After visiting the Austrian capital of Vienna, Andy and I have made promises to visit our police officer friend Roland in the southern region of Villach. Villach is a mountainous town like Canmore, Alberta residing at the base of many of Austria's Bavarian mountains. Roland has gotten a day off from his work on Friday and we have plans to meet him at the local train station from our morning long journey through the whole country and then into Bavaria. We have spent the day catching up and then eventually drove north to see his sister and his parents who live in the hills in a traditional style Austrian Bavarian house.Their family were excited to meet us and have given us a place to sleep for the weekend. Over the course of the next few days, we had many exciting things to see such as climbing a couple of mountains, taking a tour on the diagonal mountain train which later took us through 1.5 km into a mountain resembling a hotel-cafe mountain house up high on the plateau. This was indeed a fresh air quiet beautiful area in which the three of us had lunch and celebrated peace and great friendships.
Another day we had a chance to take an elevator up on a very high communication tower which lets people see the whole region and the towns / farmland / mountains the filled the valley views. It certainly felt like it was being on the top of the world. Later after suffering from mild reddish sunburns, we found a nice spot on the beach of a huge lake which provided a refreshing swim and a chance to show off from the swimming diving board into the lake.
Roland's family was great as his mother and father provided us with home cook meals with lots of local food such as cheese and sausage meat. We even had the chance to walk and drive around checking out the marvelous landscapes that made Villach a lively beautiful Bavarian place to live.
It was sure a great weekend of memories and I will never forget the times I have spent with everyone there and got a chance to know them on a personal level. I hope one day that I will have free time to visit everyone again.
Click here to view the pictures from Villach and the southern region of Austria...
