Stubai Valley, Austria Day 27

Out for our first hike in the Stubai Valley today. Good weather but more clouds and rain on the way the next 3 days. 😫. The coming weather influenced our decision to do the highest hike today and lower hikes in the next few days. With our apartment came a Stubai Super Card - a pass for the cable cars and other types of transportation. Really a nice perk as the cable car rides are 15-20 euros each. There is some hiking in the valley but most of the hiking is on the mountains. It is common to take a cable car up to a place on the mountain to start your hike. Which is what we did. There are 4-5 cable cars in the immediate area. Only 2 are running right now as the other 2 or 3 go higher and there is still snow up there. This area is between seasons right now - ski season is over and summer not quite here yet so they also do maintenance work on the cable cars.

We took the Elferbahnen cable car from where we are at about 3400 ft to 5400 ft up,the mountain. Fun ride and paragliders everywhere! We walked around the area, taking in the huge wooden sundial, watched a lot of paragliders take off with their colorful chutes and raise with the air - so silent. Beautiful! Lots of trails take off from this location. We decided to take the one up to the Elferhutte, a building we could see from our restaurant at dinner last night. Quite the climb, but only about a mile. What great views and more paragliders. Took pictures, talked with some of the other people coming up the hill and walked a bit further up and then started our decent. Our quads got a real workout with the steep,part of the downhill. But we made it 👍 and we were very proud of ourselves.

Back down the rest of the way via cable car, to the grocery store to get our provisions or this leg of the trip and home to put our feet up on our deck for awhile. And to wash out some clothes for reuse tomorrow. 😂. I went for a walk in the neighborhood before our nightly cocktail hour and pizza for dinner. Found Sky News on the TV tonight - only English speaking station I could find. No Netflix here.Read more