A Grand Hotel indeed

A grand entrance if ever I saw one

My first trip to Zell am See and I discovered the Grand Hotel whilst strolling along the lakeside 

Oh to be standing at the foot of those steps on a balmy summers night, 

stars twinkling in an inky black sky, 

music drifting from open windows, 

hushed voices carried on the breeze

champagne glasses glinting in the candlelight

laughter, footsteps, dancing...................... 

Hmmm maybe I need to revisit in the summer.  

An Evening in Salzburg

No words, just pictures 

Bad Ischl and Cafe Konditerei Zauner

I was told that a visit to Bad Ischl would not be complete without a trip to Zauner's and so it would have been rude not to go. 

If the cakes are as pretty as the outside what am I waiting for 

How to choose?  

Sheer opulence - chandeliers with cake? 

Tradition means to perpetuate the fire and not adoration of ashes - Gustav Mahler 

Well I was celebrating a rather special purchase 

People watching from here seems like a plan. Cake and Prosecco helps 

Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes. (Mary Martin)

Sometimes dreaming isn't enough. Sometimes that dream grows and nags away at you until there comes a day when you simply cannot ignore it any longer. Too many signs appear to tell you that the dream you harbour can be more than a dream. Too many friends and family are lost before they ever have the opportunity to try to reach their own  dreams and you start to think that you really should do something about fulfilling a long held dream. And then comes that fateful day when your whole being shouts YOU HAVE TO DO THIS.

This is what happened to me when David and I got together. Suddenly, out of the blue whilst driving back from a weekend at his home in Wales he said that he was dreaming of living in Germany. Well somebody might have just as easily slapped me across the face because   my soul shuddered and I was awake. Burying my dreams to deal with everyday life did not mean that it was no longer there. Many times over the years that dream had surfaced during my quiet times but whenever I mentioned it to anybody they laughed and said "there you go again, off into Lala land"

And so there it was again. "Let's do it" I said "OK" he said and that was it we had decided. So why has it taken us a further 2 years to get there?  Well I suppose it is because we are both planners! I am a control freak and I want to know what I am letting myself in for.

This wasn't a pipe dream for either of us. After all we had both studied German, we had both been longing to live in the Mountains of the Austrian/German border area for so long. We knew that, together, we could make this dream come alive.

And so we set off on our Adventure which was to become an Austrian adventure sooner than we realised.