We arrived in Graz at 10:30pm last night.  So we checked into the hotel and retired for the night.  Today we went to breakfast then headed to the center of Graz to see the sites.  We toured around the old city and saw some landmarks, but the festival would not begin until the afternoon.  We then went back to the hotel to change into our dirndls. We then headed back to the festival in the old city.  We were able to see some of the opening ceremony but it had been lightly raining most of the day.  We stopped in a beer tent to get out of the rain and wind and of course had a drink. When the rain stopped we went touring the city again.  The festival gets into full swing tomorrow so some of the venues were not operational.  We did see some of the land marks and about 4pm it started to pour.  There was thunder and lightning and lots of rain. We were lucky because we were in the tourist info center.  After an hour we pulled on our ponchos and asked where to eat dinner.  We were directed to a great restaurant.  I had a blood sausage strudel- sounds awful but tastes great.  We all had a wonderful dinner and while we were eating the rain stopped so we set out sgain. We went to the main plaza where there was a lot of music and people. it was all great fun. We decided we would return to the festival when it opens at 10am and hopefully it will not rain. We take a train to Vienna after we leave the festival. I should mention it got cold. Tomorrow morning it is dupposed to be in the 50’s

We woke up to pouring rain and cold. We decided to go to Veitsch, Austria since Marsha worked with a woman who grew up there. We did a bit of backtracking and went to Graz since we were not exactly sure how to get to Veitsch. From Graz we took a train to Mitterdorf which is very close to Veitsch. We spent most of the day on trains which was OK since it was still rainy and cold. When we got to Mitterdorf we had to take a bus to Veitsch. Veitsch is a very small town and is known for it’s hiking trails and skiing. Since it was still raining we went into a store where the bus stopped to ask if the woman there is she could direct us to a place where we could stay for the night. She was so helpful – she called about 5 places and they were full. Just as we thought we would be homeless again the next place had a room for us. The wan who runs the pension came and picked us up! She then asked if we had eaten. We we didn’t Nd she told us she only did breakfast but she would take us to the corner store to get some food. We went to the little store and got sandwiches, drinks and snacks. She then took us to the pension and showed us our room. Again we really were lucky. The place was nice and homey. In the morning the rain stopped for a little while and we walked up the road a little just to see some of the town I took a few pics including one of the place we stayed. This whole place must be on Heidi alert all the time. For that matter, most of Austria must be on the Heidi alert too. We had a lovely breakfast at the pension The woman from the pension drove us to the Mitterdorf train station and we are now on a train to Vienna. We will take an overnight train (leaves at 8pm) to Frankfurt then change trains to go to Brussels then take the Chunnel train to London. We do not know until we get to London what we will do in the UK before we go to Ireland. Remember we had to change our itinerary because we needed to leave the Schengen countries. I had no wifi in Veitsch and when I can connect I’ll send this post.

OMG – we woke up to cold and rain. We went to a coffee shop for breakfast and by that time the rain let up. During the day it was either cloudy, windy and cold – 9 or 10 degrees C (45 to 50 degrees) or sunny and nice. We took a “Sound of Music” tour in the afternoon and it was terrific! First we went to the Mirabelle Gardens – see pics ( many more on my camera).

We then walked around the Old Town, but it was intermittent rain and tough to take pics. Them we went to the tour. Pics of scenery from the movie and the church where Maria married Captain von Trapp in the movie.

After we saw the church we stopped in a cafe for a coffee and tea and apple strudel with vanilla sauce. See pic.

We returned to town and went to a restaurant founded on 803 for dinner. They brought us bread and butter – the different breads and three butters were really good. I had boiled beef with creamed spinach and something similar stuffing. Marsha had pears with honey, lavender and goat cheese. See pics of restaurant and food.

We walked back to the hotel which helped because we were stuffed. We don’t know where we are going tomorrow. We will probably decide after we get to the train station and look at the schedules.

I’ll start in Graz. After our break we walked around town again. We saw folk dancers (see pic) and traditional folk music. I also forgot to mention we heard a national yodeler! We got dinner from one of the many, many food vendors. Marsha had some sort of boiled potato pancake with sauerkraut and I had the same but added some sort of sausage with horseradish and bread. See pic.

We had breakfast at the train station because there are shops all over with great pastries. Before we boarded the train we stopped in the post office at the train station and we were interviewed by someone from the train company who even offered us breakfast. We boarded the train to Salzburg. It was an Austrian train and they are very nice. It started to rain as we arrived in Salzburg and since we didn’t have reservations at any hotel went to find one. We decided to stay at the first one we checked and it is nice. The hotel plays the movie the “Sound of Music” on demand all day. Since it was raining hard we watched the movie. The scenery in the movie is what we saw from the train, only more spectacular in person. We are having trouble deciding in what country and city we should apply for a resident visa. By the time the movie ended it was almost 9pm – fortunate the hotel has a nice restaurant. Marsha had a salad with fried chanterelle mushrooms and I had viener schnitzel. Marsha also had dessert- dumplings with plum sauce but I forgot to take a pic. We have heard conflicting weather reports, but hopefully it will stop raining. It is miserable being a tourist in the rain.