Appenzell and on to Austria

Jean:
Our last day in Appenzell and we are so hoping for a nice day.  To see what remains to be seen :-) As what seems normal though, it was cloudy when we got up at 7:00.  I got to thinking last night of the dates we were to leave Appenzell and arrive at the Austrian apartment. 

Our apartment in Appenzell

It seems somewhere we had  figured the date wrong during our stay in Appenzell and we were to leave today, the 11th, not tomorrow, the 12th as we were thinking.  So we needed to get the apartment in Appenzell packed up and ready for travels.  We did that, said our thank you and goodby to Gabriela and headed further up our road to see what we could see. 

Gigi and the farm in Appenzell

More farms and green pasture, more farms and green pastures.  Soon we were at the end of the road, so did a u-turn and went back down to Appenzell.

Our stay in Appenzell from up higher

We had decided to do the last free gondola ride with the Appenzeller card, the Jakobsbad-Kronberg Cable Car.  It was clear as a bell when we got to the gondola, but soon, the clouds rolled in and it was foggy!!!  However, we did find some exciting things at the top as we walked.  Back in 2010 when we were there, we did not see this, and learned later from some folks who spoke English that it was a 2012 project. 

Bench row with name tags of donors

It was a bench row with a stainless steel name plate about every 12 inches apart all along the top of the wooden back of the bench.  The bottom was a wooden plank as well that matched the top, and the bench was supported by huge logs cut to the length of the plank.  It went of for a long time as we walked reading the names.  We got to the 300meter mark and maybe almost to the 400meter mark and stopped walking. 

A first for us - a circle rainbow

The bench went on forever we are sure–we could not see the end of it and there were no splits between the wooden planks.  It was amazing.  We learned that you could go online and make a donation and have a plaque put there with your name on it, that is how this project was funded.

Fog would clear at times to reveal .....

Back down the gondola without seeing much of anything because of the fog and into the car and set Gertie for 57 Ferienappartments Meixner in Karmsach, Austria.  It was a long long drive mostly on the autobahn. 

The gondola shed at the top

Finally about 3:30 we found the apartment at Kramsach, located Marianne and she showed us 2 apartments, the front one gets sun in the morning and the other one does not get much sun if any at all.  She thought there was 3 of us so had in mind for us the bigger apartment–we chose that one because of the sun in the mornings.  The price was the same for both.

On the road to Kramash, Austria

We got unleaded and put things away and then started looking at the brochures of things to do in this Tyrol area of Austria.  Wow, there is so much to do and see, and maybe because we were tired from traveling, it seemed overwhelming.  We decided to forget that for the rest of the day, went downtown to check out the centre of town, and came back to the apartment to blog and journal.  Enough for this one day of mostly traveling.

Passed through 18 tunnels today - longest was 15 km