Austria

By the time we reached Vienna, we had kind of hit the slump of traveling for over a week, and were pretty tired. It was a little overwhelming because there seemed like there was a lot we could do, but we had a hard time deciding on anything, and only had two nights there. After checking into the hostel and stashing our stuff in the dorm room, where we later met girls from Finland, Germany, and two adorable sisters from Korea, we went to find something to eat.  It was one of those times when really nothing looked appealing for some reason, and we walked for what seemed like forever. Eventually we found something, and were much happier with food in our stomachs.

We spent our one full day in Vienna going to a Museum of Music (mainly to get out of the heat for awhile, it was HOT that day), seeing St. Stephen’s church and climbing over 300 steps to see the view from one of the towers, and then going out to Shonbrunn Palace in the afternoon and touring some of the rooms and seeing the beautiful gardens (for some reason we went to a ton of gardens/parks throughout the trip). In the evening we went to a restaurant in the center of the Museumsquartier area, which was really good. It wasn’t particularly Austrian, but it was a cool place and the people watching was fun.

Salzburg was quaint, sometimes bordering on cheesy, but it was a pretty and slow-paced town, which was perfect for this point of the trip. The first night we walked around by the river, and it was pretty to see the different buildings at night. Some of the highlights of the rest of our time in Salzburg:

Seeing some of the “Sound of Music” sights. Both us being fans of the movie, we wanted to see some of the sights from the movie, but didn’t want to really do the official Sound of Music tour. We did do a basic Salzburg city bus tour, though, and at one of the stops we saw a palace on the map and asked the bus driver what it was. He said it was what they used as the front entrance of the Von Trapp house in the movie, and it wasn’t too far of a walk to get there. So Erin and I hiked down this dusty road and eventually found it. Nothing too exciting, but the hunt was more memorable than if a tour had taken us directly there!

Trying to do a load of laundry with all the settings in German...

 Two different kinds of strudel:

Apple

Goat Cheese and Spinach

We went to an art exhibit called “Alpen”, which I really liked. It has all different styles of art that centered around the general theme of the nearby Alps, and how they have changed over time.

The view of Salzburg from an old fortress we sort of stumbled upon:

And some other lovely sights: