September 16, 2018. Salzburg to Mittersill Castle. 45 Kilometers.

We met the group at dinner last night--it seems that our dinners are going to be very long and drawn out. Also very good!  We met this morning to drive out of Salzburg in the van. We are a small group. Here are Cheryl and Rudy from Guelph, Ontario.

Diana and I showed our DCC colors today!

Tim and Carrie live in Atlanta, but are originally from Cleveland, Ohio.

Our tour leaders and owners of Tradnatura Sports are Marietta and Peter from Budapest Hungary.

We were all ready to go, but apparently the van wasn't. I'm not sure what Marietta did, but the next time Peter turned the key it started!

We drove out of Austria, into Germany, and back into Austria. We were never stopped at the border.  We got out of the van at the Saalach River Valley. The bikes are very well maintained, 3-chain ring 8 gear hybrids with aggressive tires. They are perfectly suited to this ride.

We rode along bike paths when we were close to the highway. We stopped at a cafe for kuchen, strudel and coffee. Soon we were on small country lanes meandering through farmland.

We could see the snow on the mountains ahead of us. We will be going there tomorrow.

There were a bunch of old guys flying model airplanes--just like at home!

We shared our narrow path with cars and many other bikes. Marietta told us that bicycling is the biggest tourist attraction in all of Austria. I can see why!

We stopped at Zell am See lake and then rode partway around it. Marietta and Peter told us that most times the tour stops before this point, but we were ahead of our time frame so we continued. Finally Peter said it was time to stop riding because we still had to drive up to our lodging.

We arrived at Schloss Mittersill, a castle that is recorded as being here as early as 1050. It may have been built before then, but that is the earliest mention of it in local history books. We were ushered into a lush reception area and served champagne while we registered and showed our passports.

There was a slight glitch when they showed us to our room--there was only one bed! When the young woman asked if this was okay we told her no, it was not okay. Apparently all the rooms here have one bed. However within minutes housekeeping was here magically turning the couch into a bed--it is not like any convertible couch I have ever seen... this is the view out our window.

There is a spa and pool here. We went for a swim but did not have time to make use of the spa before it was time to get ready for dinner.

Dinner was a lavish four course meal with multiple choices for each course. I had local salad, bouilliabaise  for the soup course, lamb chops and polenta as a main entree, and creme brulee for dessert! I guess we're not going to lose any weight on this trip!