Rome to Reutte, Austria

This morning we woke up way too early, packed up the few things we had at the hotel and dragged them down to the apartment to pack the car. For all of the grief that the apartment gave us over the last two years (low gas pressure, mysterious water cycling, exploding water tanks and the ever present sound of neighbors), it really was sad to leave our home of the last two years behind. Oh well, that's life.

With the apartment behind us, we set off on our journey north, destination Reutte, Austria. The ride was pleasant enough although we did hit some crowds at the AutoGrill and some traffic south of Lake Garda. The rental Audi A3 was definitely a much more comfortable ride than the Opel Corsa that took good care of us through our stay here. We'd never been north of Florence in a car before so the scenery was all very new to us.

In order to drive in Austria, you need to buy a pass called a Vignetta. It is kind of like the registration sticker we have in NY except you can buy one for as few as 10 days. Just before crossing the border near the Brenner Pass, we pulled into a truck stop to see if we could get a pass there. No luck but it was interesting to see a real live truck stop. Kelly pointed out that the women's room was great because there were probably only about 5 women using it each day.

Here's a photo of Kelly in front of the truck stop sign.
We crossed into Austria over the Brenner Pass which was mostly unremarkable. At this point, some weather had caught up with us so you couldn't really see the mountains very well. A second pass that we took inside of Austria (Fern Pass) was much more scenic as we managed to escape the weather for a short time.

This is Aaron at Fern pass with the mountains in the background.
Finally, after 10 hours in the car, we arrived in Reutte. Reutte is small town that Kelly discovered when she was living in Munich. From town, you can walk up the mountain to the ruins of a castle. After checking into the fantastic little pension Kelly found, we drove to the trail leading up to the castle. Unfortunately, the "weather" had caught up with us and this is what we saw.
Not wanting to lug wet gear around Europe, we drove back to the pension. On the way, the skies cleared so we parked the car at a trailhead closer to the hotel and hiked up to the castle. Here are some of the photos we took from the ruins.

Aaron on top of the ruin.
A photo that I took.And this is how I took the photo :)
Walking up to the castle.
This gives an idea of the size (I am over on the left).
Aaron with a wall...
Aaron with the mountains.
Me with the ruins.
That night, we walked down to the Hotel Maximillian for dinner. They had just opened their restaurant after 6 months of renovations. We ended up being the second customers in the place. Kelly had very nice plate of pork and white spargel (asparagus) and I had the daily special that was a fantastic plate of mixed meats and sauerkraut. Yum!

Note that Aaron wrote the text :) He did a great job!

April 25, 2008, Reutte, Austria