We drove through the Lungau region of Salzburg at the start of our trip home. Beautiful area, not as mountainous, but lots of up and down driving at first.
Stopped in the town of Tamsweg on the recommendation of one of the guests of our B & B, who said there's a shop in town known for its selection of farmer-produced meats and cheeses. Sure enough, we found the place and bought an assortment of stuff for a later picnic lunch.
Tamsweg
Outside a bookstore in Tamsweg
Soon we left Salzburg and entered Styria, yet another of the Austrian federal states. We drove through the Mur Valley, a hot spot (or maybe I should say cold spot?) of winter sports. It being summer, though, I discovered another popular sport: motorcycle touring. I saw more motorcyclists, solo and in groups, than on any other leg of the trip. And it is a beautiful ride, the road paralleling the Mur River.
We stopped in a small town to eat lunch. We found a parking lot adjacent to a small wooden bike-pedestrian bridge that crossed the Mur, which was rolling pretty swiftly along. There was a little grassy area so we sat down and had a nice lunch, including our first taste of the bread we'd made yesterday in the wood-fired oven. Not. Bad!
Lunch. Pepper encrusted sausage, garlic encrusted sausage, and B's loaf of bread from the previous day at the Schule am Berg. Note elaborately-constructed letter B on the loaf, signifying claim of ownership. But in a startling example of socialism, I too ate from the loaf.
About an hour outside Vienna, we hit a tremendous thunderstorm. The kind of storm that makes you pull off the highway, which we and dozens of other people did. Sat there a while until things let up---but watching the crazy bastards zip past us, rushing headlong toward something unknown, was kind of sobering. There are no shortages of dumb-assess on this planet, I assure you.
Got home about 5:30 and spent the rest of the evening, and the next day, doing exactly NOTHING.
