On August 18-22 we drove down to Salzburg which is a small town at the base of the Austrian Alps.  It took a couple of days to get there since it is about an 8 hour drive and we left after Gina got off of work on Wednesday.  We actually arrived on Thursday and it was about 3pm when we got to the pension where we had reserved our room.  We found that they had given our room away but arranged for us to stay at another pension just down the street.  Unfortunately, this place was pretty run down, didn't come with a bathroom or shower and the bed was two singles laid head to head.  We quickly vetoed the accomodations and proceded to drive a little bit east of Salzburg to a resort area called Mondsee.  This was actually in the mountains and on a small lake.  We stayed at a four star hotel and this was a little bit more to our liking!  That just about covers Thursday.

Friday it rained.  This seems to be a common theme on all our vacations but we didn't let it get to us.  We decided we would see the nearby ice caves, the mammoth cave and the salt mines (for which Salzburg is named) where the weather wouldn't affect us at all.  It was a good idea and we had a lot of fun.

This is what it looked like after we took a 10 minute gondola ride up the mountain on our way to the caves.  There is a small town just under the break in the clouds that isn't visible in the picture.

The scenery on the way up was very nice.  It was still raining a little bit but after a long climb it felt good.

On our way back to Mondsee we stopped at a couple of scenic overlooks.

Saturday we drove into Salzburg and met Frank.  We toured around Salzburg and then met up with Danette around 8pm.  We went out for dinner and talked Saturday before retiring.

Sunday we went for a short boat ride around Mondsee on then it was time to leave.

 

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