"Americans? Like, from America?!"

The best way to travel is to visit someone who lives there.  The next best method is with someone that knows the place well.  By necessity we chose "B."  

So, off to Germany, Austria and Italy for three weeks with my brother and his wife and their friends who know the place well.  What about COVID?  We are now two of the most thoroughly jabbed and swabbed people we know, and where we were headed had lower rates than where we were coming from.

(Is that thing, like, in his brain?)

Anyway, once there, folks were reassuringly serious about the pandemic; we had to show vaccination proof to be admitted to restaurants, hotels, stores, etc., and masks were universal indoors.  At every restaurant, we had to register our presence for contact tracing if needed.

But the great outdoors were great and allowed us participate mask-less.  Luckily our friend is in to hiking, so we did lots of that.  This guy isn't my friend, he's my brother.  I guess he's both, come to think of it.

This one is definitely my friend.  And my wife.

At times, it got a bit on the tricky side,

with chutes and ladders and cables anchored to cliffs.

Several nights were spent in "mountain huts," whose name implies more basic accommodations than were provided.  

We were lucky to spend nights in several inns far off the beaten path

with better-than-average views.

We could - usually - find someone that spoke English, though several in our group spoke German.  In one of the "huts," a young woman on the staff said that we were the first Americans she had seen the whole season.  In the beautiful inn above, the proprietor's wife said that she couldn't remember ever having an American stay there, and that her English was mostly helpful for folks from Slovakia or the Netherlands as a common way to communicate.

OK, so it sounds like we just skipped around the mountains communing with marmots and Ibexes (Ibecies?) all day.  Au contraire!  With crummy weather the first couple of days, we ascended to an ice cave,

and checked out churches and castles.

And of course there were lots of times where we had to pile in the van and travel a bit, but we were enthralled by the scenery on the way.

It was a nice reset of perspective before coming back and being Americans in America.  We certainly admired much about where we visited, but it was good to be back home.  That is, until we opened the suitcase and realized that the bomb/drug-sniffing dogs would have choked on the dirty clothes therein.

We hope that your hikes are also enjoyable.

Dave & Paula