Traffic in Austria

On our drive back from Austria to Belgium to drop off our rental car (and pop into a few other countries...such is life in Europe when this drive is like Vancouver to Jasper with a whole other country to see in between), we saw some fun stuff along the way.

The scenery, as you can imagine, is drop dead gorgeous: endless rolling green hills with darling little villages nestled into the valleys (or climbing up the hills themselves, on switch-backed roads - and making me happy I wasn't having to bike home to THAT house). It's definitely very "The hills are alive with the...".

And the road-side stands are a little different from ours - similar to the over-flowing peaches and nectarines in the Okanagan, this area is rich in, well, squash/gourds/kurbises, however you want to say it. Not sure if they cook them or are creating their Martha Stewart fall harvest table display, but there were tons of these squash honour bars.

And you'll notice the purple flowers on the rack in the background - flowering artichoke heads. For that splash of colour, I assume (but really, wouldn't they have been better picked about a month ago, trimmed and steamed with some butter?)

And further along the road amongst the other rental cars and caravans, we came upon this unique motorcyclist. And unique can only begin to describe him. Would have loved to take a picture of him at a rest stop, but ended up settling for a quick snap out the window.

His helmet was nearer to Genghis Khan battle gear than Hell's Angels skull cap. His flowing hair and beard gave the helmet edge an almost fur-trimmed appearance (with help from the animal tail hanging down the back). And for company on what we're sure was probably a long road-trip, a separate trailer....for his dog (who was snoozing comfortably when we peered in). If you look close enough, you can see the "Harley Dog" decal on the side of the canine unit.

And you would not believe all the traffic they have in Austria - it's crazy man! We were held up for ages on the highway...it was bumper to bumper...or was that nose to tail?
Moo, honk...