Austria 5/26: We Finally do what Monga Wants to Do.

I will begin this account by clarifying that Monga is not anyone’s actual name, just the affectionate title of our beloved grandmother. Her real name is Brenda. 

This morning, Monga and Dad went to an Austrian bakery. They bought most of the store and brought it back for our breakfast. The pastries were divine. We packed the fresh bread with some lunchmeat and cheese to take as a picnic. 

Monga wanted to go on a real Austrian hike so we all pulled on our hiking boots, stuffed our rain jackets into our backpacks, and drove up to a popular local hiking spot. 

The first part of the trail was a wooden boardwalk with sturdy railings that wound through a gorge. The boardwalk ended at a large dam, and the trail carried on as a gravel sidewalk beside a wide river. We walked until we came to a little bridge and the trail split, so we crossed the bridge and walked back to the gorge on the other side.

There were lots and lots of flowers along the trail. We recognized almost all of them; they were the same flowers we have all over East Tennessee: buttercups, daisies, clover, dandelions, Queen-Anne’s lace. There were also two types of purple flowers that I didn’t recognize. 

   
When we’d finished our hike, we returned to the vans to retrieve our picnic and we realized we’d left everything at home except for the chocolate. We ate the chocolate with great eagerness. 

We made sure to stop by the grocery stores before they closed at 7:30pm. The rest of the day was spent sitting around at the rental house and being lazy.