Home away from home

I love seeing new places when I travel, but I also tend to keep coming back to the same places and people that I fell in love with the first time around. Places that I feel comfortable, at home. Gästehaus Kolp in the village of St Jakob is one of those places. Each apartment comes with mountain views and the most wonderful hosts. 

Morning coffee with a view towards Petteneu

 Besides waking up to the sun breaking over Aperreis Spitze, our balcony gave us a view towards the peak of the mountain belltower in Pettaneu, the next village east. The highway goes into a tunnel just to the east of St Jakob, and continues under the Arlberg pass all the way to Austria's easternmost province. Even the railroad ducks into a tunnel until St Anton, so there is a peaceful quiet over the entire valley. When a herd of goats went by in the morning, we could hear them morning.

 Looking West towards St Anton, we could see the village with the Arlberg pass behind. The Rendelalpe blocked part of our view of the Verwall range to the south, but it, too was tree-covered and beautiful.

At the end of the day, with our feet up at our Austrian home, this view was hard to give up. It isn't that I didn't want to go home, but I love Austria and life there. M asked Andreas, our host, for his honest opinion of America. His response was "I think you can't compare, they are two different worlds. And I think maybe we have it better." I'm inclined to agree. Bis bald, Europe.