The Hills are Alive!

We took an hour and half train to Salzburg. I love to travel and I love planning it. While this is a first, mistakes are made. I had trouble finding a place to stay in Salzburg. At the last minute, I found the Renaissance Salzburg available. But apparently I only booked it for one night, not the day we arrived in Salzburg. The gentleman at the desk was very kind to call around to try to find us a place to stay. It was difficult but we finally got rooms at the Salzburg Airport hotel. I don’t have any photos but in our desperate state we were definitely taken to the cleaners.

There are about 145,000 inhabitants. It is a small city. We wandered around the narrow streets through the shops and markets. You wonder how the kids can handle all the window shopping? It is called pretzels, crepes, cinnamon apples, hotdogs, ice cream (they have Redbull ice cream. We have not told Jay. Their headquarters are here) hot chocolate, strudels, and so much more. My other mistake was thinking that we were going to visit the Neuschwanstein castle from Salzburg. No that would have been Munich. So I have decided we will come back and drive part of the Fairytale road in the spring which centers around the Brothers Grimm stories.

Jay and the boys went on a Saltmine tour while the girls went on the Sound of Music tour. The Saltmine tour was great. The SoM tour was good but I thought it could have been presented more interestingly. We did get to see some beautiful areas of the Austrian Alps. One of the most breathtaking was the Mondsee. There were great shops with gorgeous sweaters and cardigans. And tempting traditional Austrian clothing for Victoria and Noah but so expensive.

We took another relaxing 3 hour train ride into Vienna. The kids travel so well on the train, much better than the car. Vienna is much larger than Salzburg. This city is also beautiful but not the quaint feeling of Salzburg. We are staying at the Pension Pertschy and I love it. The location couldn't be more central and the rooms are large and unique. The Christmas lights throughout the city are beautiful. We ate at the Augustinerkeller. It was good food and desert and affordable.

Breanna, Cameron, Grant and I took the Imperial tour of the Schonbrunn palace. It was very impressive but the whole European royal genealogy is confusing me. It is too bad we were not here in the spring as the gardens would have been beautiful.

We are now feeling the cold here in Vienna. We opted not to window shop around Stephansplatz (I was tired of seeing the $14,000 watches) so we headed over to an indoor mall at the U1 Kagran stop. This evening we went over to the Christmas markets at Rathausplatz. Here among the incredible government buildings are huge trees full of lighted candy canes, wreaths, hearts, and bulbs. Again not my favorite market but the atmosphere is light and fun. We ate at a chain restaurant called Wienerwald (meaning forest of Vienna. Wein is German for Vienna) It wasn’t that great. Mostly grilled chicken, potato cakes, fries, chicken strips and veggies. But the kids ate well. And again very affordable to eat in Vienna.

Our Bavaria trip comes to and end as we head home to Dublin tomorrow night. We are planning to see a “Life in America” display at a local museum, get Cameron’s ice skating practice in for the week (Jay can only be a spectator), the Museum of Military History and pick up some last minute gift items from Demel’s and Manner’s. This is a magical time of the year to visit Germany and Austria. I can't even begin to explain the amazing architecture, sights and tastes but wish you all a visit here.