Austria Part 1: Steinplatte

One of the mountains we hiked on in Austria was the Steinplatte. This was actually the first place we went to, and thankfully we were following our extremely helpful guides. I say thankfully, because about 20 minutes away, the skies opened up and a heavy downpour was unleashed upon us. It was heavy enough, that we couldn't see more than about 10 meters infront of us, but the glow of their tail lights were enough to follow up the narrow, windy mountain road up to top where our destination for the night was. This was my first view ever from the Alps, its still cloudy from the rain, but I knew we were in for the treat when it finally cleared. But I didn't know it would be this good. The next morning the skies cleared and we could finally see the view. We returned to the Steinplatte twice more during our time in Austria, and the rest of these photos are a selection of the HUNDREDS of photos I have from that. If there is interest, I'll post a larger selection of the photos to my Picasa web album. The next photo does need a little explaining though. As we made our way up the road, we stopped at a number of locations to look at the rocks. During one of these stops, a nearby cow took great interest in our rental car. Apparently they like shiny things, and as such are particularly drawn to the side view mirrors. It didn't stop there though, after folding in the side view mirror with all of its nuzzling, the cow start to lick any available surface on the car. It was very brave (dumb?), and didn't even move when I walks up to it, got in the car, and finally drove off.