Igloos in Austria

Not long after I returned to Germany from visiting the States, Kyle and I headed to Kühtai, Austria, which is Austria's highest winter sports village.  I had found a deal on Groupon to stay in an igloo for a night, and we figured, why not?  It was just about a four hour drive from home.  We couldn't bring Gizmo since dogs aren't allowed to stay in the igloo village.  (Very understandable...white snow is much prettier than yellow snow!)  We stayed in the igloo for one night, then headed to a different part of Austria to stay for two more nights.  

We arrived to the snowy white winter landscape and changed into our snow gear.  We were greeted in the igloo bar with a cup of warm glühwein.  We chatted with the bartender for a while, and then went through a short briefing once the other igloo guests arrived.  That was followed by a delicious dinner of cheese and chocolate fondue.  I don't know why, but fondue is perfect in the cold weather!

After  dinner, the group of us (six people total) headed out for some nighttime snow shoeing and tobogganing.  We were guided by the very nice girl that was pretty much in charge of the igloo village.  We had never been snow shoeing, and we thoroughly enjoyed it!  It's so peaceful walking through the snow at night.  After hiking for about an hour, we ended up at a hotel further up the mountain.  We went in for some drinks before making a much quicker trip down on toboggans.  I'm definitely glad that the toboggan path was well lit!  Once we got back down, we had a bit more glühwein before heading to our igloo for the night.

The igloo was very pretty, complete with edelweiss carved into the wall and colorful changing lights. There was a waterproof mattress to sleep on, topped with animal skin and their heavy duty arctic sleeping bags.  The girl recommended sleeping in just one layer of clothing, which I should have listened to!  I wore sleep pants, a very thick pair of fleecy socks over thin socks, a t-shirt, a sweat shirt, and my hat and gloves.  I woke up sweating and had to take off some of my layers!  Those sleeping bags are no joke!  I also slept with my clothes for the next day in my sleeping bag, so that I wouldn't have to change into ice-cold clothes in the morning.

In the morning, we reluctantly crawled out of our warm cocoons and made our way to breakfast at the hotel that runs the igloo village.  We were very grateful to eat indoors in the warmth!  From there, we headed to the Lech valley, which was about two hours west of our location.  (It really wasn't that far the way the bird flies, but we had some alps in the way that we had to drive around!)

Kühtai in the morning

Our igloo 

On our way to the Lech valley, we stopped at the Ehrenberg castle ruins near Reutte to check them out, as well as the new, VERY high pedestrian suspension bridge.  We had driven by the impressive castle ruins a number of times in our travels, and decided it was finally time to stop and see them.  It was just about a twenty minute hike up to the castle ruins, which date back to as early as the 1200s.  We wandered around the ruins for a bit before heading across the world's longest pedestrian suspension bridge, which just opened in November of 2014, making it into the Guinness book of world records.  It was pretty cool and had wonderful views, but it is not at all recommended if you're scared of heights!  The bridge bounced quite a bit as you walk across, which made you really hope that they used a trustworthy construction crew!

The view of the bridge from the parking lot below

Pretty hike to the top

We arrived to the town of Holzgau where we were staying in time for a late lunch and a little snooze at the hotel.  (I guess we didn't sleep too soundly in the igloo the night before!)  There was a beautiful sunset that evening.  Shortly after sunset, we drove a couple of towns north to go on a sleigh ride!  It was pretty dark during the sleigh ride, so Kyle didn't get any pictures, but it was so peaceful!  The horses wore bells, so "Jingle Bells" definitely got stuck in my head for a while!  After the sleigh ride, they had some schnapps waiting for us that warmed us from the inside.  It was a very fun evening!

View of sunset from our hotel

The next day we checked out more of the Warth-Schröcken and Lech area.  It is definitely a place for skiers, which we are not!  We were hoping to go from the town of Warth to the town of Lech via lifts, but as it turns out, that could only be done by skiing.  After being slightly disappointed by that, we stared at the ski school in town for a few minutes, contemplating ski lessons.  We decided that the school looked like it was just for kids, and spared ourselves the embarrassment.  (We are very torn about learning to ski.  We love the snow and winter travel, but are not necessarily excited about the idea of learning to ski.  Everyone says we have to while we're here, and we kind of feel like we should...but we don't really want to!  It's very expensive, we'll never ski enough to get really good, and it's dangerous!  Every single person that skis has an injury story!  I think we're just as happy tobogganing and saving ourselves some pain and money!)

We drove to the town of Lech instead, and enjoyed the scenic drive through the Alps.  Once we got to Lech, we took a cable car up to have a delicious lunch on a terrace with beautiful views.  In our typical style, we tobogganed back down to town.  (Very fun and low stress!)

Rösti (shredded, fried potato), topped with bacon and egg

Crepe stuffed with ham and cheese in a cream sauce

The town of Lech

We headed back to Germany the next day.  When we woke up, it was snowing beautiful, huge fluffy flakes.  We couldn't even see the mountains because it was snowing so hard!  Of course it was hard for Kyle to leave knowing that it was going to snow there all day, but I wanted to get out in time before it was too late!

Austria is such a beautiful place in every season.  We always love visiting.  Staying in an igloo was a very fun "glamping" experience, and we're really glad to have had that chance!  Perhaps there might be an ice hotel in our future?

The Joest's in Germany: Part II

Earlier this summer, my family came over to Germany for a two week visit.  In the first blog post about their visit, we went to Lake Garda, the Bodensee and the Black Forest.  We also kept very busy during the second part of their trip.  We enjoyed visiting more nearby towns and markets and doing some nice walks in the local area.  (There is never a shortage of new hikes to check out around here!) We also went to France and Switzerland! It was definitely a packed two weeks full of good food, beautiful scenery and great company!

Drinks and lunch at a local brewery, the Schönbuch.   (Kari's isn't beer, although she's of the legal age in Europe!)

On one of the days that Kyle had to work, we took a day trip to the Alsace region in France, just across the border.  Kyle and I have been to the Alsace several times, but it's a favorite place of ours, so we love going there!  It's in the Rhine river valley between the French Vosges mountains and the German Black Forest.  The valley is full of vineyards and picture perfect little villages right out of a fairy tale.  We visited a couple of my favorite villages, Riquewihr and Ribeauville.  We also went to feed the monkeys on monkey mountain!  It was raining when we saw the monkeys, but it was still so much fun to feed them popcorn right out of our hands!  The barbary macaque monkeys there are the same type that we saw when Kyle and I visited Gibraltar and Morocco.  The Alsace definitely needs more than a day trip to do it justice, but at least they got to see a little piece of it!  (These pics are from Mom and Dad.)

A stork wondering around the village doing some window shopping

 Kyle had a second set of four days off when my family was visiting, so we headed south to enjoy the spectacular alpine scenery in Switzerland.  All five of us and Gizmo piled into our Volkswagon and made the three and a half hour drive to the 200 year old house rental in the Simmental valley.  (Mom, Kari and I think the house was haunted, but we all survived.)  There was a mix up with the keys and getting into the house, so we went on ahead to walk the Lauterbrunnen valley about 25 minutes away from the rental house.  We had food for a picnic, and we were all pretty hungry, but Switzerland has a surprising lack of picnic areas!  We ate our lunch in an avalanche shelter instead.  At least it was dry!

'Lauter brunnen' translated means "many fountains."  The valley has 72 waterfalls, so the name fits it well!

Gizmo enjoying the cold and fresh mountain water

We climbed up a short but steep walkway that led through a tunnel in the side of a cliff and behind a waterfall.

We saw quite a few base jumpers, which was pretty awesome!

Luckily we got the keys sorted out, and were able to get into our rental house when we got back to the Simmental valley.  We had a cute little outdoor dining area that we enjoyed each evening.  We had two types of soup that we made in Germany and brought with us, and one night we had fondue night.  Yum!

A cute little church behind our rental house

The rain moved out and the next day was clear and beautiful.  We went to the Grindelwald area to see the infamous Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau peaks and do some scenic hiking.  It was a great day!

I love that there's always a place to stop for drinks while hiking in Europe!

We had lovely views for our picnic lunch after our first walk of the day.

Here are some photos of our second walk in the Grindelwald area.  It had a wide variety of scenery from rocky cliffs to the lush forest.

Dad and Kari headed back from the hike early, and this is what we found when we got back to the car.  

We were driving home the next day, but the weather was amazing so we did another hike before heading out.  Dad's ankle was bothering him, so he stayed at the house while the rest of us headed up the mountain.  There was a cable car up to the the peak of Stockhorn just down the street from our house in the tiny town of Erlenbach im Simmental.  We took the cable car halfway up to hike around two little lakes.  The lady working told us that they were quick and easy hikes.  The scenery was spectacular and the hikes very enjoyable, but they were definitely not easy!  (I would hate to see what she calls a difficult hike!)  It was so peaceful and serene hiking the alpine meadows full of wildflowers and hearing the cowbells in the distance.  The paths went right through pastures, which was fun to see the cute cows.  (If I was a cow, I would want to live in one of those pastures!)  Kari was less than thrilled with walking through the muck and getting her shoes dirty, but those views were worth it for me!

Being up on an alp puts me in the mood to frolic!

Mom, Dad and Kari headed back to the States on July 17th, Kari's 17th birthday.  She didn't get a free birthday upgrade to first class like she thought she should get, but they did bring her a first class dessert!

Kyle and I (and Gizmo) had such a great time having my family here in Germany.  It was nice being able to show them some of the places we're always talking about.  We all put a lot of miles on our feet, but we covered a lot of ground in just two weeks!  I'm already looking forward to Mom and Kari's visit here next summer for some fun under the Tuscan sun!