Our day started with an appointment with the world's famous Spanish Riding School that trains Lipizzan horses. The Spanish Riding School is the only Institution In the world that has been maintaining and cultivating classical equestrian skills in the tradition of the Renaissance 'High School' for more than 430 years.

The Lipizzan horses are the oldest horses bred for representative purposes in Europe. The physique and forceful grace of these intelligent and lively horses bred from Spanish, Italian and Arab blood is particularly suited to the representative equestrian art of the 'High School'.

We were taken on a tour where firstly we visited the Winter Riding School, a jewel of Baroque architecture, and we were informed by our tour guide, it is one of the most beautiful indoor arenas in the world. With the grandness and opulence of it we couldn't really argue. It is the same hall which you can see on the first "old"picure.

Outside was the Summer Riding School, the Sallburg courtyard, Vienna's most significant Renaissance building and the Lipizzan stables.

In the stables we saw 16 of these thoroughbreds.

We unfortunately could not see the horses perform. As it is the holiday season most of them are on vacation, taking it easy in the Summer Residence Wetzdorf. Our lovely tour guide mentioned that the horses are bred in the Federal Stud Piber, and we would be running close by on Saturday.

We were all very happy to start running after such a great tour.

From Vienna we headed to the thermal spa town of Bad Voslau, where spring water comes up to the surface from 600m below. On the steps of the spa we met the mayor and director of the spa. There they provided us with some thirst quenching melons. The mayor asked how we could run on such a hot day. I think by now most of us have got used to the heat and have fully acclimatised to the hot conditions.

The mayor took us on a tour of the spa. One young boy in the swimming pool held the torch whilst swimming.

Petr from the Czech Republic was too tempted by the inviting waters, that he jumped in with all his clothes on. He trotted back to us a few minutes later dripping wet; I don't think anyone noticed.

We continued our run to Berndorf where we met the mayor who admired us running in the heat of 34 degrees Celsius. From Berndorf the terrain got hillier and more mountainous - and more typical of the landscape of the Austrian countryside - steep land rising from the valley with pine forests and picturesque houses dotted up in the hills.

At Neunkirchen (which means 'New Church') we met the kind and openhearted mayor, Margit Gutterding and representative of the town hall in the picturesque town square.

Mark and Zoltan couldn't quite believe the temperature gauge of 35 degrees Celsius and an approaching thunderstorm.

With a police escort out of the town we headed to Ternitz. There the mayor remembered the Peace Run passing through his city 10 years ago. He was extremely pleased that the World Harmony Run returns to his city.

The last 40 km of the day was through some spectacular and magnificent mountainous terrain with the summit of peaks at 2000 metres up beyond on the other side of the valley.

When we began running up the mountains it had been raining earlier and the temperature was cooler and fresher with the fragrance of pine needles in the air.

A low mist and cloud covered the valley below and above the stream.

We ran the final 5 km beside the mountain stream to the beautiful and peaceful mountain town of Murzzuschlag.

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Distance: 134km

Team Members:
Anete Klavina (Latvia), Anna - Lena Lesmann (Germany), Anne Schulze (Germany), Daniel Schenke (Germany), Dipavajan Renner (Austria), Edmund Blab (Austria), Mark Collinson (England), Martin Prettenhofer (Austria), Ondrej Vesely (Czech Republic), Petar Mihaylov (Bulgaria), Petr Machacek (Czech Republic), Pratul Halper (Austria) , Terezia Hammel (Hungary), Veronika Kuliskova (Slovakia), Zoltan Theobald (Hungary).

Harmonemail:
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