Julie and I have some history with Austria.  In our first years together we lived and worked and travelled in Europe, spending substantial time in a small village in the Austrian Tirol called Ellmau.  Julie spent a winter there, improving her German, waiting on tables, skiing with me when I came to town on business.  We named our daughter Anna, partly because it was a popular Austrian name.  We loved the mountains, the villages and the people. Life was good for us and we’ve always held a soft spot for Austria.

But countries in this part of Europe are relatively small and with the European Union’s ‘no border’ policy it is very easy to slip in and out of countries.  We passed from Poland through Slovakia and into Hungary with hardly a blink of the eye.  Later we cut off a corner of Austria on our way from Hungary to the Czech Republic (now preferring to be called Czechia).  The only challenge in all this, other than the language differences, is being sure you have the right currency for the right country.

Most countries in Europe now use the Euro, so that’s easy.  But there’s still quite a few that continue to use their own currency such as the Norwegian Kroner, Polish Zloty, Hungarian Florin, Czechia Koruna, Swiss Franc, English Pound and many more.  Europe is largely, and some would say boringly, homogeneous but thankfully there are still some differences which make travel interesting.  Such as when you enter a new country and stop to use the toilet but don’t have any local currency to pay for it.

Julie and I were heading for the historic town of Cesky Krumlov in southern Czechia (I also prefer this to their previous clumsy name Czech Republic) but we spent a night en route in northern Austria, trying out our new cooker and brushing up on our German.  Austria feels so comfortable to us, even though its all based on distant memories from a special time long past, but it rewards us with beautiful rural countryside, crops harvested, small towns trimmed, painted, clean and, well….Austrian.

Karen, our hard working GPS, chose a number of beautiful backroads, some only one lane wide, through the low mountains and thick forests into our 35^th country on our Follow the Sun journey, Czechia.  Formerly a Soviet satellite communist country when it was the larger half of Czechoslovakia, divided into its own country in 1993, prospering now under the friendly family of EU countries but still very inexpensive compared to its neighbours Austria and Germany.  With its capital Prague and some beautiful countryside Czechia has a lot going for it.

And probably its number two town for visitors is Cesky Krumlov, deep in the southern Bohemia area of Czechia, a beautiful town with a long glorious history, a magnificent 13^th century castle overlooking the old town.  Walking through its narrow cobblestone streets and old architecture Cesky Krumlov is about as close as one can get to what it would feel like in a prosperous medieval town.  There is a magic feeling to exploring this town, ignoring the souvenir shops, the hordes of tourists and the cacophony of unknown languages, just taking in the beautiful vibe of this old town.  And the magnificent tower of the castle lording over us all makes it very special.

Julie and I explored the town and the castle, climbed the tower for panoramic views and sent photos back to our kids in Australia.  As it happens, our two oldest children and their partners beat us to Cesky Krumlov and have always raved on about the place.  Now we know why.

We spent the afternoon paddling, more like floating with a few corrective paddle strokes, down the Vltava River, along with thousands of other intrepid sun-seeking floaters, through a couple of weirs, down the gentle current, under the bridges, around the castle, past the bopping bars and crowded restaurants that line the river.  What a great way to spend the afternoon.

That night we camped nearby and walked into town for drinks and dinner in the old town, not quite able to get enough of this special town.  So my advice to any first time traveller to Europe, get off your plane and go directly to Cesky Krumlov.

But Austria was drawing us back.  And the heart of Austria for us, where we get a little emotional, is a little Tirolean village called Ellmau.  In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, a life time ago, I was a tour guide for an English 18-35’s camping travel company and brought groups to Ellmau to stay in a historic old traditional farmhouse called Haus Vorderwald.  Haus Vorderwald had room for the cows in the back half of the building and about a dozen guest rooms in the front half.   The original part of the building has walls almost a metre thick and watched Napoleon’s troops march by two hundred years ago.

Julie and I had been looking forward to another visit to Kathi, the owner, heart and soul of Haus Vorderwald, for a long time.  We had brought our children here for a week of family skiing 15 years earlier, a special time.  But our heyday was all those years ago, the winters of skiing, the summers hiking in the lower mountains with the magnificent mountain range called the Wilder Kaiser in the background.

But Ellmau has changed dramatically since those old days.  The population has skyrocketed, new buildings and guest houses everywhere, the ancient funicular we used to ride up the mountain for a day of skiing has been replaced by a slick new gondola.  They have based and filmed in Ellmau a popular long-running Austrian TV show called Der Bergdoktor about a handsome doctor in a small mountain town.  With the mountains as a backdrop, the beautiful little village and the ski resort nearby, not to mention the mountain doctor, Ellmau is a major tourist attraction.

We loved our first night at Haus Vorderwald, its deep history, so much nostalgia to lap up, old stories to tell, memories revisited.  Everyone is older and wiser but some things never change.  And 40 years can seem like an eternity or just like yesterday, depending on the context.  For us Haus Vorderwald was just like yesterday.

The next day I was on a mission to get our water pump problem fixed that we inherited back in Hungary.  The details are boring but basically there was a faucet control box under the sink that had been spewing water everywhere.  Not good.  And as we’ve found many times before, Tramp’s rock star qualities plus big doses of appreciation and gratitude goes a long way.  Our helpful host Peter took me to one shop in the next village who had one look at the problem and said, ‘follow me’.  The amazing Gary in the next shop said ‘no problem’ and had it fixed in 40 minutes for a measly 30 euros.  Amazingly, our water system was whole again and what looked like an unmitigated disaster a few days ago was now only a memory.

We spent the afternoon enjoying the spectacular Hartkaiser mountains that look down on the village of Ellmau and the valley below.  From the top of the flash new gondola we hiked across pastures where healthy fat cows were grazing and under numerous resting chairlifts that work overtime in the winter ferrying keen skiers up to the top of these mountains.

Each village in the valley has their own ski lifts but these lifts are all connected at the top of the mountains so that you can ski from mountain to mountain and village to village.  And along the way you can stop at the little huts, called hutte, that serve food and drink, including the local traditional favourite of gluhwein, which is hot red wine – a perfect remedy for a cold day of skiing (or even if it’s not that cold!).

We paused our walk at our favourite hutte called Rubezahl Alm, a mountain hut originally built over 240 years ago.  Now a much larger mountain restaurant, we sat out on the balcony enjoying cold beers and marvelling at the spectacular mountains all around us.  We felt very lucky.

The next morning we had to say our sad farewells to Kathi, Peter and the beautiful farmhouse Haus Vorderwald.  Our brief visit in this mountain and friendship paradise will have to sustain us until we can come back, hopefully not too far away.  Until then, we pointed Tramp southward and continued our Follow the Sun journey.