Germany, Austria and Venice

After a long bus trip from Paris to Munich , I met my family and was introduced to Doris, the rental motorhome.

Germany
We headed to the small town of Dachau outside of Munich and visited the Dachau concentration camp. It was the Nazis first detainment camp started in 1933 to hold political prisoners and then used as a concentration camp during the war. The memorial is very moving. The pictures and film they show bring tears and to think that it all happened only 60 so years ago can not be believed. Man's inhumanity to man can not be understood in any way shape or form.
As Mum and Dad had already travelled through much of Germany, we pointed Doris towards Austria. We will be returning to Germany later on to travel around it some more, before flying to Dublin from Dusseldorf.


Austria
We crossed into Austria over the Alps towards Salzburg, the city of Mozart and the setting for "the Sound of Music". Sam, my little brother spent the night with his Austrian friend, Mesi who was recently in Australia on a rotary exchange. They had the best time, went out on the town that night and spent the day together.
Mum, Dad and I wandered around Salzburg and really enjoyed our time there. I went to see the walled old town and Castle, which, at some of the oldest places dated back to the 950 AD. It totally blew my mind to be standing in such an ancient place and I could almost imagine what dark age life in this town would have been like.
While I was at the castle, Mum and Dad visited a little church built into a cave over 1500 years ago.
After a day sightseeing we went and picked Sam up and had afternoon tea with Mesi's parents in their beautiful 400 year old home. It has been passed down to the family through the generations.

We then travelled on into the Salzkammergut, a craggy mountain range with glacier- carved lakes. Stopped off at the delightful village of Lofer where we spent the morning, visited the popular holiday destination of Zellamsee and then onto Hallstatt which was absolutely stunning. The quaint little town clings to the base of the precipitous mountains on the shores of the magnificent Lake Hallstattersee. You enter the village by tunnel through the cliffs. The town and surrounding area are UNESCO World Heritage listed and are the place where the Ancient Celts first originated. Again I am almost overwhelmed to be in such an ancient land as I try to imagine all that may have occurred in this very place over the centuries. We stayed the night there, and as we watched the sun disappear behind the mountains, reflecting over on this majestic lake, we had to pinch ourselves as it all seemed so unreal. I am struck in Awe by the greatness of the Creator God.

The next day we went to the Austrian Base for Torchbearers (Capenwray), a Christian International organisation which run bible schools, retreats and adventure holidays of skiing, mountain climbing, caving etc. We spent the night and met some very interesting people including another Aussie who has been teaching there for the past 7 years. It was great to meet some other christina guys and girls my age.
We said goodbye to our new friends and headed right down through the middle of Austria into Italy towards Venice. We will be returning to Austria in a few weeks again to visit Vienna
Italy and Venice
After many hours driving, we arrived at a village on a small peninsular in Northern Italy opposite Venice, where we parked our motorhome and stayed for the night. The next day we left the motorhome there and only had to walk 6oo metres the ferry terminal to catch a ferry across to Venice.
We loved our time in Venice, travelled the waterways on the waterbus, visited little shops selling the most beautiful masks and Venetian glass and wandered up tiny winding cobbled streets so narrow that you could stretch out your arms and touch the buildings on both sides of the street.
Venice is actually made up of 118 islands. We travelled by boats up many of the canals and visited some of the main tourist spots. The Basilica di San Marco in the Piazza San Marco was fascinating as it was finished in1094 although embellished over the years. Many of the old buildings were all lopsided in the Piazza and even the pavements have sunken areas where foundations have moved. We enjoyed seeing Venetian glass made and shaped by artisans – they were making a chandelier when we were there. They used cobalt to colour the glass blue, manganese to colour it red and copper for the green shades
Venice is truly unique and we are so glad that we came to see it.

Back on the road again, around the coast via Trieste and then on into Eastern Europe.