After my Intensive course finished, I had a week-long vacation.  I stuck around town until Wednesday because I had advising, but decided to take a hike to Schoeckl, which is the tallest mountain in the area at 1445 meters (not very tall),  It is about 20 kilometers from my dorm, so I took the bus about five kilometers out and hiked the rest.  I kept missing all of the paths, so I was doing most of it by the road until I saw a path marked by a "Wetterturm" (weather tower).  I thought, for sure, I could not miss that one.  I was right.  There was a road called "Wetterturmstrasse," although I never did see that tower.  Unless this is it.

Or the million and one other towers I saw (and probably should have taken pictures of, just to show the ridiculousness of it).  The street should have been called "Tuermestrasse" instead.  Well, I finally made it to the top and had lunch and the best slice of cake I have ever eaten called "Schoeckltorte" (not very innovative).  Or at least I think it was good.  One can never be sure after hiking for several hours.  The weather started to cloud up a bit, so I left to find the actual high point, which I never did.  I think the weather station was on top of it.  How ironic now that I think of it.  But I found this instead.

Here is a nice view right behind that.

I took a different way down, hoping to see this church along the way.  But I got turned around several times because there are so many paths, which were surprisingly horribly marked.  So, I doubled back several times and did not make it back to civilization until practically dark.  I got on the first bus I saw, which happened to pass right by my dorm, luckily.  I went right to sleep when I got back, considering I walked about 30 to 35 kilometers that day.  The next day, I was pretty sore.  Actually make that the rest of the week.  The blisters were not fun to walk with in Vienna and Budapest, but I survived.