LET'S START FROM THE VERY BEGINNING...….

At the end of each day when we camped and after dinner, it was my writing time of my diary ! 

I simply noted down what I did and saw and how I felt, etc…. And here we are….   

I. AUSTRIA - ON THE SEARCH FOR EDELWEIß Flowers

DAY 1
1) TUESDAY, 28 JUNE 1977: 181 KMS. – KITZBÜHEL

Munich - Photo : Rudolf Sterflinger / Bing images search

Very excited to start our journey today, we left Mu’s house in ECHING, northern suburb of MUNICH, around noon. We took the autobahn (German highway) in the direction towards ROSENHEIM in OBERBAYERN, arriving about 3 pm. and stopped to buy more small things for personal use, like Knirp umbrella (with red dot symbol DM. 75.-), sunglasses and leather sandals from Brasil (DM. 25- each). It’s a pity that I wanted to buy a Wind-jacket (Windjacke) which is very popular at present and should be very useful against wind and rain on the way and when I will be back home but the color was too bright for me. We should have gone for shopping in MUNICH instead as, in fact, Tilo wanted to buy some more spare parts for our Mercedez van and some canned foods for emergency occasions.  

Houses in border area of Austria and Germany are typical Alpen style, the same as in Switzerland countryside. It reminds me of my gilded music box, a souvenir for tourists purchased from  ZURICH few years ago. There are flower pots, growing gardenia or geranium full of blooming red or pink flowers, adorn all window frames or balcony. These houses are not much different from wooden houses in the tropics. I noticed a small bell tower and a weather cock on the roof toward the gables of the house with some metal pieces like an arrow to tell the wind direction. Every house looks beautiful and quaint. I understood that the little bell tower on the roof would be used to sound the alarm or announce major events or emergencies.

It was nearly 5 pm. when we got almost everything and started to roll on again down the autobahn to LAUTERBACH, FARSDORF, NIEDERASCHAU until we passed through the German-Austria border at SACHRANG into Austria territory. It didn’t take us too long for passing all formalities, we just showed what the officers asked, like lifting up seating (compartments) and opening the back doors of our van, showing what we have inside.
          

Jagged mountain peaks : Wilde Kaiser

Shortly before 6 pm., we arrived NIEDERNDORF. The road is full of winding paths, up and down the mountain, very scary and risky to cause accident if one drives carelessly along the edge of deep chasm. Between KUFSTEIN and ST. JOHAN we saw a peculiar jagged mountain peaks like I've seen from a scene in cowboys films where the Indians usually reside in such region. It is WILDE KAISER – very well-known in Austria.

Wilde Kaiser - Photo : Skiwelt.at / Google images search

It was not even dark when we arrived KITZBÜHEL a bit later than 7 pm.  KITZÜHEL is very popular ski resort. (located away from INNSBRUCK, the capital city of TYROL about 100 km.) It is  famous tourist destination in Austria for spending holidays near doctor, especially for elderly people, for their health checks or physical rehabilitation. It is known in German as KURURLAUB. Tourists of all nationalities come here during holiday season, American, German, Dutch, Italian and French for snow skiing in the winter as well as during off-season time. Although when we arrived it seemed quiet than it should be, the beauty of the city and specialties inspiring natural forest surroundings, made me wanting to stay longer.  After parking down the very quiet street, we left our van to walk around the city.

Kitzbühel - Photo : Bing images search

As a beautiful tourist city, most products and souvenirs are more expensive than in Germany, they are not well crafted neither. What I liked when firstly saw was crystal handicrafts of Swarovski as hedgehogs and rats. They are white crystal but very expensive, upto DM.40 - (1. - Mark = 7. - Shillings  = 10 . - Baht . , 1US $ = 2.38DM = 20.40 BHT) in spite of their small sizes like a thumb. There are also handmade souvenirs invented of stumps in strange forms such as dwarf from Snow White tales for house wall decorating, cosmetics bag made ​​of black cloth or cartridges for face powder with mirror or covered with black cloth and silk embroidered with beautiful Cross Stitch patterns, dried flowers and jewelry boxes. 

I thought to buy a nice one for my mother, but still have not found very nice one that I really like. I've seen it also in Germany as a powder cartridge but I had little interest in it and I did not buy it earlier. However, I only have thought to buy things for everyone but did not dare to buy anything as I am not sure if there will be obstacles in getting to the final destination. I don’t know how many things I can carry back home. Until now I’ve recently got only visa for 4 countries : Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. I still need to apply for visa to enter more other countries.