February 17, 2010 – Bill's Blog

A classic Euro photo in the hotel spa sandals and robes. With our hotel stay, we have access to the Alpentherme water park. It has an outdoor pool with views of the Alps, water slides, and a children’s swim area. The kids love it. I like walking through the hotel in robe. They even have a “Sauna World” in the water park and in typical European style, it is complete nude. I haven’t mustered the will to visit that part yet. In the Puritanical USA, this would be scandalous.

View of Bad Hofgastein from slopes above the village

Bad Hofgastein is a small town (around 6,000 inhabitants) near Salzburg. It is a major ski resort area and with all of the 278 connecting ski lifts and 860 kilometers of slopes, it is a skiers paradise. Owen is really taking to skiing and I am going up with him tomorrow. Very pricey however, and a two-day ski pass for Owen and I costs 126 euros (ouch). This is definitely a vacation we won’t be doing alot as it is very expensive. We are having a great time however. Nadia and I did some more cross-country skiing today.

Nadia On Cross-Country Skis

We are enjoying our holiday in the Austrian Alps. Bad Hofgastein is a winter sport heaven, especially with the Eurosport coverage of the Winter Olympics, we watch the events at night and then go out and do them during the day. Nadia is pictured above learning how to nordic, or cross country ski. She really liked it and we hope to go for our first ski together today.

The boys have been doing downhill skiing the past couple of days. Owen plans to go up the gondola today for the first time – graduating from the kinderschule. Oliver is doing well and able to stop by himself. Ocean isn’t ready for skis yet, but we put her on the toboggan. I took a lesson in the skating cross country ski technique and plan to get better at it before we head back to Serbia.