I’ve been remiss. We have not actually gone into stasis since our last post but I got busy and/or lazy so now I have some catching up to do. Right at the end of February we ran off to Austria to meet our new British friends and get some spa time in along with snow activities for the first time since we moved. It was a trip that we had to delay by a few weeks due to the winter Covid surge in Austria, which meant that the snow was a bit past its prime but we didn’t care; it was good to get up into the mountains again.

We stayed a couple days in Vienna first since I had never visited and it’s been forty years since Cindy was there last. Turns out Austria is cold in the winter, who knew? The cold wind blowing in from Germany limited us to quick dashes between museums and restaurants to get out of the chill air. Austria was once a powerful empire, many people don’t know that but they’re being recognized more and more*, and the Viennese architecture reflects their former glory.

The parliament was closed for renovations but even behind the fence you could see it was an imposing sight. Will have to go back for that. The city had an enormous skating rink, really pathways through the trees in the park next door, that folks were enjoying. They make everything big and monumental in Vienna.

For example, these buildings, housing art and natural history museums. You could just feel the scale, the weight of these buildings.

The Russians’ war on Ukraine had just begun; the Austrians showed support. It all felt much closer from there.

From Vienna we caught the train to the city of Villach in the south of the country.

Map of the region we visited. It turns out that Villach is only a couple hours’ drive from Venice; it would have been much quicker to fly there and catch a train to Villach than to go into Vienna. Also, because I haven’t really looked at a map of the region, I had no idea that Slovenia and the rest of eastern Europe were so close. Ignorance is bliss until you realize just how dumb you’ve been.

There we stayed at a lovely spa resort, the See Rose Hotel and met up with our new friends Colin and Jane, whom we met on our hiking trip to Andalucia in the fall. There we got some skiing in, first time since we left the States, along with some hiking and snowshoeing.

View from the Villach resort. One has to adjust to sharing a sauna with, well, everyone. According to one of the employees at the hotel, we were some of the first English speaking guests ever there. Anyway, lovely setting.

Cindy in her happy place

People were paragliding from the ski area, landing in town in the valley below.

We did a group snowshoe hike above the lake as well. Our guides (one of whom is in the green hat pointing out features) were professional and very nice. This was Colin and Jane’s first time on snowshoes and they took to it like ducks to water.

Our intrepid companions

All of us, soaking up the sun

The four of us did a hike from the midpoint of the gondola that gets you up the mountainside from the Ossiacher See (the lake) to the top of the ski resort. It was a good four hour walk through the countryside among the ski cabins owned by the locals, with a bit of a traverse along the ski runs to the very top, then down by a different route to the gondola. It was a good four hour or so hike in the fresh air. The mountains in the distance separate Austria from Slovenia.

We took a day and rented a car to drive into Slovenia to explore. We visited Lake Bled, which we have since been told is not the place to go “because it’s where they go for destination weddings all the time.” No weddings in sight on this day. This is Bled Castle as seen from the town

The iconic church on the island as seen from the castle

And the church from lake level

The mountains as seen from the road were spectacular too. It was a lovely drive.

We did a second snowshoeing trip into the hills a bit further from town. Views and scenery were spectacular, company was good and there was a cute little restaurant with lovely dishes just at the point we got hungry.

Artsy!

We caught the train back to Vienna for a couple more days of being cold and visiting museums, then flew home. And that was our winter trip to play in the snow.

*Channeling a Certain Someone