Venice to Ljubljana

From Venice we caught a bus that was to take us to Villach, Austria. I just have to say that the rides between countries were one of my very favorite things about this whole trip.

This ride took us through the Alps. Just a small section of some of the smaller mountains, but the Alps none the less. Here are a couple of pictures and a little video clip. (I wanted to take SO many more, but we got busy as you will see.)

While we were riding, a man came up to us and starting chatting in English. His name was Stephen and he is Austrian. (Austrian meaning Sound of Music, not Australian meaning Kangaroos and Hugh Jackman) Stephen and everyone else on our bus level were coming back from a cruise sponsored by their work. We spent the next 3 hours talking about the differences between our countries, the history of Austria and Germany, and anything else you can think of. They spoke English very well, even with their strong accents. I loved the sound of it and they really enjoyed practicing their English with us.

When we told him that we would eventually be visiting Vienna and Salzburg the whole bus erupted in German! Before we could say anything else they were planning our trip for us, they shuffled a paper around and everyone excitedly wrote down their favorite things to eat, see and do in both Vienna and Salzburg.  They gave us bus routes, restaurants to look up, desserts to try, phone numbers to call in case we had trouble. We were suddenly part of a big, Austrian Family! They argued back and forth in part English part German about what places were the best for us and what places should serve as our second choices, if we liked cake we should go to such and such, if we wanted to shop then we had to see this and that. There was was a fun park we could see - but on second thought, America is full of fun parks, so we shouldn't bother with it.... and on and on. It makes my heart happy to think about. They were so wonderful! We are excited to keep in contact with Stephen.

Here they are – our big, loud, excited Austrian family.

When bus pulled in to Villach and we said out good byes and caught a train that would take us to Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Most of the trains we rode were old like this one. This was a long train ride, but it gave us time to write some thoughts down about our trip thus far and look out the window at the country going by.