We were up early so we could catch a train. We were headed from Switzerland into Austria. We decided, to break up the near 6 hour trek to stop off in Innsbruck, former host of the Olympics and generally cute Austrian town, for lunch.
This would be when I was writing my blog update, I think I mentioned I wrote some of them on trains. Well this was then.
We were on the train from Bern to Innsbruck via Zurich from about 9:30-2:00pm. We got off the train, stowed our bags, and were glad to see the sun. The 4.5 hours spent on the train had been gorgeous. I think it would really be the best way to see the countryside. You could just stare out the window the whole way. Anyways, back to Innsbruck; it was sunny when we arrived, we sat outside at a little restaurant and had frankfurters - which weren't all that amazing - before walking around the picturesque town. Unfortunately the sun went away and the wind came up, it got cold, and we were tired. I think we lasted about 2 hours before we got back on the train to go to Salzburg. This was another 2hours.
We arrived in Salzburg, found our hostel (likely the best hostel I've ever stayed in), had dinner, did some homework, and hung out for a while. As you may or may not know Salzburg is the setting of The Sound of Music and was shot in and around the city. As such, we thought it fitting to do some research, read: watch the movie. I'd seen it before so no need to worry, we just wanted to be able to recognize things in the city while walking around.
Before we packed it in for bed we met the people staying in our room. A couple teams from a university fund raiser where they hitchhike to different cities around Europe in 10 days to raise money for various charities. Sounds like fun but it also sounds exhausting.
April 15: Salzburg to Wӧrgl to Radfeld to Kundl to Wӧrgl to Salzburg and everywhere in between
We had big plans for the day. Plans I choose not to reveal. But basically we had to find this place so we could do this thing, we thought it'd be awesome. It involved getting a train to a small town and then a bus to a smaller town and then walking through a field. This all sounds very suspect but it seemed reasonable to us. Unfortunately we missed the place we were looking for, as their signage was seriously lacking and the building we thought could be what we were looking for looked too run down.. anyways. The day involved us walking through a field for 8km until we came across the next "even smaller" town. It is good that Austria is such a lovely place to look at because this could have seemed like a disaster. Instead we just accepted it as being able to see the 'real' Austria.
Once arriving at the 'even smaller' second town we caught a train back to Worgl, which was the first town we arrived at. From there we got on the first train that we saw was heading back to Salzburg. Usually, this is a sure fire way to do things. Usually, you don't need to go and ask if you are getting on the right train.
To put into perspective what I'm about to tell you, when we went from Salzburg to Worgl the train ride was just under 1hr. The train we got on at Worgl took almost 4 hours to arrive in Salzburg. We didn't have any food, and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. ha. The situation seemed dire. Well, we didn't really realize how long the train would be until we looked at the map of the stops after about 2 hours and realized we still had soo far to go. The good news about trains of this nature is they take you on wonderfully picturesque winding tracks through mountains, beside rivers, into tunnels, beside villages, etc. that you don't get to see when you take faster, more direct trains. We even, unknowingly saw the castle that was in the background of The Sound of Music during the do-ray-me song. It was awesome, and in the end, very funny and worth it.
We arrived back at the hostel at 7pm realizing that we hadn't in fact done anything that day. We rewarded ourselves with very large beers, pizza, and hamburgers before heading off to bed.
April 16: "Lakes and Mountains," Salzburg
Saturday morning we sat down to do some homework before heading into the city for a quick spin through some of the sights before our guided tour in the afternoon.
Salzburg is breathtaking. It is really gorgeous. It is surrounded by high snow covered peaks in the distance, has a clear greenish blue river running through it, is chalk full of adorable shops, and inspiring architecture, in addition to having huge rolling green hills and cliff faces, AND one of those rolling hills has a 900 year old castle sitting on top of it. It is a postcard.
So we walked round this postcard looking city and one of the first places we stumbled upon was the steps from do-ray-me of The Sound of Music and the green archway they run through. We just meandered around until we had to be back at the hostel around 1:30 to be picked up for our tour. There was a market going on in the 'old city' area, a lot of Easter decorations were out, I bought some salt - Salzburg literally translates to Salt Castle as there are huge salt deposits that they mine.
Although the official 'The Sound of Music Tour" is the biggest of the tours offered we opted for a more scenic option of the "Lakes and Mountains" tour, which was a 4 hr guided tour of the Salkammergut region, an area near Salzburg full of beautiful lakes and mountains and villages. There were some wonderful little towns we got to stop in. I think it would be the perfect location for a summer home, right on the lake, you could waterski, it is gorgeous. We stopped in a few places Fuschl, St.Wolfgang, St.Gilgen, Krottensee, and Mondee - well we didn't stop in all those places. One of those places was where Mozart's mother was born, because he grew up in Salzburg so there is all sorts of stuff about him there too.
We also swung by the church that Maria gets married in in the movie. And we saw the headquarters for Red Bull, because it was an Austrian man who invented it. They also have Red Bull Cola in Austria but I don't know what it is or how it differs from regular Red Bull. I don't really know much about the product.
Anyways, the tour was really good, but quite cold. The countryside is simply breathtaking. Easily the most beautiful country I have ever seen.
When we got back from the tour I crawled into bed in hopes of warming up, ha, and I needed some motivation to get back out into town. We figured we hadn't really had that much of a chance to see the city - which was supposed to be awesome (it was! so much to see & do - salt mines, castles, ice caves, etc!) - so we wanted to get some in that evening.
We basically just wandered around town, we found some more Sound of Music scenes, I bought a painted egg, and we tried a Kӓsekrainer from a sausage stand, which was served like a hot dog - they can also be served with just a bun beside it and mustard on the side. Well let me tell you about how delicious it was! It is a sausage that is infused with cheese and covered with ketchup and mustard (fancy stuff, not basic yellow) and served in a toasted bun. It was sooo good. haha.
As the sun set we headed back to the hostel to get some rest, we'd have a big day Sunday. Far too big for me to include in this post. Almost caught up though!
You should all go to Austria, immediately.
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