After our few short days in Germany we started to make our way down towards Italy. On the way though was Austria. We drove through miles of countryside and finally the Alps. It was beautiful driving around the countryside of Germany, and Austria. Here unlike the USA, towns are scattered, rather than having a large city that fans out into countryside, it seems like hundreds of little towns were plopped down in the middle of nowhere without purpose.

The little villages are so tiny and quaint all the red roofs, surrounding the epicenter, the church.In many places these towns are not allowed to build structures taller than the church. I thought that was an interesting notion.

Villach is a relatively large place and is quite beautiful. The town surrounds a beautiful church named after St. Jakob.

The town itself like many others here is speckled with multicolored buildings and quaint little shops on every corner.

Maiya was lucky enough to get chased around buy a guy in a weird suit trying to sell Fanta to tourists.

Instead of Fanta we stopped in a cute little cafe for some gelato!

They gave us gigantic spoons that were really fun to eat with and on a nice hot day in Austria, nothing beats gelato.

After a nice little trompe through the town we went and visited a very interesting cemetery. With a beautiful entrance way the cemetery was basically begging us to come inside and have a look around.

It is interesting, in this cemetery there were plenty of flowers but it seemed like instead of more flowers most graves were dotted with little red candles. Apparently that is tradition here and it is one I really enjoy. I think it is an extremely nice idea to leave behind a burning candle to light the ways of the ones you love that have gone their separate ways.

Our stop in Austria was very brief but very interesting. We had stopped to have lunch with the family I am traveling with’s son who is doing an internship there. We ate at a nice little place where I got very typical German/Austrian food. I got goulash with some dumplings which is basically the only kind of food that they eat; meat and potatoes. That and cake. 🙂 It was extremely good and flavorful and after just one dumpling I felt ridiculously full. It was a good Austrian experience and I was glad for the stop. However it was just a brief reprieve from our little road trip down to Italy and within that, VENICE!