Our Home In Ischgl

We are staying in this apartment in this great hotel in Ischgl called Hotel Kardona. I booked this in early November, and at that time, a hotel anywhere in the Austrian alps was hard to come by, especially an affordable one so we feel very lucky to have found our home in Ischgl.

low key hotel

This hotel turned out to be right up our alley. Homey and comfortable, it’s just easy. We are located right across the river from busy Ischgl and the ski slopes, just a 5 minute walk away. On top of that, the hotel offers a heated locker for all our ski equipment right beneath the main lift for just a few Euro for the week so we don’t have to carry our skis back and forth each day! Score!

The hotel is family run, and they are very nice. The proprietress even gave us Christmas cookies when we checked in!

apartment living in ischgl

Our room isn’t a traditional hotel room. It’s an apartment. The apartment is a one bedroom with a kitchen and living/dining room. It’s great to have some beers in the fridge for the getting ready to go out stage of the night and a coffee machine in the morning!

Our place is on the first floor, right next to the sauna. It’s handy to have a sauna so close, but there are a lot of rules. The sauna is only open between 4:30-7P, so it’s always crowded. Also, no clothes in the sauna. And it’s tiny! You walk into the room, there’s a shower and a bunch of beach chairs. People lounge in the beach chairs, in the nude, after their sauna. We went to the sauna in our bathing suits and felt like fools. North Americans, eh?

Kardona Sauna
The entrance to the sauna – I decided it wouldn’t go over if I took photos inside!
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Iceland Day 1: Water

Yea! We made it to Iceland past midnight and promptly went to duty free to buy booze. That seems to be the first move for anyone, locals included, and we want to follow the local customs! Here’s a recap of Iceland Day 1 for us: a busy day.

Busy Morning

We checked into our hotel, the Base Hotel by the airport, had a few beers at the lounge and went to bed for about 5 hours. This morning, we got up, went back to the airport for a 45 minute bus ride into the Reykjavik bus station, then a taxi to Camp Easy to pick up our ride, and home, for the week!

Waterfalls

Then we hit the road! And today we saw a lot of water! Waterfalls, a hot spring (that was beautiful but could have been hotter), and tons of beautiful views of bodies of water. I think this will be a recurring theme. We also hiked a bit, but we ended quite early because we are tired from too little sleep last night.
Early observations:

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