Through the Alps

 

The last two weeks I took a much needed break from blogging. Those two weeks were very busy - I got a lot done and feel that I did get accomplished quite a bit.

In my last post about our trip we had just crossed the border from Liechtenstein into Austria. We stayed the night in Übersaxen, a small town in Vorarlberg. We had a delicious meal here of Cordon Bleu with Bratkartoffeln (left) and Ungarisches Rindsgulasch (Hungarian beef goulash, right), accompanied by some local beer. That, of course, is for Elizabeth and Bleubeard's T Tuesday.

The next morning we left after a wonderful breakfast (unfortunately I forgot to take pictures) and took a route through the Alps. We first hit Stubenpass and then Arlbergpass to get into Tirol (Tyrol). Those passes are fantastic mountain roads. In the picture below you can see how the road winds up along the mountain.

Austrians are just as skilled road builders as the Swiss.

We eventually reached Kaunergrat and walked out onto the platform to enjoy the view - which would have been spectacular if there would have been less clouds.

Nevertheless, we had a nice view of the valley with the river Inn running through it. From here, I saw the village of Prutz where I spent a three week vacation with my parents and bother when I was 9 years old - I could even make out the house where we had rented our vacation appartment at that time (red arrow). It was called "der Turm" (the tower) because it had a square form with a four-sided tapered roof. The view to the other side into the direction of Landeck was just as nice and a road that we often travelled during that vacation.

This was a wonderful little excursion down memory lane, and since we were making our own memories, it was time for a family photo (with Prutz in the background).

The destination we wanted to reach that afternoon was the Campanile di Curon in the Reschensee or Lago di Rèsia which is in Südtirol (South Tyrol), an autonomous province in Italy.

This bell tower is the only visible remains of the village that was buried here under water when three lakes - Lago di Rèsia, Lago di Curon, and Lago di San Valentino alla Muta - were joined together to form one big artificial lake. Curon Venosta was the name of the old town that was demolished and flooded soon after World War II. The bell tower is more than 700 years old and was restored in 2009. It serves as an imortant historic symbol for the region.

But what is happening here?

Sorry, I'm afraid you must endure the weirdness of the Bartz family.

As you can see, we thoroughly enjoyed being with our daughter and letting our weird side shine.

This tower has been photographed a million times, so I tried to find new POVs.

Not too successful, I'm afraid. So let's stick with family photos of which we took many. When you haven't seen your child for almost two years and you don't know when you will see her again, you take advantage of every opportunity to take pictures together.

And since it is Halloween today and Día de los Muertos tomorrow, my Talavera Frida will make an appearance here.