The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Cowbells

The traditional cowbells.

The ones I always knew to be cowbells, as I mentioned in the past.

Our intention was to drive through Austria on the way back from Italy to Belgium – an unusual via-point when heading for France, and ultimately, Spain, but Sonny needed to grab a few things.

Austria is kind of on the way, and my children are a quarter Austrian. I had no great hopes for the stopover but it turned out to be such a special treat, and a highlight of the trip for all of us.

Still in Italy, filling up our bottles with spring water, we just had to stop at a park we saw.

It had a flying fox!

That's Belle.

Then me! Yipppeeeeee!

India gets a ride with Sonny.

Then Ev.

As we traveled northwards, and higher, it got colder.

You see the snow on the peak, over the lake?

The astute blog reader may notice a glaring fashion (and perhaps olfactory) faux pas. Yes, I did wear the same dress two days in a row – in hindsight, I have made wiser wardrobe choices – but, I was in a 'situation'.

It's like this. Whenever we stay overnight, travelling between destinations, we don't arrive until evening, and we leave in the morning. Sonny doesn't have a huge desire to carry 5 bags out of the car, and then back in the next day, so we (the travelling party) have to select clothes the night before, grab our toothbrushes and essentials and, perhaps, "shut up about it" too. The night at the Hotel Doria, the car was not parked nearby, the kids were hungry and it was drizzling. I took it upon myself to only choose clean undies, not a new frock. Seemed like a reasonable idea, at the time.

It all started to come a cropper as the weather told me I was under-dressed…

Frozen. Icy wind on me, but snow on the mountain behind me, so I was excited and wanted a photo.