After Italy I travelled into Austria next. While on the journey into the country, the landscape changed from flat to beautiful very quickly. This was my first experience in the Alps. I love mountains.

A view from the border.

I visitied Salzburg and Wien (Vienna) and these were fine cities for day trips (Salzburg is particularly touristy, cashing in big time on Mozart's unhappy years there). My favorite Austrian town was an amazing discovery off a little regional line.

My hostel was directly next to a little waterfall. I was so happy falling asleep to the sound of water. As I walked towards the nearby mountain, I was just amazed that a pretty town like this exists. This is on my list of places to go on my honeymoon trip.

I rode a cable car (nail-biting time!) up to the top of a mountain overlooking the valley where Halstatt is found and took this photo from the edge of a cliff.

My last stop in Austraia was the town of Bregenz, where a huge outdoors opera stage sits on a lake.

Austria is the traditional Germany that Germany left behind long ago. I discovered a couple outdoors concerts, this particular oompah-band was just down the sidewalk from the entrance to the lakeside opera stage.

Bregenz seemed to have quite a bit of cultural awareness.

and some bad cultural habits (eww, how very Bavarian!).