Gosh, I'm a decade older than I was yest

And so, after a vanilla cream filled pastry cone for breakfast, we ascended the funicular, all of 50 yards from our apartment, to the oldest salt mine in the world (see yesterday, museum...)

You'd have thought if they were going to the trouble of building a funicular they'd have taken it to the mine entrance. But no, they made us walk the final 650m very uphill.

We had to put on white over jackets and trousers, otherwise we wouldn't have looked stupid enough for the photos. Then we walked miles through tunnels. But we had fun on the miners' slides. On the longer 65m one, Di tapped into her inner miner by screaming the whole way down.

It was nice to see the oldest wooden staircase in the world, perfectly preserved and only discovered/excavated a couple of years ago.

Then we had a birthday lunch of spinach dumplings in very cheesy sauce followed by amazing strudel with great custard. Eaten overlooking the Hallstatt lake and valley, over 500m below. Di went out on the Skywalk to look down at the village. And I nearly did...

The sun sets behind the mountains soon after 3pm so some of the later pics are in shade.

Thanks to all who sent birthday commiserations on my ancientness.Read more