Living the Sound of Music

June 11

We woke up early this morning and enjoyed a gourmet breakfast at our hotel. It seems each breakfast has progressively been bigger and better. The breakfast at the Marriott was delicious. We had a variety of foods to choose from including French toast, omelets made to order, granola, fruit, etc. Good thing we’ll be able to eat this two more times!

The first city we visited today was Salzburg, Austria. This is the birthplace of Mozart and where Sound of Music was filmed and actually took place. It is a beautiful city. We parked and started walking around by the Mirabella gardens. Not only was it a beautiful garden, but part of Sound of Music was filmed here. This is where the children and Maria sing “Do Re Mi” and hop up and down the steps. It was gorgeous and there were a lot of roses in bloom.

From the rose garden at Mirabella there was a good view of the Hohensalzburg Fortress. It also provided a good view of the lower garden with the Pegasus fountain and other statues.

Another part of this garden was the dwarf garden. There were 12 or so little dwarf statues all in a circle in this garden. Some of them were cute or silly, some of them were a bit odd, but it was very unique. The VonTrapp children actually walk through this garden in the movie as well.

This is a view of Salzburg from the bridge crossing the river.

After walking around the garden we ate some Mozart chocolate and then went to one of the most famous streets in Salzburg, Getreidegasse. This street is full of shops, which turned out to be quite expensive, and also has the birthplace of Mozart. One thing that made the street so interesting was every shop had a metal baroque sign hanging in front of it. Even McDonalds had to have such a sign.

The next stop in Salzburg was St. Peters chapel and cemetery. Due to Euro 2008 (a fussball tournament) a lot of the famous fountains and buildings were surrounded by venue tents and such. However, we were able to see the cemetery at St Peter and go inside the chapel. Both were beautiful.

By this time Salzburg was packed with tourists, probably due to Euro 2008, and we had seen most of the sights we wanted to see so we grabbed a late lunch and took an hour and a half drive out to Hallstatt, a beautiful city between a salt mine and a lake.

It was a little overcast and sprinkling when we arrived, but it was still beautiful. As dad was taking a picture of me in front of the city view the light hit the city beautifully. It was amazing. We looked at the view for a little bit and then walked through the city. Parts of the city are supposed to be dated several centuries before Christ. From the looks of it, the foundations are about all that are still that old.

The city was just as cute and quaint as some of the other cities we’ve seen, but still with a unique charm. The buildings were brightly colored and flowers were growing all over. One of my favorite buildings had a tree that was trained to grow around the windows.

Not long after we made it to the heart of the city it started to pour rain. It rained for about 5-10 minutes so hard that we stayed under a tunnel waiting for it to let up. When it finally slowed down to just over a drizzle we walked out to the other end of the city to see the view of the other side of the city. It was still raining pretty hard but it was cool to see the city surrounded in gray.

We stopped at one of the restaurants and had some hot soup and delicious cakes and pancakes before we drove back to our hotel. It was really interesting to visit these two cities on the same day and see the contrast. While it is fun to see the sights in the bigger cities I really like the small towns, especially along a lake or ocean.

Ahhh… Germany!

June 10

This morning we woke up to the sound of a lot of bells ringing loudly. As it turns out, the local ranchers were herding their cows up the street. Each cow had a gigantic bell hanging around its neck. Even just a herd of 5 cows made a lot of noise, but the herds of 20 or so were even louder. It was exciting to watch them slowly walk up the street following the lead cow. There were probably about 5 herds that came up the street, maybe more before we woke up, but that’s not something you see every day.

After we ate breakfast, I went up to the internet café to post to my blog. It was beautiful. I sat typing on my computer in the cool, crisp mountain air, watching the fog slowly lift off the valley below. The sun was just coming up over the snowy peaks and shining on the waterfalls making them sparkle. I watched all the backpackers walk by, headed to various destinations.

When I had finished blogging and enjoying the beautiful morning, I walked back to the hotel and we packed up and headed out of town. We stopped at the bäckerei to get some rolls and meat for our lunch later on today.

The drive out to Rothenburg was quite long, well, about 5 hours. Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of scenic views because the autobahn has trees and walls all along it.

We made it to Rothenburg around 2:45 and parked just outside the wall of the city. We made it into the market or central part of the city just in time to see the last glockenspiel of the day. It wasn’t as exciting as we thought, there were just two guys drinking beer on either side of the clock, but still better than closed windows.

The city was quite impressive. The architecture reminded me a little bit of Brugge, with the stair step roofs. The buildings were all bright colors and some of them were a little crooked or misshapen.

The most famous view of the city is of this tower with the clock. It was a really neat little street with some great shops. Brianna and I both bought hats at a little shop near the tower.

Also on these streets, all the signs stick out from the street and are ornate and beautiful. It is interesting to see the different ideas people come up with for their sign. I took pictures of quite a few of them which totaled about 35.

Rothenburg is surrounded by a huge wall. We were able to walk along a lot of it at the lower end of the city. Every once in a while there was a window or slit where we could look out. The view on one side was looking back on the city. It was amazing to see.

After walking along the wall for a while we went back down into the city and did some more shopping. One of the shops we went into was a famous Christmas shop. The decorations and ornaments in there were incredible! There were two floors that just had decorations and ornaments and then another floor that had a museum, which we didn’t go into. The store was very impressive.

We had dinner in Rothenburg at a little shop along the street. I had a typical German meal of Wienerschnitzel with lemon juice and fries. My dad hat bratwurst and sauerkraut, and my mom and Brianna had hamburgers. It was fun because I got to order in German, although the waiter did understand a very little English.

After we ate, we walked back to our car and then took a 2 ½ hour drive to our hotel in München. We’ll be staying in this hotel for our last three nights here and just taking day trips out to the various places we will be visiting. A few minutes after we got up to our room in the hotel they brought up a little treat to welcome us to München. It was delicious!

Lauterbrunnen – “Tal des Wasserfälle”

Tal des wasserfälle means valley of waterfalls, and that couldn’t be truer. One of the brochures we picked up said there were 72 waterfalls in this valley. Everywhere you turn you can see a waterfall.

This morning we ate breakfast with an excellent view of several waterfalls and steep mountains surrounded by patches of clouds. The blue sky started to creep in so it turned out to be a beautiful day. All of the locals we talked to were very excited about the blue sky, so we were fortunate to have the good weather.

We began our day with a visit to Trümmelbach falls. The thing that makes Trümmelbach unique is that it is hidden away in the mountain. It is slightly visible from the road, but all you can see is the crack it created in the mountain. We took a lift up inside the mountain to view the first 5 falls. It was incredible to see the powerful water as it shot out of the rocks. It was so loud we had to yell to talk to each other. It was also quite cold inside and very wet.

Technically, this was one big waterfall, but there were several lookout areas where we could see different parts of the falls. We walked through tunnels and up and down stairs both inside and outside of the mountain to see the different falls. I couldn’t believe how powerful the water was, and yet it ends up in a very small river (with a fast current).

After we visited Trümmelbach we walked around Lauterbrunnen for a while and did some shopping. We purchased a variety of souvenirs including cow bells. Afterward we drove to the base of a mountain and took a cable car to the top. We visited the city there called Gimmelwald.

Gimmelwald was definitely not a tourist city. It was cute and quaint and almost untouched. There were fields of wildflowers with goats and cows wandering through. They all had bells around their necks so there was a constant ringing.

One of the best parts about the city was the view. There was a beautiful view of the Alps in almost every direction. It was amazing to see the tall peaks with the snow while walking on quaint streets alongside brightly colored flowers. We weren’t there too long before we had to take the cable car back.

For lunch we went to Hotel Oberland and had fondue and raclette, both Swiss dishes. I had the raclette and everyone else had fondue. Both were cheese dishes and both very delicious. After enjoying the main dish we finished with Apfelstrudel. Of all the meals we’ve eaten, this was by far one of the best.

After lunch we drove out to Schloss Oberhofen. While it was not as big as some of the English or French castles it was still a sight to see. The shingles on the roof and the overall castle is very unique, especially because it sits along the lake. The gardens at the castle were also quite beautiful with an excellent view of the lake as well.

From Oberhofen we took a drive along the lake and out into the valley until we came to two large waterfalls we saw on the way in. We stopped and took a few pictures although the rain was coming down pretty hard by this time. At least the day started out sunny and beautiful, although the sound and smell of the rain was quite refreshing.

For whatever reason, I had hiccups almost all day today. They started just after we finished visiting Gimmelwald. Fortunately as soon as we ate fondue they were gone, but they came back while we were in Oberhofen. As soon as we had chocolate though they disappeared as well… Interesting how that works.

After seeing the waterfalls we drove back and had some dinner and then relaxed and watched a little more of Cranford which was “quite agreeable.”

A whole new world!

Sunday June 8

We woke up rather early this morning so we would have time to make the long drive to Switzerland and still have time to explore. We ate breakfast at our hotel again, which was delicious. Yesterday I forgot to mention my favorite part about this breakfast. Not only do they have delicious breads and such, they also have a delightful bran cereal that has chocolate flakes in it. With a little bit of granola mixed in it is amazing! Of course, anytime you get to eat chocolate for breakfast is always exciting.

After checking out of the hotel we took a boat ride back down the Grand Canal and back to the parking lot where we left our car. We saw the beautiful canals and bridges one more time before we left the country. Afterward, we took about a 7 hour drive from Venice to Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.

The drive was beautiful! We saw more of the Italian landscape, but before long we were into Switzerland. The mountains were much larger and we were constantly switching between tunnels and high bridges going over valleys and between mountains. Many of the tunnels were short, but we did go through a tunnel that was 17 km long (about 10 miles). It wasn’t very pretty, as you can imagine, but it was a pretty impressive tunnel.

Switzerland is completely different from the places we went in Italy. It feels like we are a completely different world, and I guess in a way we are. When we were about an hour or two outside of Interlaken we started to see huge waterfalls here and there. By the time we reached Lauterbrunnen we probably saw over 50 different waterfalls, and that is not an exaggeration. It seemed like every few seconds someone would say “There’s another one!”

Also while we were driving we saw a few marble quarries. There were huge slabs of marble and also open pits where they were cutting the marble out of the mountain. It was amazing to see.

There were a lot of little towns mixed in with the waterfalls. Some were down in the valley, but others were high up the mountain and it looked like the only way to get there was to hike. It was amazing to come around a turn and see a city near the top of the mountain.

(view from our hotel window)

Once we arrived in Lauterbrunnen, which has several waterfalls of its own, we checked into the hotel and then walked around the city. It was a little bit rainy and chilly so I decided to wear long pants, and since I was told we were going to be walking I didn’t wear my tennis shoes. Well…

One of the first places we went was to a waterfall (which we could see from our hotel, an incredible view) called Staubbach Falls. We did start out walking along the street, but once we got to the base there was a trail going up to it. So we took the hike/walk (depending on who you ask) up the falls a little way. It was pretty steep and muddy, but I did it, even without tennis shoes.

(The fence you see is the path we walked up)

The waterfalls surrounding our hotel are very impressive. There is a ton of water coming off each one and they are all extremely tall. The combination of the waterfalls and the unique buildings is a sight to see. It is definitely completely different than the parts of Italy we visited.

We walked around the city more and then also took a drive out to another city which took us to more waterfalls. It was raining pretty hard so we didn’t get out for long, but the falls were gorgeous! We will probably visit a few more tomorrow and see a castle or two as well. But that’s all for now. Tschuβ!