Thursday, May 17, 2012

Salzburg Day 1

Hey guys! It's been a few days but I am back in some better wifi. This means the pictures can go up and you can see what is going on. So let's get back into it.

We woke up our final day in Hallstatt to sun! Finally! Even though it was when we were leaving. Either way, it was beautiful.


The view from the window.

The bathroom. This place was great. I took the longest shower here. It was awesome.

And again here is the breakfast room where Brandon ate the owners out of house and home. That whole counter where that man is standing is food!



So normally we would have taken a train out of Hallstatt, however, they were doing some work on the railroad so we had to catch a bus. The morning was absoluetly beautiful. Stunning really.

Here is the outside of the hotel. Look at the sky! So amazing. So blue. I love Austria. You can kind of see the funicular that we took yesterday in the picture above.


Yet another view of the lake.


So we hopped on our bus. We ran into the French woman that we had met the night before, as well as the English guy from the funicular, and we were off to Salzburg. I had been to Salzburg once before with my family, we had just been passing through, but I was so excited to return. We changed buses in a small town and got into Salzburg around noon.

The day was incredible, the weather was great. Salzburg is where they filmed The Sound of Music and also is the home of Mozart. Salzburg is such a great city. It is small but it feels like a big city. It has all the things you like about a big city, things to do, places to eat, but at the same time it's not crowded, the people are nice. You want to live there. At least I do. What also is cool about Salzburg is it has the city feel but in less than 5 minutes you can be in the countryside and in 20 minutes you can be in the mountains. So many things to do.

We got in, dropped our stuff at our hostel, Yoho, interesting... it would turn out to be the least favorite of all the places that we have stayed this far, and headed out.



People taking advantage of the sun! Tanning on the river.


Main shopping street. Milds! Do you remember this place?

So there was street performer. I really wanted to take a better picture but after the cat incident in Montpellier, I took this one discretely while we were walking.

Fountain from The Sound of Music. More on this later.

It was really sunny and I have no sunglasses, so the solution was to wrap my scarf around my head.

Castle on the hill. Also, are you wondering about this gold ball with the man on the top? Yes, so were we. It's art. And the man is not real.

Street Chess.

So, shocking, we're hungry. There are a ton of street vendors selling sausages, the menus are all in German, we take our best guess and get some lunch. Mine was great but it has this weird white stuff dripping, no oozing out of it when I would take a bite. I kept eating. I looked it up later, this one is known as the "pus dog." I know, usually I don't say the "p" word... yuck! They fill it with cheese, thank god, I was thinking it was fat, so when you bite into it, it all comes out. But it was great. Look dad! I got mustard... no ketchup anywhere.


Brandon checking out our next move.

Ice cream for 1 Euro.... yes!!!


So this is a new theme. From this point on in our trip... the stairs will not leave us alone. Kill me now! I have never climbed this many stairs in my life.





So all of these stairs lead us to the top of a mountain with an awesome view! I have like a million pictures of these mountains but they were so stunning!


More stairs!


Small castle on the hill.




So this is the big castle in Salzburg. We were hitting this up tomorrow. But for now, it was getting late in the afternoon. After all the travelling, stairs, and walking, I was dying, and we had a Sound of Music bike tour at 4:30. We headed down the hill, bought some water, found a bench, and chilled for a while. So needed!





So I love The Sound of Music. When my family came years ago I had been dying to do The Sound of Music tour. I had mentioned it to Brandon and he had looked into it. Brandon is really big into doing the best! Whatever it is, we are doing the best option. So Brandon found this bike tour, Fraulein Maria's Bike Tour. It's a 3.5 hour biking tour of the city and of the places in The Sound of Music. Everyone says this is way better than the bus tour. I was really skeptical at first but there was no way Brandon would lead us astray, especially when 24 euro were on the line.

According to the reviews, all the guides Claudio was the least favorite. In the words of Brandon, "If when he introduces himself, he say's his name is Claudio, don't have too high an expectation." Well, we round the corner and there is a South American guy on a bike. Hmm.. We kept walking... But we knew it was him, so we went back :)

But he and the tour turned out to be amazing.

It was basically a 3.5 hour bike tour of the history of Salzburg. Even if you aren't into The Sound of Music you would really enjoy it. They do the tour at your pace, you can go where you want to go, stop when you want, take as many pictures are you like. It was basically a guided private tour of whatever you could want. It as was awesome, relaxing, a perfect way to see the city. The best way to see the city I think. And of course, The Sound of Music stuff was cool too.

Here's some stuff we saw on the tour:

A really ugly statue of Mozart.

Mozartballs! There are these famous chocolates that won something at one of the World's Fair. There are a ton of knockoff these days but these are the original ones.Claudio took us here and bought us some!
Here it is. They were good.

This is in The Sound of Music... I can't remember when though... ha.

Brandon on his bike!

Claudio!


This was in The Sound of Music. These are the stairs that they run down after the performance at the end when they are trying to escape Austria.


Our bikes. You can get off and talk about stuff whenever you have a question.




Here I am!

I'm Maria!



Oldest bakery in Salzburg.


Do you remember this scene? The family is hiding and then Lisel tries to get Rolfe to help them out... but then he rats them out. This is the cemetery that inspired that scene. All the most important families in Austria are buried here.


Then we started to ride up towards the castle.

Beautiful view.

Whoa! Look at those clouds!


Church at the top. This is the convent where Maria was a nun! We went inside.



And then got trapped!

View from the church.

From the church, we rode down the hill out of the main part of the city.


Here's a view of the backside of the castle.

This house is where the executioner lived when the castle was in full operation mode. He lived in the field behind the castle so no one would know who he was. Brandon said he would want to know the executioner so he could be friends with him rather than enemies.


Claudio told us to go out in this field and take a picture because that is what lots of people do. So we did.

Back on the bikes.

Trees that the Von Trapp children climbed in.



Then we came to this lake. Get ready.


This is one of two Von Trapp houses used in the movie. Now, this is owned by Harvard and their students can come study abroad here. So jealous, this place is amazing!



Secon Von Trapp house.


The gazebo. Marisa and I came here last time!

Brandon and a Nissan Juke.

This is the archbishops house.... he had most things in Salzburg commissioned to be built.
More of his property.

Big fish in his ponds.

This picture is sideways but I wanted to keep it. According to Claudio, this was the place where a guy, can't remember his name, wrote the book that inspired Hilter to take over the world.


And we made it back! What a great tour. Here is Claudio. He thought it was weird that I wanted a picture but of course I had to get one for the blog! He was awesome, totally would recommend him as a guide.

One last shot of our bikes.


We headed back to the hostel to change, it was getting cooler, and then we were heading to a bieregarten for dinner. These are the steps that the Von Trapp children jumped up and down.

You can also kind of see on the right the tunnel that they kids ran through as well.

The bieregarten was awesome. It was so pretty, totally local, and good food. It was a large area covered in white rocks, tables, tons of trees, all lit but large christmas lights. So cool!


Scnitzel!



Some blurry shots of the place but I wanted to show it.


6 comments:

  1. Looks cool food has wierd names . Steps look super duper exhausting. Bike tour looks fun.

    Have fun Anthony Jr.

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  2. The trip is great and the castle looks great too! One day maybe I can go visit you but everything is great there. But i wonder if i can go there with you. I loved your bicycle ride and your bicycle it is my favorite color. So excited to see you and if you see a library send me a picture.

    Love you and miss you Amaya but everything is so great and i can't wait to see you. Everything going to be allright going to see you soon.

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  3. I loved the pictures and the history on your bike tour. That would definately be something i would love to do.Glad you were able to finally get to do it. Love the shout out. Keep them coming.

    Love, Arleem

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  4. Wow! What amazing pictures, I've seen the Sound of Music many times and all the pictures capture the scenes so vividly. You should have worn clothes like Maria, and Brandon like Captain Van Trapp! LOL!!!! You guys look like you are enjoying the trip very much, maybe Claudio can be your tour guide all over Europe. take care of yourselves, Miami is just find.....except for the Heat! and i don"t mean the temperature.... DEL

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  5. We must watch TSOM when you get home. I love Salzberg. When can we go again?

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  6. Hi Britt, Visiting Arleem. I have tried to respond four times and can't get thru totally frustrated. Had really clever things to say. But you will never know them. I think what you are doing is fantastic and sounds like the trip of a lifetime.

    Joni

    ReplyDelete