I love Austria. I’d move here in a heartbeat if all my family and friends could come too. We’d swim in the crystal clear lakes in summer, go skiing in winter, make ourselves fat on schnitzel (with noodles), cheese, apple strudel, gelati, Mozart kugeln, live in cute Austrian houses with flowers on all the railings and just generally be in awe of the beautiful scenery (and these are just some of my favorites things).
We started our Austrian travels in Vienna, although we stayed just outside it in a town called Klosterneuberg where the caravan park overlooked a beautiful cathedral and convent. Having arrived there on a Saturday night we again tried an international church on Sunday morning. Despite getting there almost an hour late because we got on the wrong train, (it had the same number and destination as the one we were supposed to go on so it was a bit confusing!) we were forgiven by the pastor who insisted it happens all the time and enjoyed a chat with an Australian family from Perth about how scary driving in Europe is.
Monday we set out to do some sightseeing, made our first souvenir purchase and walked around the beautiful old streets looking for somewhere to have lunch and could only find gelati cafes on every corner. Eventually we found somewhere to eat and then caught the tram to an area where all the important buildings are about a one minute walk from each other. We were content just to look at the outside of them. We then caught the tram back to the main cathedral, St Stephans, and caught a claustrophobic elevator to the top tower where we were rewarded with a nice view over Vienna. Then some more shopping and then “home”.
Tuesday we drove from Vienna to Salzburg which was covered in fog. We stayed at a campsite in St Gilgen right near the clearest lake I have ever seen. Unfortunately from this campsite it wasn’t very easy to get into Salzburg so the next day we moved spots. We had planned to do the Sound of Music tour on Wednesday but when we got up the weather was still miserable so we waited till the next day and we’re glad we did as Thursday was bright and sunny. The Sound of Music tour has been on my bucket list ever since I’ve known it’s existed and I really enjoyed it! Our tour guide had a very Australian sense of humour and didn’t try to make us sing (which I’d heard some of them do- I wouldn’t have minded but I think Aaron would have jumped out the moving bus).
We decided to climb every mountain and do the Eagles Nest tour on Friday with the same tour company. The SS built Eagles Nest high up in the Bavarian mountains, so actually in Germany, as a birthday present or Hitler but Hitler hated going there because he was scared of heights. They used it as a conference centre but now its just used by tourists for the fabulous views. It was definitely worth going there. We met some other Aussies, including one from Victor Harbor, on the tour and had lunch with them which was fun even if as a group we did add to the stereotype of Australians being loud and racist. Oops! We did a bit of Salzburg sightseeing that afternoon and it really is a beautiful city. It’s a lot smaller than I had expected, only about 100,000 and something people.
Sunday we headed to Switzerland but I was very sad to leave Austria.
Adieu, adieu to you and you and you!
(Sorry, all the Eagles nest photos are on Aaron’s iPad, check out his Facebook or Instagram to see some of them).
