A later season Alps trip this year - spending the first week of August on the River Inn in Austria and Switzerland.  There's a bit of everything there, from flat to death on a stick - more than enough to keep everyone happy!

We stayed in Prutz, which has two rather nice pizza restaurants and a lot of apricot trees.

paddling past Pfunds

Besides kayaking, we also went swimming several times - in the local pool, lake, and an amazing spa - more on that later.  Much entertainment whenever we came across any sort of slide!

On Wednesday afternoon we headed up to the Kauntertal Glacier.  A fantastic road to drive with 29 hairpin bends, beautiful scenery and lots of points of interest en route.

stopping at one of many viewpoints

At the top of the road is the glacier itself - with gondola to the top of the mountain (which wasn't running), restaurant, playground, and an ice crevasse you could walk through.

I'd forgotten quite how impressive alpine thunderstorms could be - I think we had one every day.  The first being on our drive down, soon after crossing the border into Austria when the sky went black and the windscreen wipers couldn't keep up with the rain...  wow.  Sunday's storm hit when we were 2/3 of the way down the river.

Friday was a rest day before the loooong drive home.  We headed over to the Oetz valley and went for a walk up the (disgusting!) Wellerbrücke section of the river before having a traditional Tyrolean lunch, at which point a large storm appeared.

Further up the valley in Längenfeld is the Aqua Dome - an amazing spa, great for some afternoon relaxation.  When another thunderstorm kicked off we decided the best place to be was in the outdoor brine pool.  Pretty cool to watch, but they did eventually kick everyone out on safety grounds... I speak practically no German, but I have definitely now learnt "das Gewitter"!

tags: Austria holiday paddling Switzerland