Arrividerci Italia, Servus Austria

Yesterday we said good-bye to Italy

We made our way into Austria via the train to Udine (say 'ooo-deen-ee') and bus to Villach. You know you are out of Italy because all the words have no 'aahs' and 'ees' at the end of them. You say "whata are you talking abouta"?

Anyways, it's always a bit tougha to leave Italy, but happy for Pete especially to greet his motherland after a six year absence.

Here's a few last pics of Italy before we left. I know you may be tired of all the fuss, but pleasa bear with me! I can assure you there's lots of Austria to share.

Someone sad to see us go...

The view of our B&B backyard in Opacina 

Breakfast treats 

Ok, so now we can move on to the beautiful country of Austria, birthplace of Pete's dad and still family home for his aunt and cousins. This place is also very familiar to us - although we decided to try a new city overnight on our way to Salzburg - the next few pictures are of our hotel in Villach.

When I booked this hotel a few months ago, I thought it would be nice to be able to swim there after what might be a hot journey from Italy. A  few days later I went on to their website only to discover that the private beach was actually a nudist beach. Fortunate or not for us, we had our swimsuits with us... and as it turned out the only swimmers we glimpsed were a few swans on the lake!

One lone nudist swan 😎

View from our hotel room

Another lone swan

Pete looking for the swans... or so he said!