Salzburg - the hills are alive...

Today, Shane was in charge of "adventure day".....and what a fabulous job he did!!!

We set off fairly early in the morning (9am) and drove through the Salzburg country-side to the town of Mondsee, which is famous for the cathedral that Maria and the Captain got married in, in the Sound of Music...and I tell you, there were at LEAST 4 couples getting married there today - we saw 4 different brides in the space of 20 minutes - Saturdays must be the day for weddings (as it is at home I guess!).

The famous church..with some wedding cars out the front...

Another bride arrives.....

Some of the colourful buildings in the town square....








The next stop on Shane's magical mystery tour was St Gilgen. This town has an amazing gondola that will take you all the way to the top of the mountain (it takes about 10 minutes to get to the top in the gondola - or a 2 hour hike up....no thanks!). The girls were VERY excited to say the least.

The gondola station at the bottom.....

On we get..fighting for who gets on first.....

Up we go....over the road and up the hill.....

And up

And up...just when you think it couldn't get any higher...

We even spotted a few deer on the mountain beneath us....you can "just" see one in this picture (look just to the right of the brown grasses around the middle of the picture)....

We FINALLY made it to the top....totally worth it for the amazing view!!! I think some of the opening credits for the Sound of Music are filmed here as well....

The gondolas seem to go all the way up into the sky...

We stopped for a coffee/hot chocolate at the top.....an even nicer view than the cafe at the Salzburg castle!

Above the cafe is the actual mountain peak (only about a 5 minute hike)...this is the view on the other side of the mountain....right at the back you can see a glacier in the midst of the mountains...

The girls thought this was the most fantastic adventure ever.....!!!






Once we got back down the mountain we had a quick explore of St Gilgen town.....being part of bavaria it has a very typical style....the flowers, the colours and the shapes all work so well together....gorgeous.

St Gilgen main town...






After leaving St Gilgen we drove further south and around the other side of the lake to a town called St Wolfgang, named after the lake itself (Wolfgangsee).....this was very pretty although very touristy...and a lot of boats that do tours around the lake leave from this point....you can see why so many tourists like it here though...

We returned back to Salzburg after our adventure, very happy that we had gone out to explore this area. Thanks Shane for being a fantastic tour director!!! We spent our final afternoon in Salzburg in a beer garden watching the girls spinning around and around a pole until Eloise came unstuck and fell over. Much tears resulted but she is fine and the pizza for dinner and the One Direction concert on TV (should I be concerned that both my girls LOVE this band?) made her forget she had even hurt herself!!!

Tomorrow we have decided to bypass Neuschwanstein castle.....it will add an extra 2 hours driving time on our day and apparently you can only do guided tours that go for half an hour anyway.....it isn't worth the extra hassle driving with the kids (those of you with young kids - or those of you who have had young kids at some point - will understand).....so instead we will do the straight 3 hour trek into Germany to find our hotel right near the Legoland amusement park so we can get cracking early on Monday morning!!

Salzburg - sound of music

The last 2 days in Salzburg have been great...I am actually getting sick of writing how great everything is....I need new adjectives!!!

The night before last we took a walk through the town in the evening. We went over the bridge into the old city. One of the bridges in covered in padlocks....the story is young lovers (well that counts Shane and I out!) put a padlock on the bridge and then throw the key into the river below - so they are locked together forever. Very romantic.

Salzburg old town at sunset

The padlocks on the bridge....

Salzburg is all about music - and Mozart in particular. It is literally everywhere....even the bread is music shaped!!!























The next morning was a little wet and soggy, so we decided to take the car and drive just out of the city to a few large shopping centres that we were told were pretty great.

The first one was a designer outlet mall, which was relatively new so some of the shops were still empty. It was a nice mall but there wasn't anything that we loved enough to buy. But we did love the size of the parking spaces in the car park....

You could probably fit 4 cars in these spaces marked for 2.....I wonder how big the disabled parking spots are?













 The next mall was called "Europark" and is supposedly the most beautiful shopping centre in the world....I don't know about "beautiful" in terms of how it looked - but there was one thing that made it EXTREMELY attractive to us.....

This shopping centre has its own Kids Club....where you can drop your kids off and they are looked after and can play while you shop......for the exorbitant price of 1 euro for an hour (and 2 euro for 3 hours!!!!)......I LOVE THIS PLACE!! The lady working in the kids club was Irish so she loved our little English speakers....our girls were in there and grabbing toys and going down slides before we even got to say goodbye......





So Shane and I spent 2 hours wandering the shopping centre, not buying much and wondering whether  we could leave the kids there for the next 3 days....at 1 euro an hour it would be a very cheap babysitting option!!!!
Once we all got back into Salzburg, we decided to take a walk to one of the Austrian beer halls. We chose Augustiner's because we read that "This is the best example of a large beerhall anywhere in the world. It's situated in a real monastery (the only religious establishment in Austria still brewing)
At first it's as you've entered a small shopping centre because in this pub not only do they let you bring your own picnic but they also provide the shops to buy the food in. There are four or five of them including a bakers and a couple of butchers, providing the traditional (and probably lethally unhealthy) sausages so loved in all the German-speaking areas of Europe. Once past these, in the proper drinking area, you find a series of huge baroque rooms with vertiginously high ceilings and long, sturdy wooden tables.The beer garden is part of a Benedictine monastery founded in 1605 whose worldly brethren began brewing fermented libations in 1621. They specialized then and still do today in brewing a heavily malted Oktoberfest-style beer that is served in distinctive clay-porcelain mugs. The beer is as good as it gets" ......how could we miss this????

On our way in....

Inside one of the beer halls....there are actually 3 of these halls inside the building.

Cheers.  The beers are served in porcelain mugs with 2 sizes....big and gigantic - we chose big...

Eloise drinking her beer like a 'lady'.......no......it wasn't really beer, just lemonade for the kids!

The food stalls - Shane wants to come back and have the pig's knuckles he saw in one of them.

The outside beer garden








It was a lovely way to spend an hour or so. I can imagine on a truly busy day, maybe Sunday lunch, with an Austrian band playing this would be like Disneyland for beer fans!!

One thing we have noticed is that people still wear the traditional dresss (the lederhosen and the women's dress - forgotten the name).....it is nice that these traditions are still alive and well.

We walked back along the river which gave us a good look at the buildings built into the rock face.

The castle on the hill in Salzburg






















The next day (Friday) was sunny and warm (well - 20 degrees) so we decided to catch the funicular up the hill to the castle.

Up we go...




















The view from the top was pretty amazing. Sitting in the sunshine, we stopped for a coffee/hot chocolate with a great view across to the mist covered mountains.

Nice place to stop for a coffee....

Beautiful view with a beautiful girl...

The view from the other side of the castle onto downtown Salzburg







In the castle we had a 'guided' tour (which means we got hand-held sets that told us the history of the castle as we were shepherded through different sections)......the girls liked the novelty of their own 'guides' but not sure they actually listened to much of it.

The girls with their 'guides'

The view from the top of the castle tower.....

The view the other way from the top of the tower....naked man sun baking. Not sure he realised that there were a bunch of people who could see him (most of them taking photos...I think "naked-man on a castle tower" may become an internet sensation!).

Inside the castle walls was also the Marionette Museum.

The girls liked the displays of all the marionettes.

Another day, another "stick your head in a hole" photo!!!















We then went back down the hill to the town and wandered along the river where we had lunch in the sun.

Down we go.....
























After lunch we wandered back through the Mirabelle gardens, which are famous for being in the "Sound of Music" movie (where they sing "Doe Ray Me").....and also found a playground with the highest slippery-dip I have ever seen .....

Cool slippery dip...too high for the kids to even attempt to climb!!

Being the city of music, the playground also had this fun musical steps, where each square plays a different note when you step on it. Neve had lots of fun on this!!

The Mirabelle gardens....

The fountain where we all made a wish with a coin.....

The castle in the background....

Neve doing her best Julie Andrews impersonation......."the hills are alive"....








After some fun in the park and a stop at a cupcake shop for afternoon tea, the girls were desperate to go back to the Kids Club at the shopping centre, so we headed back out there and let the kids have another hour in the kids club (who wouldn't for 1 euro??) while Shane and I did more window shopping!!

This ends another day....our last day in Salzburg tomorrow before we leave Austria and head into Germany....

Vienna (the last few days) - Salzburg (Austria)

The last few days have gone quickly....I have been busy arranging the last few weeks of our trip that I haven't had time to update the blog.

But we are now organised with a basic plan of action so I can get back to the blog.

On Monday, the day after our visit to Schobrunnen palace, the girls wanted to take Shane to the Eisenrad (ferris wheel) to show him....so we headed off again to Prater park and the ferris wheel. Another go on the ferris wheel (which was just as fun as the first...actually we had the entire cabin to ourselves so that was pretty neat....in another cabin we could see a couple sitting at a table having brunch....how very civilised!!).

Our private cabin.....

Up and over.....











We then hired a 'family' bike to explore more of the Prater park (which stretches 4km alongside the Danube river - I keep calling it the "Danooob" to which Shane makes endless jokes!!).

The family bikes....kids sit up the front....parents do all the work - sounds about right!

The girls with their vegemite bread (yes, we have travelled with vegemite for over 2 months now!!)..... ready for the ride.






















The bike was good fun but actually hard work to pedal, but we went part-way through the park before having to turn around to get the bike back in time...we stopped off at a playground that had a very cool see-saw/swingy thing....

Parked at the playground

The tyre swingy thingy











After another tour through the amusement park (which was just as quiet as the other day - if not more), we strolled back into the main part of town (via a few bike shops that Shane had managed to sniff out) where I had a few hours strolling through the old city on my own.

For dinner we decided it was time to have a traditional "Weiner Schnitzel", so in the evening we went into the old town and into what looked like a very traditional (ie. authentic) schnitzel place.

Well....I am embarrassed to admit that for the first time in ages (years even) we walked straight into a tourist trap!! Look - the restaurant was nice, good ambience....and the food was good (can't remember the last veal schnitzel I had but this one was one of the best I have had)....and the waiter (although Hungarian, not Austrian) seemed really friendly. Then we went to pay. Well - firstly we were charged for the bread that they had brought out as we sat down (which I know sometimes you have to pay for but I haven't been to a place where they have charged us since we left Australia)....then we were charged for the salad that they brought out "as special" since we never ordered it.....then we were charged 2euro each as a "cover charge"....we were even charged 0.60euro for each of the 2 sachets of ketchup that the kids had on their schnitzel!!! THEN the waiter says "we don't include a tip in this price so I will add 10% as a tip".....I would have said no but I hadn't actually seen the breakdown of the bill at this point.....what a rip-off!!!!

Anyway - these things happen and I just have to remind myself that it was a nice dinner....

So yesterday (Tuesday) was our last day in Vienna. We took a train ride out into the suburbs to find a shopping centre....was kind of like a mini Charlestown square (before it was renovated). It turned into a  beautiful, warm (24 degrees!), sunny afternoon so we took a final walk through the old town and to see if we could get another traditional Vienna cake!! We found a cafe that reminded me a lot of Goldbergs that it turned out has no menu and only serves the cakes they have made that day - so no Sachertorte that Shane was after...but they did have Apfelstrudel so we went for that instead.

The cafe....apparently quite famous and very old.....











The girls had an ice-cream (one of their last for the holiday I have warned them....Shane and I are both aware that there will probably be major fall-out and ice-cream withdrawal from the kids when we get home so we need to start 'weaning' them off it now!!). It was so warm that Eloise refused to wear shoes (she really is a beach girl at heart!) so I am sure we had the only child in Vienna (or Austria for that matter) wandering through a major city with no shoes on....!

Making a wish in the fountain...

Enjoying an ice cream - look how dirty Eloise's feet are!!!





















Over the last few days we had to decide on where we were going for the next week and a bit before we went to Switzerland (where we have accommodation booked). So....we have chosen....Salzburg for 4 nights, then a trip to Legoland Germany (that we have been promising the kids since before we left Australia) with a side visit to Neuschwanstein castle in Germany....then a few days in Rothenburg and some time with a friend of ours in Weinsburg (both in Germany) before heading to Lake Constance (between Austria, Germany and Switzerland) for a few days and down into Swizerland via Liechtenstien. Are we attempting too much??

A few things we have noticed over the last week or so.

- Austrians eat SO many cakes and sweet things (along with huge fatty sausages)....why are they not big fat people??
- The joke about "no kangaroos in Austria" is EVERYWHERE.....do the Austrians really get asked about kangaroos that much???
- Everytime I see the word "Austria" my mind instantly thinks it says "Australia"....I am constantly surprised when people with the word Austria on their bags and things start talking in German!!!
- EVERY show on TV is dubbed in German.....EVERY show....EVERY movie.....EVERYTHING except CNN international news.....I wonder if they get annoyed at how badly the lips move with the speaking or whether they are just used to it now....doesn't seem to bother the kids though who sit through any cartoon or any kids show no matter what the language is!!!

OK...so today (Wednesday) we said a fond farewell to Vienna (Shane says he could easily live in Vienna...Neve says its one of her favourite places this trip....Eloise still loves Central Park New York).

Our car....has travelled with us from Trieste and will be with us until we leave Europe and come home. Notice how the back doors open the other way out than most cars....it is actually quite good once you get used to not grabbing for the door handle in the wrong place!






We drove out of the city and through the countryside....fields of corn and sunflowers (that had unfortunately finished flowering).....from the flat landscape and towards the mountains.

Auf Wiedersehen Vienna....

Guten Tag countryside.....

And towards the mountains....

We arrived in Salzburg and after finding our accommodation, went on a walk through the town. What a lovely place this is! A castle on the top of a mountain, beautiful churches, little streets lined with shops....and a river running through it all. This is the home of "Sound of Music" so I am sure we will find and explore all the famous sites in the next few days.

Welcome to Salzburg

The girls discovered this market stall in one of the little squares.....needless to say there were a few tears from Eloise when we had to leave empty-handed!

All the shop signs look so beautiful....

These buildings (built back in 1406) are backed right up to the rock wall.....the buildings themselves don't seem awfully deep so not sure if they are dug into the rock as well.

The girls getting into the royal spirit of things.....

The fanciest McDonalds sign I have ever seen. At least I give them credit for trying to blend in with the surrounding shops....a giant plastic yellow "M" just wouldn't have been the same!!