A Week in Austria

Let's start at the very beginning ... a very good place to start.

Can you tell we're going to go heavy on The Sound of Music references in this post? Hold on to your lederhosen! 

During the first week of November, which is the kids' Fall Break, we drove 8 hours to a little village called Mondsee and stayed seven nights at an apartment on an organic dairy farm. It was idyllic. The itinerary was pretty relaxed; only every other day I had something planned. The other days we stayed in, watched movies, read books, played games, whatever. I'd say we struck the perfect balance of site-seeing and relaxing on this trip. Good job us.

Our exact location was called Mondseeblick, which translates to Moon Lake View. And what a view!

This was a next door residence of what appeared to be the grandparents of the farm. Every morning, someone would be outside and would say, "Morgen!" which is short for Guten Morgen, or good morning.

There was a reindeer farm up the street.

The fall colors were so beautiful, it felt like we were living in a painting.

The barn, where we could peek in everyday and see the cows munching away on their hay.

 The apartment.

 On dry days, the kids could play outside on the swings, trampoline and sand box.

 The views on every side!!! Incredible.

 Our apartment was on the upper left. During colder, rainy days, the kids could go to the basement play room.

 The kids loved the extra friendly cats. There was a covered "heated" pool, too, but it was pretty chilly and we only used it twice. But still. Cats!

 Chocolate ice cream before bed.

 Heeeeeyyy Sancho the mini-horse.

We arrived late Saturday night and the next day we ventured to downtown Mondsee to see what was open. Cafe Braun was a good choice.

 Apple strudel, apricot cheese danish, cheese plate, eggs on bacon.

 The Mondsee church had quite a few tourists. I couldn't figure out why ... I only found out later it's where Maria and Captain von Trapp were married in the film The Sound of Music.

Monday morning, we headed into Salzburg for the main event ... The Sound of Music Bike Tour! I was so nervous on the drive over. What if we crashed? What if we got there late and they left without us? What if we couldn't find parking? What if we got pulled over? I was on hyper-alert. Must. Get. To. Salzburg. We made it early and everything was fine. And then all my dreams came true. 

The tour guide, Sharron, gathered our group together for introductions. As we got to know some of our fellow tour peeps, we learned that three men were in seminary training in Rome . In other words, they were training to be Catholic priests. Three girls were friends from college, two of whom were living in France as English teachers. One woman was visiting for a work conference. And then us. Everyone was American except one girl from Mexico. It was really fun. So fun. Really. So. Fun. 

 





This was our pit stop for bretzels!

Sweet or savory, take your pick.

Noah got bacon and cheese, Sienna got asiago cheese, and I got apple.

This is where Julie Andrews and the kids fell in the lake in the movie.  The white building in the back was used in several scenes as the back of the house. The gazebo was on that grassy patch. Currently Harvard uses the building for something and the gazebo had to be moved because tourists were breaking into the grounds to recreate the gazebo scene.

The tour was half town, half country. We completely lucked out with a sunny day and the countryside was magnificent!

Noah was thrilled to be attached to daddy's bike and Sienna did a really great job on her own ... when she wasn't being a total kamikaze.

We biked out to see the gazebo in its new home. The doors are locked because, again, people cannot be trusted to recreate the gazebo scene. Apparently people were jumping from bench to bench and missing half the time and getting hurt.
Sharron used to be in a stilts performing group. She was a hoot.

This is the building that was used as the front of the Trapp family home. The interiors were shot mostly in Hollywood.

Eat your heart out, Julie Andrews!

A look at Old Town Salzburg.

......Laaaaa - Tiiiiiiiii - Dooooooooo!

What a riot. The tour was 3.5 hours and the kids did pretty darn well. At the end, Adam said to me, "There were at least two times I felt pure joy." I could have counted probably 10, but, yeah, pure joy. And then we feasted on cheeseburgers and fries! Being full of glee is exhausting.

We had nothing planned the rest of the day, but we had seen a cable car in the distance during our jaunt in the countryside, and it was ridiculously high in the sky coming off an enormous mountainside. So we decided to go to there. We took a bus to the outskirts of Salzburg.

The cable car took us to the top of Untersberg mountain.

 


Thank goodness the sun was on our side this day! The views were of course incredible.

Noah was tired and grumpy and generally over it. So he leaned onto this rock and cried. :(

We warmed up with some hot cocoa in the lodge. Noah would have none of it!

Back down we went! Such a rush.

The next day we stayed at the farm all day and then went to Salzburg for dinner. I had read a food blogger rave about the Salzburg Nockerl (or S'nockerl) dessert...

Yep, too bad we really went out of our way to try it. Now we know we can put the meringues to bed. Nobody likes them in the Warehouse.
The next day, we spent more time in Salzburg walking around Old Town and visiting Mozart's birthplace. First, lunch of weinerschnitzel, potatoes and Sacher torte. Best meal of the trip. And, oh yeah, lots of famous people have been to this cafe. #fancy

Noah couldn't get enough of all the padlocks on the fence. He made sure I looked at all the ones that tickled his fancy.

Behold: the birthplace of THE Wolfgang Amadeus.  Yes, he was born in a bedroom in an apartment upstairs from here. Really fun to catch a glimpse of the great musical heritage of Salzburg through reading of his life story.

Old Town Salzburg.

Up next: Salt Mines of Hallstatt. I was stressed out driving to this location, too, because there was an unexpected road closure. But everything was fine. Cuz Adam's a boss at driving and being calm. The funicular up the mountainside was like whaaaaa???

Then there was a short hike.

We put on our salt suits.

Into the tunnel we went!

It was dark and I didn't take a ton of pictures but the highlights were: sliding down two steep wooden slides, seeing the oldest staircase in the world, and learning about salt mining that has been done for 7,000 years in this mine. Also, the train that took us out of the mine. ALSO the tiny salt shakers handed to us by the tour guide on our way out. #bestsouvenir

Hallstatt's a babe! That's for sure.

Everybody loved this guy.

I have been known to hoard salt in the past as souvenirs (mostly from France), and this gift shop was salt heaven. I really wanted to hoard allllllll the salt. 

After the tour, we walked into the cutey cute cute part of town. 

More weinerschnitzel please!

And dessert at the bakery on the way out. American donuts? Apple strudel? Cheese strudel? Life is complete.

The last day of the trip, we broke up the drive home by visiting Neushwanstein castle in southern Germany.

The kids were SO MAD we were going to another castle. I mean. So mad. I ditched Adam and the kids because I couldn't deal with the whining and I walked the 30 minutes to the castle alone.
My powdered donuts and I? We were not in the mood.

The castle was cool, I guess. It's too bad that at this point we are all castled out and each one, magnificent as it is, is just like all the ones before.

We did catch some traditional-clothing-wearing Germans making music and enjoying themselves tremendously during the hike. That was fun.

Goodbye castle life. It was good while it lasted.

We vow to go back to Astonishing Austria! It really blew us away.