I escaped the Dubai heat for a week to Carinthia, the southernmost state of Austria renowned for its breathtaking beauty featuring over 1,200 lakes and snow-peaked mountain ranges.

Everything here is so vividly bright and beautiful; brilliant blue skies, emerald-green valleys, and lakes so clear and vibrantly turquoise, you can swim and drink from them. By winter, many of the mountain ranges open as ski resorts, but their beauty is surpassed even through the summer, with scenic hiking and biking trails, and a comfortably breezy yet sunny climate that doesn’t surpass the mid-twenty Celsius range.