We were staying in a little cottage in Hopfgarten where our hosts were all from contiki, young awesome people! Austria was the country of schnapps, so they went down nicely with our tasty turkey schnitzel & cranberry sauce dinner, yummo. Austria's peak season was winter due to the Austrian alps(great water once again) so it did seem like a dead town. Even residents I probably only saw about 50(exaggeration) the whole time being there. So quiet! Very strange. We joined the locals in a family sort of festival,but of course contiki made it a bit more of a rowdy night & it was really cute but didn't stay out very late. The next day we were up really early to start our 20km bike ride uphill for around 60% of the time in the heat, KILLER! At one stage I thought my legs would fall off. We got to fill our bottles straight from the mountain with the refreshing tasty water and that gave a bit of an extra boost but the amount of sweat lost still left us dehydrated. After reaching the half way point, we got some really steep, joyful slopes on the way home which was refreshing. Approaching the end a quick rest was needed just before heading off to go paragliding. I would do it 100 times over, both the scenery and the crazy spins and drops were the best experience ever. 1400m high, although not scary at all. The hardest part was definitely the heat consuming gondola on the way up to the mountain but we all had awesome tandem guides. When that was done we went to Slavenaland for some in water rock climbing, jumping and trampolining with a small group of us. Although the rain cut it early, but we had such a good time. That night was just a movie/dnm sort of night but me Fran and Clare had a great time, very VERY hilarious.