Saturday

We took the dogs to the Feuerkogel and hiked to The Europakreuz.

This is the mountain where Eric broke his finger and we had not been back since. This was pretty silly of us though, because the views from the top in the summer are amazing and should definitely be seen.

We were able to see one of our favorite mountain lakes, Langbathsee, from above.

There are up to 50km of hiking trails at the Feuerkogel, but the one we chose to follow was the trail to the Europakreuz (Europe cross). The Europakreuz is one of the most popular hiking destinations. The cross is composed of individual cubes and each cube symbolizes an EU member state.

Each cube is labeled with the name of the state it symbolizes and a single stone from each country is built into the inside of the cube.

The stone from Austria is from the St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna.
The stone from Germany is a piece from the Berlin Wall, which we got to see in week 77.

The stones from the other EU countries have an equally interesting historical significance.

After a morning on the mountain, we spent the afternoon at the dogs training school. This was our 9th class with the trainer and the task for the day was to work on our manners around other dogs. To our surprise and frustration, Charlie and Daisy remained calm the whole time. They were able to walk past other dogs, lay next to them, and be relaxed even when the other dogs would weave around them. We are 99% sure they were just exhausted from the hike and knew they were in school, so they were on their best behavior. Regardless, we were happy they had a good session.

We finished off our Saturday celebrating National Dog Mom Day!

Tilley, the brand we have talked about briefly, mailed us a package last week!! It was a package to help celebrate Mother’s Day and was filled with a bucket hat, hiking socks, and an outdoorsy candle! As you can see, the candle made a little appearance in this photo. The socks were worn in the hiking video. Sadly, the hat was a little too small…or maybe my head is just a little too big 🤪

Sunday (today)

We went to Bad Ischl. Halfway between our home in Gmunden and the famous Hallstatt. High above the town of Bad Ischl is the Katrin Mountain.

For some reason, we have not explored this area, but will for sure be back soon. The charming 4-seater cable cars takes about 15 minutes to reach the top.

Once we reached the top, we walked for about 10 minutes until we were at the trail to the Katrin Klettersteig.

Eric’s 31st birthday is next weekend and we are heading to Slovenia, so the recap will come a day or two after our regularly scheduled Sunday post.