Then a lot of relaxy day (the weather wasn’t that great either) + packing up and Julius spent a lot of time at the kids’ club, allegedly working on a club show for the evening.

When that show started, after dinner, it turned out that only 4 of the kids were in performance mode (not Julius) and they did one song .. After that it was family disco again, and Julius, after 5 minutes of hesitation, was all over it.

We all did the easy, blue course together (in fact, they did not give Julius the extra equipment to move beyond the blue course, but I later saw a 7 year old boy doing the black course!)

It is something very similar to a thing I did in New Zealand before, but this time using real trees. The blue course is ‘only’ 2 meters above the ground .. the blue course goes to 5m and the black (which is a lot of zip-lining or fly-foxing) is at 10 meters.

Ritsu did the first 3 courses while I kinda chickened out after course 1, for one looking after Julius, who had some dispute with other kids over the use of the trampoline and somehow recalling that I had broken 5 bones in my spine earlier this year and that I should still take it a bit easy.

After lunch we used 2 vouchers of our ‘adventure package’ … one being a carriage ride for the family (a 55€ value) to the Pritzl Hütte, right next to the Pony Alm,

where we used voucher #2, the pony ride for Julius, this time it was actually about 12 minutes (a 5€ value) and all outside. and Julius loved it.

The carriage ride back was packed and full of Italians trying to explain away why they had no return ticktes. This time Julius got to sit in the front.

Ritsu had a massage booked and I was up for a 1 hour tour on a cross country Segway XT, first time ever, lots of fun. Tricky to go downhill. But towards the end (when the rain started) we explored the parking garages of several hotels and wizzed around there.

(Forgive Markus, the Segway coach, for shifting from landscape to portrait while doing video)

Rest of the day very relaxed (thanks to the rain), Julius stayed until 4:30 in the kids club when he had one of the animators call us to get him.

Dinner was ‘peasants menu’, with lots of salad and appetizers (slowly the re-use of food becomes more apparent, but still very well done) and main was a deer goulash, which was very nice (but I was pretty full at that time) … Dance off for Julius again and then time for bed.

There is a direct way (kinda boring from the looks of it) and a more interesting way over the back of the mountain. The beginning is a bit tricky as it is down a ski slope and you just never know if you are on the right trail, just follow the others

It took us about 1.5 h to reach the Brantweiner Hütte where we had nice lunch. Ritsu was overwhelmed by the selection of sausages (and I was a poor translator, as I have myself no idea about that matter) and I had the Brett’l Jause (assorted meats and cheeses with bread)

The rest of the hike, while a nice, slowly descending trail, was with 2.5 h a bit on the long side, but Julius took it better then his old parents.

(Yes, you can kick me, as I did myself, when I discovered that I had mistakingly packed Julius’ old hiking boots, way too small, but he had no trouble doing this hike in his sandals.)

The entertainment for the afternoon was a visit to a brand-new playground (Katschhausen, official opening next Saturday)

and a free pony ride for each kid of the kids’ club (further rounds of about 2 minutes for 1€)

Back to the hotel and some time with Julius at the kids’ pool (with silde! Video coming soon)

After dinner (yum and plenty) it was time for the family disco at the bar. It took Julius a while to warm up to the idea, but when he heard a disco version of one of his favorite kindergarten songs, he was all for it.

Nice greeting at the reception and a VERY nice room (lots of sliding doors, you can make it as open or compartmentalized as you want. The LCD TV is on a flip panel, so it can be used either in the main bedroom or the living room, ingenious planning)

While Ritsu and Julius were checking out the pool, I participated in the ‘Hotel Safari’ … to know my way around the fairly big place.

We were invited to a ‘welcome drink’ by the manager lady (well, everybody was, and who would say no to a free glass of bubblie?) and then dinner was ‘Italian buffet’ … which first I was skeptical about … we did not come all the way FROM Italy to eat more Italian food! … But it turned out to be very nice, plenty, lots of choices, including smoked fish.

We are on our way to part 2 of our summer vacation, and to cut the whole drive into 2 more manageable portions, Ritsu found us a nice hotel on the way.

We had no idea that Palmanova has such an interesting shape (see google earth pic above). Obviously it was an old Roman fortress and it is nice to see that the structure is still very much intact. The whole town is shaped around a perfect hexagon piazza and our hotel is directly there, next to the nice Duomo (which starts ringing its bells at 7 AM!)

Still no birthday cake, but the food was great as usual:

Mixed breads to start with (this time we were informed that the pepper in the pink pepper butter comes from Hawaii and Jamaica), 2 freebie appetizers (a tiny mouse of squid followed by a seafood soup with mini octopi on top), then Ritsu and I had the beloved mix of beef tongue and raw shrimp. Newly aranged in mandarin puree (instead of jelly).

Even Julius’ simple pasta bianca looked fancy.

Then Ritsu had button shaped ravioli filled with lobster meat and I had some deep fried lamb cutlets.

I had thought about ordering the meat, which is ‘only’ 5€ per 100gr. but was informed that the meat pieces are rather large (1kg) and it is usually a dish to be shared. Maybe next time.

For dessert Ritsu had something fig flavoured while I was happy with a freebie tiramisu dessert and my Gin & Tonic.