Pam and I are sitting on our balcony and it is so peaceful - the sounds of water, ducks, birds, the odd person and that is about it.

Occasionally the peace is broken by a train on the other side of the lake or the ferry boat puttering across the lake to meet the train.

Today the sun is out so it makes it even more special, the last few days have been a bit cloudy.

We am really enjoying this!

The day has been overcast with a slight chill in the air - but not cold enough not to sit outside with a weiss beer overlooking the lake.

i have taken some nice photo's but still have no internet so can not upload any yet.

Last night's meal was in the hotel restruant and was not great.

Chris had a roast beef dish with onions and gravy and potatoes. The roast beef was overcooked and it was disapointing.

Pam had a local trout which was also overcooked - so two bad dishes. We won't be eating in the hotel restruant again.

On the bright side the breakfast (included with room) was very good. There was bacon + eggs, toast, ham, cheese, yogurt and cerials
and good bread.

All of the bread is great here - put's our bread in nz to shame.

Well back to my beer + book (lee child - 61 hours)

We arrived in Hallstatt - unfortunately the sun was not shining. The photos i took while on the ferry from the train station on the other side of the lake will not be that great.

The hotel Seehotel Gruner Baum is definetly located on the lake front. Our room is 203 which is on the second floor (no lift).

The room is very tidy and spacious, our balcony is about 16 square meters (huge) with a wonderful view over the lake.

Just had a Gin and now we are going to checkout the town which looks pretty tiny.

ps: Pam did a flying leap off the train!

Today we are off to Hallstat - we are travelling by train - it takes about 4 hours abd we managed to get one with 0 connections.

The ticket cost was 40 euro each in second class.

Hallstat is a very picturesque location nestled on the edge of a lake.

We are staying in a room with a small balcony that overlooks the lake.

We are currently sitting at the train station waiting for our train.

We caught the subway to the end of the simmerring line and then a tram to the Zentralfriedhof cementry.

There is a lot of graves here - over 2.5 million.

Gruppe 32a is the musician area - there are Brahms, Beethoven, Strauss (multiple), Mozart and others that we do not know all within a few meters of each other.

The place is huge and very relaxing. There are lots of big trees and most of the graves have huge gravestones and lots of fresh flowers on them.

Well we had our first espresso at mq daily - we had it at the bar for 1 euro each - terrible reminds me of the rubbish coffee at work

we have a nice day in Vienna today - about 18c

There is amazing buildings everywhere - have taken a few photos - can't post any until we get a real Internet connection.

we are just sitting outside the Kunsthistorisches Museum giving my feet a rest.

There is a lot of tour buses around but the pace of life here is very relaxed.

I am hanging out for a coffee as I have not had one since leaving home. From what we have seen it is super expensive with an espresso costing 2.10 to 3.50 euro.

We caught the underground to the big saturday market in vienna.

it is a large market with lots of fresh vegetables and cheese and antipasti and flowers.

we stopped at a small restruant called Wurstwaren and had a Bratwurst and kasekreiner - very nice.

we bought too much cheese, some fruit and some radishes.

we are about to go back through the market now as Pam wants some pastry products.

like a lot of places you have to pay for the ointernet. I wrote a small blackberry application to allow me to update my travel blog while on the road,

i only got the correct code signing keys from blackberry while travelling.

Looks to be working by the looks of things.

Well we arrived in one piece in Vienna.

Quite a trip to get here

Christchurch - Sydney (2:40)
Wait (2:00)
Sydney - Bangkok (9:30)
Wait (1:00)
Bangkok - Dubai (6:00)
Wait (3:30)
Dubai - Vienna (5:50)

We then caught a bus from the airport to an underground station at Stephenplatz to the nearest station to our hotel.

We got in here about 2:45pm local time.

A quick shower and we went out and found a super market to buy some water and cheese. Cheese is cheap here.

We dropped off our drinks and went for a walk back to St Sehhenplatz.

It was getting quite cold here about 5-6 degrees by about 6pm a bit cooler than the 37 in Dubai.

We were going to go out for a meal but I had a bit of a headache and went back to the room to get some pills - that was te end of that.