We woke to a cool, overcast morning – but at least not pouring rain like the previous night. Michael headed out for photo shooting as I took pen to paper. I slept well to get time adjusted, but Mike wasn’t as lucky. He was out with his camera just after 7am.
Michael started at the market where he found several locals having a Bavarian breakfast – beer that is. He wandered the streets of Salzburg much as he had done back in 1983. Amazingly, he found some of the photo spots he had visited back then. One was a curved street – now cleaned and a corner left exposed to show the original stonework. The nicest surprise was the Christ statue on the wall. It is an old familiar for us – we have had the photo hanging in our homes all these years. The statue has been cleaned up and caged for protection, but is basically the same. Michael even managed to get a similar angle for the shot.
We had a bit of time before we had to get going – time for a shower to fully awaken and truth be told, I was in no hurry to rush out in the mediocre weather!
The plan was to have a later breakfast (not the local fare) at the pension, then meet up with Dan & Suz at the bus station to head to Fuschl am See to start our trekking excursion. For Mike and I it was back in July 2014 since we had seen Paul & Lucy, Mick & Sue, and Doug & Kaylon. We missed the previous hike as we were moving into our county home that week. So we were very stoked to see everyone.
We met up with D&S no problem at the bus station and were in Fuschl for noonish. As we walked in the rain to our hotel, we came upon Paul and Lucy who had arrived about 45 minutes earlier. They had been travelling for over 24 hours with no sleep and in the end they kept on going till after 8 pm! None of our rooms were ready, so we left our bags and walked around town admiring the chalets, flower gardens, mountains and the beautiful turquoise blue Fuschl lake.
Back at the hotel we checked in then down for a beer to the lobby area where we met up with Doug & Kaylon – so a couple more beers and some goulash. And finally Mick & Sue arrived for the full grand reunion. The years melted away to nothing as we all chattered endlessly.
Our 6pm orientation meeting was deferred till 8:30 am – not ideal but worked out fine. Michael shared his Pyrenees video to rave reviews and lots of embarrassed laughter. The guys opted for an initiating game of 500 and the ladies retired to Lucy’s room for champagne, cheese & crackers to discuss solutions to world problems. Dinner was a boisterous affair at a local Italian restaurant with a nice selection of pizza and wine and beer. We broke up around 8 with several folks heading to their rooms. Dan & Suz and Mike & I met up for our traditional euchre (1 game each for the guys and gals). Then to our room to photo manage & diary log.
It was time to ready for the trekking – tomorrow was to see an early rise, shower, pack, get oriented at our 8:30 meeting and then we would be off!
