March 28: Bad Gastein, Austria

We spent the day continuing to explore Bad Gastein.  Although it looks like a small place, there is really a lot to see and it is a very charming town and area. The sun came out today and the snow is mostly melted! We decided that we wanted to visit Burg Klammstein today, a castle that was used to protect all of the Gastein Valley. We arrived at the castle and walked up to it. There was a small restaurant, a shed with some adorable cats and the large castle tower. The Burg Klammstein originally had five towers but they were all  destroyed at one point or another. What made this tour so special was our tour guide, having lived here his whole life, the now owner and operator decided to restore it himself. He now owns it and runs the restaurant and gives tours. He was so kind and sweet and had so much to share with us about the castle and all of the different artifacts he had on display inside of it. He did the whole tour in German so I didn't understand much, but I enjoyed looking around and got a good sense of the history of the castle.

After the castle tour, we headed into town where we went to the Spar (grocery store) and then to a small bakery - yum! After this, we went to the waterfall which is known to have amazing healing powers and to be very healthy for anyone around it because of the naturally negatively ionized air that is present in this area. Bad Gastein is thought to be a relaxing and thermal town because of the waters that flow through it. 

We returned to our hotel for a little while after this and then walked to a restaurant to have dinner. Now we are back at the hotel and Mom is listening to the live music in the lobby and I am planning to go to bed soon to prepare for the long day in Italy tomorrow!

Hockey update: The team is now in Vipiteno, Italy playing in a tournament there that will end tomorrow afternoon and then they will play in another tournament further south in Italy. Today, the Canadian Explorers won all three of their games in their pool and so will play in the semi-finals tomorrow morning. They won one of their games 13-0; now that they are rested and have played a few games together and have adjusted to the larger ice surface here, they are playing well!