Sitting by the pool in the morning sun, looking up at the grey rock face of Spitzkofel topping out 2717 meters above the valley.
Quiet greetings and conversations of the neighbors over the fence, bike riders whizzing by and the occasional horse clipping up the street. Chickens fussing, birds chirping, slowly turning pages in the book and sipping that great Blaufrankish wine.
If this gets any more perfect and quaint I might die.
And then the coo coo clock chirps ten times.
And the church bell rings.
If this little valley in Austria is not heaven, then heaven has a lot to live up to.
At 11:00 thunder, lightning and hard rains are drenching the green green valley. The typical mountain weather. If you are going climbing you have to go early and get down before the storms, or perhaps just relax a day.
So we relaxed today.
We sat in, made lunch and read. During a break in the storm we walked the trail along the banks of the River Drau to Lienz to pick up train tickets for next week and a couple more food items. Gail wanted to do a little shopping in the cute old town, so we wandered in and out of stores before meeting up for coffee and küchen in the café.
The apple strudel was cinnamon warm flakey goodness, not too sweet.
We went to family dinner at Veronika and Jürgen’s house. They had another set of friends over so there were eight of us: four Austrians, two Germans and us.
Veronika made a great meal of roasted vegetables, potatoes and steak. The wine and beer flowed freely and we had a wide ranging conversation in German and English. When we are speaking in German it always reminds me I need to slow my English down. Just because you know another language does not mean you know it at the fast “local” speed.
It was a relaxing day, and we only walked five miles. Gail's feet are doing much better.