Day 11 - Part 1

When we woke up, we saw that the weather was a bit sunny, and we could see clearly that the farm was surrounded by the snowy mountains of Ortztal range. We were really excited! This is the view from our window.

We took a stroll around the village. It was still early in the morning, only 7.30am. You can see that Niederthai is a high valley surrounded by mountains. The scenery was really awesome.

Now we could take photo of the Haus Laerchenwald.

This is the barn owned by the Leiter family.

Apparently some people also have holiday homes in the area. These guys did not seem to be local, and the modern architecture seemed to represent that they're tourists.

Niederthai seemed to be a winter get away location, there are two small ski schools in the area, and we also found a ski lift. However the slope did not seem to be so steep.

After the stroll, we came back to the farm house and found that Sieglinder had already prepared breakfast for us, consisting semmel bread, cold meats, honey, marmalade, homemade butter and tea.

Sieglinder accompanied us for breakfast and chatted about her family. Lucky that she speaks English! She mentioned that today was All Saints Day and people were supposed to go to church and visit the grave of family members. She said the weather would become worse in the afternoon, hence we need to rush if we want to go to Solden. She informed us that the Pass to Italy has been closed because it was obstructed by snow. Too bad, we had to cancel our plan to cross to Italy.

When we were about to continue driving to Solden, we found Leiter's beautiful cat. I wonder why cat in the Alpen always have thick fur.

With the clear weather we could see how Niederthai is located in higher location compared to Umhausen.

When we got to Solden, we realized that the cable car was not in operation until winter. If we wanted to go to the Glacier, we had to drive up to the 3000m above sea level. It was really a long and winding drive and we could see the transformation of the natural scenery. At about 2500m, there were only rocks, and no more big trees. At 2700m, we could see snow already.

Rani was really fascinated and amazed, since this is her first time to see snow and touch snow. However, when we arrived, it started to drizzle again. Too bad, Rani was not wearing an appropriate shoe, and hence the cold slush mix of snow and water got inside her shoes, and she started to shiver.

We headed to the restaurant to warm up ourselves. Rani ordered the Leberknoedelsuppe while Indi ordered Currywurst.