What I learned in Europe

1.  There are a lot of stairs.  a.lot.  Many of those stairs are skinny and curvy or the treads are very worn and treacherous.  My thighs hurt a.lot.

2.  People love their dogs. They take their dogs everywhere, even to castles which the dogs cannot enter. I'm not sure what happens to those dogs when it's time for their tour. Maybe the dogs go to the dungeon.  They even take them to IKEA and the mall.  Seeing them everywhere reminded me that I really am not a fan of dogs. 

3.  When you see a WC that looks clean, use it.  You don't know when another WC will come along.  Free ones are great but in a pinch they are worth the 50 cents.
 
4.  Gelato (aka Eis) is amazing.  It is never too early in the day for gelato.  There are never too many times to have gelato in one day.

5.  Driving on the Auto Bahn is a lot of fun for Matt and slightly scary for Holly.  Passing the police doing 200km/h is my breaking point. 

6.  The cliff is really close when driving in the mountains.

7.  The Alps.  I can't explain in words, or in a bazillion photos this impressive and amazing landform.  Clearly the people that live by them are used to them, but it seemed that around every corner we were saying some superlative to describe it.  Waterfalls and twisty roads everywhere.  I think we have a few hundred pictures of the Alps.

8.  Germans are really nice people.  Except for the guy at Schloss Linderhof who yelled at us for parking in the wrong spot.  At least we think he yelled at us, we don't speak German so we're not quite sure.  The only thing we understood was, "believable," which I think meant, "unbelievable."  One guy out of millions isn't bad.

9.  Clocks in hotel rooms are not guaranteed.  I don't know about you, but I need to know the time when I wake up in the middle of the night.

10.  Pink and Nickelback have amazing publicists because their music was on the radio all the time.  Along with some Phil Collins & Queen.  We also saw a David Hasselhoff video on MTV. 

11.  Dubbed versions of our favorite shows get easier to understand after two weeks.  Although they did have QVC; I was close to ordering something :)

12.  Acid washed jeans are not dead and apparently the "wrinkled" acid wash are quite popular.  It is also socially acceptable for men to wear capris.

13.  We'd go back in a heartbeat, preferably when we have enough frequent flier miles for airfare.

Final day is Salzburg

As our two week vacation comes to a close, we are pooped!  We've seen all the churches, palaces, and gardens we can see.  With no particular destination in mind we turned off the Sat Nav and drove back toward Salzburg this morning.  The funniest signs of today, and I certainly have a lot of funny sign photos, were these along the road during road construction.  It's a novel way to let you know how long the construction will last.  How do you think these would go over in Chicago?

Grrr, construction

Ugh, the construction is still happening

Eh, it's not so bad

Hey!  It's over in 1 km.  I can handle that.

Last night I realized that we neglected to seek out the Sound of Music gazebo and get a full front shot of the palace while at Schloss Hellbrunn.  It was on our way to our undetermined destination so we snapped a few photos. 

The Sound of Music was a huge flop in Austrian theatres.  Some reports say it only played in theatres for a week!  Its current location at Schloss Hellbrunn is not the orignal location.  The gazebo was used in the movie for Lisel & Rolf and Maria & Captain Von Trapp.  It was origninally located at the private Schloss Leopoldskron but too many tourists wanted to see it; Schloss Hellbrunn is its new home.  I suppose becuase the move is not a part of Salzburg pop culture, but the gazebo seems to be unceremoniously shoved in a corner of the gardens.  We enjoyed the sunshine of the gardens for a while before the rain started to roll in.  We took advantage of Kaffee & Kuchen at our hotel and watched the downpour from our balcony. 

Tonight brings packing and an early bedtime.  If we can make it work, we are going to attempt to visit Dachau tomorrow before going to the airport in the afternoon.  Tomorrow afternoon brings a flight to London for a quick overnight stop before an early Wednesday morning flight home.

I sure miss my kids, Sonic, and Coke with ice and bubbles.

Whatcha talkin' 'bout Weatherman?

Like many days before rain and cool temperatures were in the forecast for today.  I was quite concerned when I got up because the wind was whipping the trees and the rain was coming down.  After breakfast the clouds parted and we saw blue skies and sunshine.  Weatherman, you lie because by the end of the day it was clear blue skies and almost 80 degrees. 

We took advantage of the weather while it was presented to us and jumped in the car for Salzburg.  We needed to stock up on car provisions and pulled into the market.  That's when we remembered that today was Sunday and just about everything is closed.  The gas station is the place for snacks and provisions. 

The drive from Berchtesgaden to Salzburg was only about 20 minutes.  Salzburg is a compact city that is very walkable.  The signs hanging outside the shops are made of ornate iron.

We wanted to tour Schloss Mirabelle but it's closed on the weekends so we explored the Mirabelle gardens instead.  We saw Mozart's birthplace and some pretty swanky closed shops. 

Salzburg from the Mirabelle Gardens

Maria's fountain from the Sound of Music

Wouldn't the kids look sooo cute?!

The next spot on the list for today was Schloss Hellbrunn at the outskirts of Salzburg. 

This palace was originally meant to be a day palace for the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg so no bedrooms were constructed.  The gardens of Hellbrunn are filled with trick fountains.  We got smart as to where they were along the paths and stayed out of the way.  Hellbrunn was an ingenious invention back in the day as no electricity was available to run the trick fountains.  They are supplied with "source water," water from its source, and water wheels help make the things move.  The funniest fountain was the marble table...

 
The chairs (except for the boy in green at the head of the table) and the perimeter of the chairs are rigged with a sprayer.  The Prince-Archbishop would give the signal and a servant would set off the sprayers.  The story goes that it was impolite for anyone to stand up while the Prince-Archbishop was still seated, so they had to sit and endure water being sprayed up their tushes.  The kids did a great job demonstrating it for the crowd.

Even the game is a fountain!

Our final excursion of the day was to Hallstatt. This lake is surrounded by the mountains and is one of the places that will reflect the mountains in the still water. There was a little bit of wind and boat traffic on the lake today so we could not see the perfect reflection but it was pretty darn good. The town was a bit busy and we really didn't want to pay for parking so a short drive to the other end of the lake paid off with free parking and and an empty beach.

 
Hallstatt was about two hours from Berchtesgaden, and we've trusted our Sat Nav up to this point.  Tonight was a bit questionable.  She told us to turn right then an immediate left, which was not out of the ordinary.  However, the immediate left looked to be a one lane road up a very steep hill.  The difference thus far is that we've taken mostly major highways and the AutoBahn  We figured, what the heck, go for it.  This little road gave us the greatest perspective of the German countryside without hotels and guesthouses - kids playing in the yards and guys in Lederhosen raking the grass.   

After dinner we got to Skype with the kids.  I think M was more excited than us.  She sat with us for about 15 minutes.  G was in and out, but we think he was happy to see us.  One more day in the Salzburg region before we start our journey home via London.

Off to Salzburg!

Friday morning brought a departure from Innsbruck and a journey to Salzburg. We have not bought anything other than two refrigerator magnets, but for some reason packing our suitcases was a bit of a challenge. Thankfully we don't have to fit them on an airplane today becuase they'd make us check for their bulging state.

We needed a bit of back home today and stopped at IKEA in Salzburg to find it :)  It was a ton of fun to roam the store and have have lunch in the cafe.

IKEA Salzburg

Happy lunch :)

For the month of August Salzburg has the Salzburg Festival with concerts all over town. This festival made securing a hotel room difficult. Instead of being near the city center like Munich and Innsbruck we are 10 miles outside Salzburg back to Germany by Berchtesgaden.  The place we are staying is a "wellnesshotel" with a spa and heated outdoor pool. I'd like for the weather to clear up so we can at least get some natural vitamin D while swimming with the mountains in the background.

Breakfast has been included in our hotel stays thus far and this place is no different.  However, they have a Kaffee & Kuchen (coffee & cake) buffet each afternoon.  That's wellness for ya.

The rain started back up at a decent rate so we decided to veg and watch the rain and fog from the balcony.  We solved the dinner dilemma by eating downstairs and had a great meal. 

Tomorrow looks to be a sunny day and we're going to visit another palace!

The Great Glass Elevator

The plan for Thursday was to go west from Innsbruck. The weather continued to be rainy with a lot more rain in the forecast, but we weren't going to hang out in our hotel room all day. Our final destination was Bregenz at the far west border of Austria & Switzerland. This town has a huge lake and opportunities for hiking (like every city) and water sports.  Our drive took us through the Alps, yet again.

In St. Anton am Arlburg

We stopped for a bit in St. Anton am Arlburg; this town is called the cradle of Alpine skiing for good reason. It is located in a valley between the mountains. Many of the shops and hotels were closed because of the off season. The bakery and grocery store were open to grab a bite to eat. 

Where's the elbow?!?!

One activity that was up and running were the gondola ski lifts. Matt is not a fan of heights, but he was game for the challenge. The clouds were starting to roll in so this was our only chance to make a worthwhile trip. The gondolas were very similar to Willy Wonka's Great Glass Elevator, and the ride was not far off from that as well. We could see the town of St. Anton am Arlburg and beyond, and soon we were up in the trees and clouds. We've seen the Alps for several days but this was quite a different. Riding above the trees and eventually the clouds was quite an experience. There was not a lot to do at the top of the mountain as it is the off season. The WC at the top of the mountain was the best one we've used up to now.

Spooky ride up

Top of the mountain

The descent was different than the ride up. The clouds moved in and we floated back to Earth in a cloud, which was good and bad. Matt didn't have to experience the feel of falling through the glass at a steep angle. We operated on the ignorace is bliss principle hoping all was well. As you can tell we survived the ride.

The way back down

The village

The journey continued toward Bregenz. So did the rain. It seemed that the rain became stronger after each mountain tunnel and the decision was made to turn back for the two and a half hour drive to Innsbruck.

Tonight in the Altstadt (Old Town) was a recreation of a street fair for Maximilian I. Maximilian himself attended along with acrobats, ballerinas, and musicians. We lasted all of about 10 minutes because everytime a "proclimation" was made they read it in German, English, Italian, and Spanish. Really? Just do the show. Insetad of standing with the masses we got Gelato and walked through Altstadt one more time.

To end the evening we watched the Slingbox in the lobby (since the wireless internet does not work in our end of the building) and uploaded our photos to the remote hard drive. By the way we're at about 600 pictures with 5 days to go in the vacation. That's going to be one long slideshow.

As a side note, I'm glad to not be a Blagojevich juror. 12 days and only 2 of 24 counts decided, ugh.

Innsbruck *Photos Added!

Our home for the next few days is Innsbruck, Austria. This was the Olympic host city some years ago. The Old City section of Innsbruck is quite manageable in a day. Much of the main street through town is retail and restaurants. The architecture of Old City is quite charming. At the end of the main street is the Goldene Dachl (Golden Roof) which was built by Maximilian I to watch courtyard festivals from the alcove balcony. The reason behind the name is because the alcove balcony has 2,657 gold-gilded copper tiles.

We, yet again, climbed a whole bunch of stairs of the Stadtturm (City Tower) to get a great panoramic view of the city. The skies were clear and we could see quite far. Of course, the Alps

The castle/palace of the day was Kaiserliche Hofburg (Imperial Palace).  More contraband photos...

One of the many frescos in the palace

The ballroom - just before I got busted

We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting the various churches and platz in the area. We had a leisurely dinner and gelato (OMG).

I suppose today's blog post is short, but we actually saw quite a bit. The weather for tomorrow, and the next few days, looks rainy so we're making our travel plan. We'd like to head to Oberammergau, Mittenwald, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen.