Austria and more!

It is 7am in Bregenz Austria on Lake Constance (Bodensee) and we have woken to the lovely surprise of snow all around us. Yesterday was pouring with rain as we drove through Austria from Tirol to Voralberg then through the 6th smallest country in the world, Leichtenstein, and then skimmed through the edge of Switzerland then back to Austria to settle at this spot on the lake. Three countries in one day is not bad going, and considering Liechtenstein is only 25 km long and 6 km wide, it was not a hard feat. 

With the weather so wet the visibility has been bad and therefore I wasn't keen on traveling through much of Switzerland until I could actually see it since its famous scenic beauty is the reason we're here! We plan to make our way from here across Switzerland to Matterhorn to do another day of snow-boarding so fingers crossed as today gets older the visibility will also improve so we can continue on.

Our free camping spot right near the chair-lift in Obertauern, Austria. Snowboarding in Austria rocks!

After we left our pet-sitting job last week we headed to the Bavarian national park which borders the Czech Republic and is the largest national park in Europe. It was a perfect time of year there as the ground was still covered in snow. There's a wildlife park over a 7km loop track through the forest which included enclosures for bears, wildcats, wolves etc, basically all the animals which used to be found running wild in the forest but can now only be found in captivity, a bit sad but there was a success story about the Lynx's who's numbers increased in captivity and they were able to release a population back into the wild a few years ago.

All the signs were carved into wood

Tuesday we arrived in Salzkammergut Austria, I had been here before and so knew it was a spot Zac would love and was definitely worth visiting again. It was a funny feeling driving through Austria on some of the same roads I drove my motorbike on a few years earlier, awesome memories...

The inside of our van - unfortunately it doesn't usually look this tidy- and yes I went crazy at Ikea straight after I brought the van!

Thursday we popped across to Italy to have a pizza and Italian coffee in a town near Bolzano, but nearer the border,  where they still spoke German as well as Italian. It was the most awesome yummy pizza ever and my coffee was great except it was pint sized (a macchiato), apparently that's how they like it in Italy. The weather was beautiful and almost reached 30 degrees so we enjoyed our lunch and a beer outside in the sunshine.

Now off to Switzerland for more snowboarding and plenty more chocolate eating!