Austria Countryside

Driving through the hills.

Today we rented a car and were able to drive through much of western Austria. Here are some of our pictures from that day.

Fun fact about Austria. The name seems to have been given to it by the Kingdom of Bavaria (originating in southern Germany). They called this mountainous land "The land to the east." Apparently "East" in Bavarian (as it is in Dutsche and many of the Romantic languages) is "Ost". Thus they called this land Ostarrichi. Austria, this CENTRAL European country, derived it's name from this.

Fun fact #2: Because Austria encompasses a large portion of the Alps, only about 32% of the country is below 1,640 feet above sea level.Read more