Vienna... with added Alp

Last weekend we took a break from the building work and went back to lovely Vienna for the weekend to see the museum exhibit prepared by Gerhard with the items from the Third Man.

On Saturday morning we headed to the Naschmarkt (a giant flea market) just down the road from our hotel. We were looking for a door knocker. And we found one! I'd love to say I bartered in German but I didn't - I just waved less Euros than the marked price at the man on the stall and he nodded. That seemed to seal the deal, so we are now the proud owners of a Viennese door knocker.

It's lovely! We told BOB about it when we got back and he said 'No pressure then'... Obviously we'd like a front door to put it on...

We also visited the Miniatur Tirolerland (we struggled to pronounce this - seriously - try it after a few gins...)  This is a giant train set depicting areas of the Tirol. It's fab!

Very witty, very clever, and an absolute delight. If you can pronounce it...

After lunch it was off to the Third Man Museum to meet Gerhard and Karin. We were spoilt rotten, being given tea and cake in the VIP area, which nicely matched my scarf...

Gerhard showed us the display made with Joy's memorabilia, and it was fantastic - she would be so proud. Or actually she might be slightly embarrassed! We LOVED it!

Here's Gerhard and Guy in the area dedicated to Joy. If you look very carefully you can see Guy on the small video screen between them...

The video shows Guy on the Antiques Roadshow. After Gerhard had gone back to the shop part, we did hang around to see if anybody spotted Guy 'from the telly'.

They didn't.

On Sunday the plan was that Gerhard and Karin would take us down the Danube to Melk to see a beautiful abbey, but it was very foggy, so plan B was brought into action - up an Alp instead. Oh My Goodness - what an amazing day!

We went up in a cable car (EEK! Guy is now doing well with heights - each time we go to Austria we go up in something HIGH, last time the ferris wheel, this time a cable car) and we got out of the fog to the most glorious sunshine.

We found a suitable new house:

We walked up the Alp...

Just look at that sky!

And we posed for Gerhard taking the pictures - this is Karin looking as beautiful as ever...

We were all wearing walking boots - or wellies in my case. In fact, that's the same wellies, hat and scarf that I wear at home on site. You've guessed it - most of our stuff is still in storage! There were, however, lots of people using snow shoes which seemed a little superfluous as it really wasn't very powdery or deep. Perfect for walking on though!

We had lunch at a cabin high up on the Alp...

And posed for more photos - such an amazing backdrop.

We had a totally brilliant day. It was slightly surreal to be back on site on Tuesday knowing that we had been so far up an Alp on Sunday!

Back to the normal blog on Sunday. It's going to be messy...