FEATURED TRIP REPORT:

Painting and Hiking Trips in Austria

Summary of our trips to Austria in September 2024

In the beauty of the alps

Cicely and I were pleased to take a hiking group and an artist’s workshop to Austria last month. We had a wonderful time and the groups did, too.

The first was a hiking tour in the Zillertal region, led by Edwin de Bruijn. We stayed in a great hotel with quite elaborate breakfasts and dinners and swam in the hotel’s “swimming lake” nearly every day, as the weather was warm. The hiking was simply wonderful. Edwin has a way of selecting the best trails, taking both the weather and the capabilities of the group into account.

I can’t begin to describe the beauty of standing on a green, alpine pasture with cow bells in the background and rocky peaks all around.

The painting workshop, led by Leslie Jorgensen, was in an equally stunning area of Austria near the Swiss border. Between the two tours it had snowed up to three feet on the peaks, bringing the mountains to life in all their glory as the good weather returned.

The painters had an overabundance of material to work with and produced some wonderful work. And while the painters painted, some spouses rented mountain bikes and I took others hiking and on tours of nearby towns in Austria and Germany.