Europe with Ali-Part II: northern Italy to Hallstatt, Austria

The first full day of my trip, Ali and I packed up the car and headed north from their house to Hallstatt, Austria.  The weather was spectacular and the scenery and food were both distracting.  We stopped in NE Italy, home of famous prosciutto.  This shared meal of prosciutto on cantaloupe was one of the best meals of the trip with the best melon I have ever had.  The view wasn't bad, either....



 The Alps came on suddenly and increased in size dramatically as we flew through each mountain tunnel.  The architecture in Austria is also exactly what one would expect, but prettier.  The region we drove through here is where they filmed the Julie Andrews film "Sound of Music", so, of course, we had that as our soundtrack.



We got to our hotel just in time to stroll into picturesque Hallstatt for a traditional Austrian dinner.  Ali and Sean had raved about the Austrian food over Italian food and they were right; everything we had in Austria was top quality, made of fresh ingredients, and truly delicious.  



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