Chris and I talked about a little getaway from Vienna. We knew we wanted to see the mountains near Salzburg and Innsbruck. Should we take a train? Or rent a car and wander? Should we stay in town with a train station and walk to everything? Or go somewhere that needed a car? We did some searching on Airbnb and we decided to rent a car and wander.
We rented a car and we had no idea what we would get. In the US, when you rent mid-size you sometimes end up with a clown car. One time in Las Vegas we rented a convertible to drive to the Hoover Dam. The car we thought we were getting was a Mustang convertible. But they ended up “upgrading” us to a Mazda Miata. The problem was we were going to drive all day and keep our luggage in the trunk before our red eye flight back to Florida. Well, ONE of our suitcases (and we had two) didn’t even begin to fit in the trunk of the Miata!
But this rental experience was much better – we ended up with a Ford C-Max. Here we are in Austria and we end up with an American car! And the tags were from Germany. So we could drive slow and everyone behind us would say “They are on holiday from Germany – go around those slow pokes!”
Our cute little Ford C-Max – and I was excited it was blue! Blue is my favorite car color.
If you haven’t used Airbnb before then you need to check it out! We have used other home rental websites before but this was our first time renting through Airbnb.
We found an apartment on a farm in Weyregg am Attersee, Austria. The apartment was quiet and it has a balcony with an amazing view! We were able to buy fresh eggs and milk from the farm, too.
Look at the view from our balcony:
Chris and James soaking up the view and the cold fresh mountain air:
Walking around the farm – look at those mountains behind Chris! They were just amazing!
I met some new friends on the farm:
We decided to head down into town (our apartment and farm were up on the mountain about 20 minutes from Weyregg am Attersee) and we saw this great picnic spot:
We actually spotted another Standard Poodle while walking around the lake! I was SO excited to see her that I was practically jumping for joy. And James was mirroring my excitement. I think we scared the sweet Silver Poodle a little with all of our energy. And in my excitement, I forgot to take a photo.
James quickly forgot about his new friend and wanted to chase ALL of the birds – especially the swans.
Chris and James then spotted Palm Beach! Palm Beach in Weyregg am Attersee! There were no palm trees. And it is winter here in Austria so the swimming area was locked up for the season.
The swimming area had diving platforms and a large grassy lawn for sunbathing. I’m sure this town is packed in the summer time! We were actually enjoying the quiet of the off season even though it was chilly.
It wasn’t too chilly for the windsurfers, kite boarders and scuba divers though. We stopped at a park on the way back home to watch the windsurfers and WOW was it windy and cold! Chris thought the windsurfing looked like fun. I told him to watch them when they fell down and see what it was like to get back up. My dad and I took windsurfing lessons when I was a teenager and it was HARD! I remember getting stuck on the other side of the lake because I fell and couldn’t pick my sail back up and get going again. And the scuba divers were a surprise the first time we saw them coming out of the water! Apparently Attersee is a popular lake for scuba divers with an average depth of 85 meters (279 feet).
When we got back up to the farm we took a walk over to a little church nearby. It was cold and starting to rain:
We were in Weyregg am Attersee in the winter so we knew we would probably get a lot of chilly rain and maybe even some snow. The snow wasn’t really sticking but it was pretty:
James tends to eat the snow like it won’t be there tomorrow (and it wasn’t sadly):
One morning I was trying to take a video of the pretty snowy sunrise view and all I could hear on the few videos I shot was “slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp…” hahaha! Silly Poodle!