Week 34: Biking the Traunsee

I have waited a long time to use this week’s song. Since spring, I counted the days until the roses filled the garden, the leaves grew back on the trees, and we had clear blue skies with at least one rainbow. Over this last week, I captured slice-of-life moments that make this song so perfect.

Yesterday was supposedly “National Red Rose Day” and the fact it is also Father’s Day weekend in Austria & the week leading up to Father’s Day in America makes it doubly perfect, because it was my father-daughter song at our wedding!  

The rose garden.

This week was a very active one. We had our 4th rowing class and rowed for 3.5 miles. I finally got the hang of the rowing technique with the oars. The instructors on day one said the mechanics of rowing takes years to perfect, so the fact that we somewhat have the motion down is a win for us. At the :25 second mark in our video, you can see Eric and I carrying the boat out of the boat house. We have one more class and then we get to be members of the club and can go rowing anytime we want.

Saturday we went on a 16.5 mile bike ride along the Traunsee. Eric and I have not ridden a bike in a very long time. We picked up our E-bikes from a rental location just a few minutes away and then set out for our two hour ride.

We biked the first quarter of the way and then stopped at Spitz Villa for lunch. One of the most beautiful terraces on Lake Traunsee. After lunch, we kept going until we reached Ebensee – the opposite end of the lake. 

Our lunch spot.

On our way back towards home, we stopped for ice cream in Traunkirchen at Cafe Johannsberg.

Our ice cream view.

Last but not least, Eric and I passed our level 1 German class this week! We will begin level two next week. It is a very hard language to learn, but rewarding to be able to understand and communicate in another language.