Finally, I've found a way to enjoy snow. Yes, from a coach whizzing past snow-laden trees! Perhaps not the usual way, but this year I was almost disappointed when the promised deluge (or 1cm) only materialised as 1mm.

But on my recent trip to Germany and Austria with Stihl I got snow. And lots of it. After conquering my initial snow and shoe fear, and realising that some countries can operate in snow, and from the coach window I made my peace - or some of it at least - with snow.

I mean when it makes trees as pretty as this, it can't be a bad thing can it?

trees covered in snow between munich and kufstein

As you can tell, all of these pictures are from the coach window as we sped down the autobahn from Munich to Kufstein, or back again. It's meant there's some window reflections in my photos, which is a shame, but it's also meant I have some photos of some very pretty trees, so I'm thankful for that. I mean, imagine if they'd all turned out to be blurry. Imagine how disappointing that would be.

Every time I thought I'd captured enough beautiful trees and returned my iPhone to my bag, I'd spot another that I deemed to be even more beautiful. And that's how I ended up with as many tree shots as almost anything else I took in those few days...

Truly beautiful aren't they? Beautiful in a way I've not noticed our trees to be in the snow here. Next time it snows, maybe I'll notice and be able to compare.

* While this post isn't in collaboration with Viking or Stihl, it was only possible because of the UK press trip arranged by them.