God's Counry

After spending 2 days in Vienna including a tour of the schoenbrun Palace and attending the opera "The Magic Flute". We headed towards Marbach....but got side-tracked by this little very old town of Hallstadt. It is on a ledge at the foot of a mountain that has been mined for salt since 800 BC and on a beautful Lake called the Hallstadtersee. We fell in love and found an apartment on the lake and decided to stay the nite.....but by morning, we wanted to stay another....so we did. Breakfast on the edge of the lake in our backyard was cold cuts and bread that we had bought fresh was one of the highlights. We wandered the area on foot and did some shopping and found a little resturant a half a block from our apartment and had dinner again on the lake....but this time we had sauerkraut and potatoe duplings....makes you really feel like you are in Austria!!! By Saturday nite we were back in Marbach after touring several more lakes and quaint towns. Sunday Mother's Day Reudi and Karen took us to the Rhine Falls about a two hour drive on the German border....and then to Stein a Rhine another quaint town with beautiful paintings decorating the buildings and the town band playing in the market square for all the mothers.
Yesterday we drove back to Zurich and visited a friend of Gary's who took us by train up a mountain and on a 4.9 kilometer hike back down along a stream and into the town of Küsnacht and by boat back to Zurich and then by train back to his home in the suburbs. So it has been one beautiful day after another....I truely think this is God's Country!!!