Dec. 4 & 5 - Austria

We got up early on the morning of the 4th and started the long drive from West Germany, through Switzerland (of course), to East Austria. We were in the car for close to 12 hours. That makes me a very grouchy person. Thank goodness for patient people like Jason. :D He's a wonderful man. Here's some pictures of our journey....however, there aren't a lot because for some reason, in Austria there were hardly any roads where there weren't either trees planted side by side along the road or tall borders on both sides of the road. I may never know why they don't want travelers to see the beauty of their country.

Still in Switzerland. I can't get over the magnificent mountains.


And I loved the look of the trees outlined in snow.


More trees.


Less snow...but still really cold!


See the mountains peeking over in the background?


Beautiful.


Cute little village.


Glorious mountains.


Nice little town on the way.


Even the trees without leaves were beautiful covered in snow.


Gorgeous!! And the mountains aren't too bad either. ;)


Snow, snow, and more snow. I love it!!!


We finally made it to Graz, Austria...only to not have any idea where our hotel was. We stopped and asked a few people and they all pointed in the same general direction....but, since there were each speaking in German, we could not understand any specifics they were telling us. Finally, Jason found a man who spoke English and he told us exactly where the hotel was. It was disguised....as a pub. (This picture was taken the following morning...it was too dark to take a picture by the time we got there the first night).


I'll be the first to admit, I was not thrilled to find out that we had left such a wonderful hotel in Germany to stay in a room above a pub. And while it had no chance of comparing to the previous hotel, it wasn't half bad.

Here's the view from the door. (Don't be jealous of our tv.)


Looking to the left from the entrance.


Our bed...which wasn't bad, but not near as comfortable as the one in Germany.


Instead of chocolates on the pillows, there were....pumpkin seeds?? Yes, pumpkin seeds. And I can't even begin to tell you how happy I was to realize that it was seeds and not....something else. ;)


Our bathroom.


View of the room from the bathroom.


Okay, after the really, really long car ride from Germany to the hotel in Austria, we decided sleeping in was a must. We slept until nearly 10am. We slowly got ready to go out and face the blistering cold to visit the Christmas market in Graz. However, the town was like a ghost town. It was Sunday...so absolutely nothing (other than the Christmas market) was open. I took a few pictures on the walk to the Christmas market, but I didn't get my camera back out after we got there. After seeing the one in Basel, this one didn't seem like much. But that could have been because it was Sunday. At any rate, here's a few pictures of the area we visited in Graz.

Across the river.


Another view across the river.


On the bridge.


Little boat in the river.


In the end, I'm glad we visited Austria. It was harder (for us) to get around and find things since we do not speak any German, but it is definitely a beautiful place and the people were nice. I just wish we had been there on a day other than Sunday so that we could have seen more of the town. Nonetheless, the Christmas market and the pub and a few tv shows on the computer provided enough entertainment to keep us occupied.