So, a few years ago Marg and Sheila went on a European Tour to find Stella. They went to the Salt Mine in Berchtesgaden Austria. This mine was also featured on one of last years “The Amazing Race” episodes. This is an actual picture of us going down the 350 foot miner’s slide into the salt mine today. You can tell Marg likes roller coasters and I do not!

The salt mine has been in operation for hundreds of years and is still working today. Basically they drill large holes from 400 feet underground into the ancient salt deposit, then inject water which dissolves the salt. Every two years the resulting brine is pumped out and sent by a 25km pipeline to Bad Reichenhall to be processed. The process is repeated over about 30 years creating a huge cavern. No pictures allowed in the salt mine “security reasons” (I think that means “it cuts into our profit”) so here is a link:

https://www.salzbergwerk.de/en

So for today’s Garmin story – it just does not work. I feel like an idiot after 35 years in I.T. there is no logic to the way these people create software, web-sites or user interfaces. Hours of custom route creation reduced to garbage by the device which cannot calculate the route or display it. Internet forums are full of frustrated people trying to get solutions to their Garmin problems. Recalculating is the word of the day – did I mention they make them for aeroplanes too – “recalculating, reassemble the plane and try again”!

After the salt mine we made a trip to the Hohenworfen Fortress high on a hill in the town of Worfen.

http://www.salzburg.info/en/sights/excursions/hohenwerfen_fortress

This has a really nice view and a funicular ride to the top but seems mostly aimed at families and children. It was 2 hours until the next guided tour and we had no children with us so we decided that lunch was more important.

Now lunch was truly an occasion. When we planned this day we looked for a restaurant local and gourmet and found it in the Restaurant Obauer in Werfen, run by Karl and Rudolf Obauer . Having spent a little too much time in transit we arrived after the formal lunch hours were over. We were still treated to an exceptional meal of several flavours of foi-grasse and a cheese plate and wine, all locally produced. Food and service was exceptional and as we left Karl Obauer actually followed us to the street to find out where we were from and thank us for our custom. Now that is an amazing lunch check it  out when you are in Werfen next.

www.obauer.com

Tomorrow: The Grossglockner Hoch Alpenstrasse. Driving on the scenic highway around Austria’s highest mountain. Hopefully followed by a visit to the site of the original Porsche factory at Gmund.