Lovely Vienna

Thurs. Sept. 24th

We arrived in Vienna, the Capitol of Austia yesterday afternoon. We had a wonderful time with our hosts Kristin and Dieter Dworzak. They live in Freilassing, Germany which is approximately 8 miles from Salzburg. They took us sightseeing on Sat. and Sunday and then we were on our own for a couple of days. On Monday we rode the bus to Salzburg and spent the day wandering around town. Again, there is so much history everywhere you go in Europe. I can see why the U.S. is considered "young" in relation to the rest of the world. Tues. we borrowed Kristin and Dieter's bikes and rode to a quaint town, about 2 hours from their home. Austria and Germany have wonderful bike trails throughout the countryside and you see young, old and middle aged people riding bikes. Even though we are glad to be taking in some of the famous cities, we've decided that our favorite thing to do is recreat. I can see why people come to Europe to do bicycle and hiking adventures. The Bavarian Alps are breathtaking. We have also been blessed with good weather; comfortable temps. for walking the streets. We understand that the P.N.W. is experiencing an Indian Summer.
Today we are off to explore the city center of Vienna. Our host Kristin helped us to find a hotel in the heart of the city. How convenient for us that it is located directly next to a Starbucks coffee shop. I must say that it's been nice to see a bit of home. We did buy a city guide book but I wished that we had our faithful companion Rick Steves along on this leg of the journey as his writings have been so helpful.
I also must commend Eric for doing a terrific job mapping out our itinerary. He also has a keen sense of time and a good internal GPS as I tend to be a bit navigationally challenged, especially when I am hot and tired.
Tomorrow we head for Prague on the train to spend our last three days in Europe. The Lord has been good to us with many wonderful experiences and conversations with people along the way.

Until later,
Kathy and Eric