Austria
August 7 to 29, 2010
Alpinolino
Today the weather forecast called for rain starting early afternoon so we had planned to do either Alpinolino or Ellmi's Magic World if we got the car. However Annemarie wasn't sure if she would need the car in the afternoon so we opted for doing the Alpinolino tour up the Westendorf mountain.
Opa came along and once we'd gotten the kids their punch cards for the Animal Quiz tour we were off up the mountain. 
Christopher would probably be happy just riding the lift all day long up and down but we did get off at the top and the playground with the trampoline, baby bunnies, diggers, etc immediately caught the kids' attention. After our Hexenwasser experience with kids that just don't share, we decided to let Sam have some time on the trampoline right away while there were no kids around.
Alpinolino is the Westendorf answer to getting kids to have fun on the mountain. The marmot rallye is a little hike around the mountain top with gorgeous panoramas and lots of stations with games and learning opportunities along the way. The riddle tour is an easy hike (downhill all the way) with question and answer stations along the way and punch cards for the kids to solve a puzzle. At the bottom a little ceritificate of completion as well as a little 'prize' await the kids. The locals don't think much of Alpinolino, comparing it to the more popular Hexenwasser. But our kids love Alpinolino in its own right and the benefit of it is that you don't need perfect weather to enjoy it.
And since our kids were being such great hikers, we figured we might as well tackle the Fleiding peak as well. Christopher was quite proud of his achievement, but not as proud as his mommy!
the photos:
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still to come:
august 20-29