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Austria and Hungary (24 December 2009 - 3 January 2010)

For the last few weeks pretty much all of Europe (including the UK) has been in the midst of the worst cold snap in years. Temperatures in parts of Poland were hitting -25C, and all modes of transport the continent over has been pretty much useless, not least of all air travel. In the days leading up to this trip, flights out of London were getting cancelled left, right, and centre and I was really doubting if the trip would even happen! Long story short, my flight out was one of the few to be unaffected - phew! The plan for this trip was for me to meet up with Katie who had been gallivanting around Europe for a week already to spend the first five nights in Innsbruck, Austria from where we could do a bit of snowboarding and tripping around the area in a hire car, followed by another five nights in Budapest, Hungary for New Year's and more road-tripping. As it turned out though, we ended up seeing much more than just Austria and Hungary!

 
 
Flying out of London I got a better idea of just how bad the snow and ice had been, and how lucky I was to be unaffected by it!
 
Within an hour this was the view - bring on the snowboarding! :)
 
This part of Austria is absolutely gorgeous and I've been aching for ages to see it. Unfortunately with it being winter it's not exactly postcard fodder right now.

 
After almost scraping mountaintops we descended into a valley for ten minutes of the most awesome turbulence I've ever experienced! Not one chick on the plane didn't let out a scream ;)
 
Innsbruck is home to about 100,000 and is an internationally renowned winter sports centre (it hosted the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics too).
 
 
My flight was the second of the day between London and Innsbruck; the first was cancelled due to ice on the runway (so again I say I was lucky to get here at all!). This little beastie will have had a hard time of it lately.
 
The view from our B&B, overlooking the edge of town and the Inn River.

 
 
Christmas Eve in Innsbruck - dead, apart from a few tourists! But nice with the Christmas lights everywhere. We had a good wander around and found a little local restaurant that does the best goulash - nom nom nom!
 
 

 
 
“Guten morgen” is German for “Good morning”, and every time I heard it I thought someone was calling my name hehe.
 
Christmas Day - pissing with rain. We took our time over breakfast hoping the rain would ease up.
 
Holy cheese Batman!

 
 
I'm not sure exactly what this was - some sort of pate.
 
Whatever it was it looked funny, smelled funny...
 
...and tasted funny. I love random foreign food :)

 
 
Despite the weather we had another good wander round to check the place out by day.
 
Always a McDonalds, everywhere!
 
Every day, millions of vegetables are killed by Vegetarians. Stop the carnage... Eat meat!

 
 
Little Red Riding Hood, on the side of a building...
 
Rapunzel, with her long hair hanging from the top of a building...
 
And an advent calendar building hehe - nice!

Everything always looks nicer in summer!


 
 
The artist at work ;)
 
Hehehe!
 
Yup, we were bored!

 
 
Boxing Day - much better weather! We picked up a hire car for the next three days and headed west out of Innsbruck.

 
 
It didn't start out too snowy, but before long we were well up in the mountains and the temperature was rapidly dropping.
 
Every village and town we passed through seemed to have a church - every one!

 
Gran Turismo tunnel!
 
That's pretty much just ice on the road hehe.

 
 
90 minutes and about a hundred photos later we reached St Anton am Arlberg, and it was a balmy -5 outside! St Anton is a village 100kms west of Innsbruck and home to just 3,000. It is a prominent ski resort some 1,300m above sea level and was highly recommend to me by several people as being the best spot in the area for skiing.

 
 
Nice! I've done a bit of skiing before but never snowboarding, and I figured now would be as good a time as any to take it up :) Being a first timer without lessons and with somewhat dubious travel insurance, this was as high as I dared go hehe.
 
Unfortunately, Katie's camera is crap, and all but the one photo above-left came out blurry!

 
 
My camera on the other hand is awesome, and I got some beauts of Katie upright...
 

...and sprawled on her ass.


 
 
Over the course of the day we both took some immense tumbles hehe, and inevitably at least one of us was going to end up in the doctor's surgery. Fortunately for me (the driver), it was Katie.
 
Nothing was broken but she was €350 lighter for the experience. Ouch!

 
Being the very supportive man that I am, I let her go to the doctor's on her own while I stuck at it up the mountain hahaha! By the time darkness was falling I was getting the hang of it really well, and was quite pissed when we all had to leave. I'll be doing that again sometime!
 
-7, nice! So Katie got back in the car with an almost-busted wrist, an almost-busted tailbone after landing on it one too many times, and various other strains and sprains. As for me, I had a sore left arm after a run-in with the fucking ski lift thing, a sore right knee after landing on it a bit hard, and a sore left ass cheek after landing on that even harder. For the next few days, we were both totally buggered ;)

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Page Comments


that tunnel is out of the beginning of Quantum of Solace in the car chase scene i swear
- davydd (aka dave)