Hall in Tirol is a wonderful little village just outside of Innsbruck Austria. It's the kind of place you hope to come across whenever you are traveling and rarely do. We were lucky enough to have some friends living there. I remember passing it on the train and hoping we could describe it to our friends so they could take us there. Much to our delight, we watched as we approached the area we passed and found out it would be where we were staying for the next couple of days. The area was beautiful and we were lucky enough to have bright blue skies and lots of sunshine while we were there. These pictures are from the street our friends live on and the walk we had winding through the small town.
The building above is an old mint factory of money. The town began as a salt mine town, which is what Hall means and Tirol is the region in Austria. The town dates back to the 13the century and the crest of the town even has a picture of a salt cask surrounded by two lions. After winding through the streets a bit, our friend led us to a beautiful old covered bridge that has a great view of the mountains.
After our wander around the town, we headed back to our friends house and had a good old fashioned American meal for lunch on a cold day, chili. But of course, our new European tastes made their presence as we added rice to the mix. It is actually quite tasty to have a huge bowl of chili with garlic rice inside. We all took a nap and prepared for our New Year's Eve hike. Little did we know what awaited us.
So around 8:30, we started our most interesting New Year's Eve celebration thus far. We loaded eight home made sleds into three cars and made our way past Innsbruck and up a long mountain road. After lots of winding road and pushing our friends car to its breaking point, we arrived at a small, unlit parking lot. We got out and unloaded all of the sleds and head lamps were dispersed through the group. Among us were our friends, her parents, and their neighbors. Apparently, its a tradition for many folks in Austria to hike up a mountain in the dark and then sled back down on New Year's Eve. In fact, the Austrian expression for Happy New Year translates as have a good sled. The walk up took about an hour and a half and was a lot of fun. I can say that now but at the time there were moments where I longed for a car. We basically hiked up 2,000 feet in the dark on a narrow trail that was covered in snow and ice. We all had dressed quite warm as the temperatures were around 0 degrees F. As we walked, we sweated and sweated and sweated. We stopped to take water breaks and stare at the stars and breathe in the pristine air. Occasionally, we would flash our lights to make sure we were headed in the right direction. At other times, we had to move to the side for passing sledders going back down the mountain, some with no head lamp at all. How I envied them too. But finally, we made it to the top. The most embarrassing part was that we were well beaten by a group of hard core smokers. Wow.
Ringing in the New Year was fun and filled with fireworks on our mountain top and the neighboring ones. We had the rare privilege of being well above the normal height and watching the fireworks in the city below was incredible. We were frozen but having a great time. And finally the time arrived, time to sled back down the mountain. This part was lots of fun and our crash course in sledding came in handy. I followed behind Iz, although, there were plenty of moments where I had to stop and wait on her to catch up. The highlight of the night was watching Iz throw herself off her sled because it was getting close to an edge that made her feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the sled kept going down the slope and Iz had to get up and run after it on snow and ice covered terrain. The only light she had was the head lamp I had on. Eventually, the sled stopped when it a tree branch and after dislodging it, we continued our way back down the mountain. Easily, the best New Year's thus far. Thanks to our friends Thomas and Rachel for an amazing time.
I love the cold, snuggly pic of the two of you.
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