Moving day, this time by car!  With the bitter memory of Van-al-Dente still fresh in my memory, Dave and I made our way early this morning to the Zurich airport to pick up our rental car for the next week.  I got to ride the funicular down the mountain!  (hands-up, how many of you had to Google “funicular”?)  LouAnn stayed at the house and tackled once again the mysterious problem of our shrinking luggage space.  This time the car was much more reasonably-sized, and Dave and I had no problem navigating out of the parking garage without hitting any barriers or people.  We made our way back to the Walls house, and somehow, miraculously, managed to stuff all our stuff into the back of our sporty Opel station wagon.  After lots of hugs from the Walls gang, we were on our way to Salzburg – off like a herd of turtles!  Having successfully followed most of Zurich’s weird traffic laws (in certain cases, you get to turn left in front of oncoming traffic, as they owe YOU the right-of-way?), we hit the highways and motored towards Austria.

Driving through the mountains was gorgeous.  We must have stopped at almost every gas station between Zurich and the border, as I had heard ominous stories about driving in Austria without the required “vignette” sticker on your windshield.  We finally found one just before we hit Austria – we were legal!  You could tell we were all starting to relax as we crossed over from Switzerland into Austria – from strict speed limits to virtually NO speed limits!  So I got to TopGear it a bit on the Austrian Autobahn…..

Rest stops are a bit hard to come by (we miss the ubiquitous Italian “AutoGrills”), but once we hit Austria we stumbled upon the GREATEST REST STOP OF ALL TIME!  The amazing Trofana Tyrol (http://www.trofanatyrol.at)  It is a huge multi-building complex with a restaurant, gas station, two gift shops, a huge, outdoor playground with trampolines and ziplines, waterfalls, amazing mountains in all directions…..we nearly decided to just spend the whole week there.

We somehow pulled ourselves away and rolled into Salzburg about 8:00 that evening.  The Bloberger Hof was even better than we remembered it from our stay there 19 years ago.  It was wonderful and nostalgic as we checked in with Inge – the same owner – and she showed us to our awesome dormer-room apartment, complete with kitchen, plenty of beds, balcony, and beautiful views of the surrounding mountains.  We unpacked and turned in, with the windows open and the cool mountain breeze coming in.  End of a long travel day!

Headed down the funicular, to catch the tram, to go to the airport, to pick up the car.

Goodbye Walls family!

Said car.  Which we would end up having for THREE weeks instead of ONE.

Road-trip picnic.  On the lawn beside a gas station.  CLASSY.

Austria!

Greatest rest-stop in the world!

Driving through the Arlberg Tunnel in Austria, the 4th-longest tunnel in the world at 8.7 miles!

LouAnn’s first apple strudel in Austria!

Trampolines!

And ziplines!

Our first dinner in Austria?  McDonald’s.

At last!  Bloberger Hof!

Our apartment

From our balcony.