So apologies to anyone who has been waiting in vain for a photos to appear here and wondering why we have ignored you – sorry and here you all are!!

Special mention to Anthony for being our youngest rider yet on his first trip abroad and ‘lovin’ it! To Sandra & Adrian for being just such jolly good fun (despite a small tendency towards getting lost), to Claudio and Tatiana for forcing us to get on with translating some of our stuff into at least pidgin Italian and adding a bit of Russian to boot and especially to Sue, who came for one night, accepted our invitation to join us on a ride out and ended up staying rather longer while the broken bits of her bike were replaced. Sorry for your mishap Sue but loved your company!

Apart from our biker guests we were also very pleased to have a number of delegates fro the Art & Symmetry Kongress in Gmünd – sadly we didn’t have time ourselves to see much of the event but here is a link to some stunning photos from the event.

Der neuer Schuljahr ist hier – aber die Urlaubszeiten sind noch nicht vorbei! Im Herbst können wir unserern Gästen warme Tagen und leere Wanderwege und Panoramastraßen noch anbieten. Schauen Sie einfach unsere Lastminute Angebote an um den Sommer ein Bißchen zu verlängern!

said goodbye to the folks at the Donkey Park (with a quick last trip to the Anti Stress Bench!)

and just in case she thought that was it… we shovelled a whole load of wood pellets that had been delivered for the heating and were about to get rained on!!

It seems very strange here without her, but just in case she thought we might be pining…. here’s a couple of photos of the Nockalm trip we did today (including one of Leigh who thinks we don’t have enough of him on these blogs!)

Miss you Jane – come back soon!

Six of our biking guests came along with everyone ready for a 9 am start, thanks guys.   It takes about an hour and a half from our place to the toll booths.   I promise nobody will mind, the roads are wonderful, lots of sweeping bends and little traffic.   Just above Heillingenblut the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse proper begins, a quick stop to exchange our vouchers for 15 day passes (free!) and we were away.  First stop the Franz Josefs Höhe to look at the glacier and impossibly fat marmots.   Then on to the Edelwiessspitze for lunch.  Because of the weather it was really busy but you can always find room to park bikes  (have a look at the video).    It would take someone better with words to describe the views, you just have to have been there.    All I can say is that despite everyone being hungry we spent the first half hour taking photos or just staring, trying to take it all in.     We had lunch at 2571 metres above sea level and we needed the shade of umbrellas.    We always advise guests to take something warm for this trip as it can be cool up there even on good days.  Not today, it feels like a warm summers day in England.  And we are almost twice as high up as the summit of Ben Nevis!

Lunch over we head on down, more great tarmac and the truly amazing sight of cyclists overtaking cars into the hairpin bends.    At the end of the Grossglockner we stop to  remind the others that whilst they are on holiday we are not.  We have to get back to prepare the barbecue, they only have to get back in time to eat it.   Without the need to shepherd the others we could make a better pace and with the route back taking us over the B99 fun was on the agenda.    Finish off a day like this with a barbecue and it’s as good as it gets.   Especially as when cooking the food I am allowed a beer, normally that does not happen until every guest has been fed.     A day to remember!

John

So here we go…

Jane’s stay with us is drawing to a close (boo, hoo) but there are still a lot of things on her list that she hasn’t done, so its going to be a packed week! Today she is at the Pankratium in Gmünd – a not-to-be-missed experience – and has taken our newest arrivals, Adrian and Sandra with her. Later in the week she is off to do the Grossglockner on the back of John’s bike when he takes this week’s group out. Finally she intends to cook us all (staff included) a curry – can’t wait for that – it’s been sooooo long since we had one!

Our Conference group are certainly attracting some attention in the village – especially our 6 Japanese guests. They are all very ‘techie’ minded of course (not just the Japanese – all of them) so our Wi-Fi is coming in very useful, especially as they can sit outside and log on!

We were sorry to say goodbye to our Bedworth family, but will certainly be able to keep up with them via Facebook. The 2 boys were real stars and Jane intends to use her work contacts back home to make sure their respective Headteachers learn just what delightful pupils they have in their schools – well there aren’t many perks to her job other than her contacts after all! We are especially pleased that the links they made with our Roumanian family are being followed through – who knows what that might lead to in the future for these children?

Sadly have to finish today’s post with a note of frustration. As we were heading into Spittal to do the shopping today, Jane and I took Adrian and Sandra with us and dropped them off in town to explore. Thinking they would use their time wisely, they popped into the main Tourist Office for our ‘Bezirk (equivalent of County really) to get some ideas about what to see and do – only to be told that there was no information there about the Malta Valley or Gmünd – why didn’t they think about the lakes areas instead! To say they – and we – were gobsmacked would be an understatement! Let’s hope my ‘disgusted of Malta’ E Mail to the mayor gets an appropriate response!