. While taking the photos, Mike thought he'd do a jump… That didn't go all that well though. As he jumped, his hand hit the sign, very painful as you can see in the above photo!
Reflecting back on Austria, the amazing scenery we had seen, the landscapes ranging from the typical Alpine meadows to snow covered mountains that belong to the most rugged and highest in Europe... I was very impressed with it all. Austria is expensive, quite possibly the most expensive in Europe so far from a camping and travelling point of view. They don't do themselves any favour there. At the same time it's unbelievably beautiful and we are sure glad we went! The weather had been great, especially since we were so late in the year. 

Time to look forward again now: Italy!

Second time around, the jump went much better :-)