Back onto the coach again first thing and we spend the morning driving through the Dolomite Mountains in the north of Italy. Just beautiful. Really amazing. It would have been better though if it wasn't raining. The landscapes here are just picture perfect. There's the rugged hills in the back, with fresh snow on them even at this time of year, the pine trees flowing down the mountains and then the beautiful green field in the valleys dotted with houses. There didn't appear to be any fences anywhere. We saw cows grazing on the side of the road without any barrier between us and them. The houses don't have fences either. I suppose they would just be a nuisance under piles of snow, but it makes the landscape really natural looking without any boundaries.

We stopped at Cortina, a town still in Italy, about mid morning. We were supposed to be there to check out a market they had but it was raining so no one was around.

After we left Cortina, it starts snowing! We were expecting the rain but not the snow. Yesterday we were cooking in Venice, today we're freezing in the Dolomites. Of course we had to pull over to take pictures. Some of the Australians had never seen snow before so it was an experience for them. It was coming down pretty hard for a while but it didn't last. By the time we passed onto Austria the sky had cleared and it was sunny. That didn't last either though and it was quite wet and cold in Innsbruck.

I was quite happy to stay in Innsbruck. It wasn't packed with tourists and people were a lot more polite than they have been in Italy. It's so cute here too with all the houses in different colours. We had a short tour around the old part of town before heading to the main store of Swarovski. That place was just magical. Fantastic. There was so much there and they had such great prices it was hard to resist. So I didn't.
Still after leaving to store it wasn't so nice. It was still raining and the shoes I was wearing weren't really made for the wet. Actually none of the shoes I had brought were. So I had to stop in at a shoe store and get myself a new pair. What a shame. The things one does for ones feet.

I joined up with some of the other guys and wandered the streets some more. Really the best way to see anything. At least it would be if you actually investigated the interesting things which these guys really didn't unless I dragged them over. We also bought some the Austrian chocolate cake with marmalade. Its apparently a secret recipe only made in this one store here in Austria. Patricia made it sound so fantastic we had to try it. We didn't actually get to taste it though as we had to run at meet with the group to head for the hotel and dinner.

Dinner was pretty good. It was nice to have something other than pasta for once. Then I just called it an early night and headed up to bed. Some of the group went out for a show with yodeling but I passed. There's a Swiss show on tomorrow I think that sounds pretty similar so I'll skip the Austrian one.