The Hills Are Alive...Salzburg, Austria!

Just a warning...you may notice a difference in writing for this post. While on the trip, I was trying to document it on my phone with the blogger app. The phone/app deleted my post twice. In frustration, I had my husband write this post...he decided to write it from my perspective. It's hard when you've written a story twice, to add the same passion in your third frustrating time. With that being said...enjoy the man story telling version of our day (with a few edits from me) ;-) I know he loves me for this, because he hates to write. Thank you husband!!

 This morning we woke up and had breakfast at our favorite Welheim German diner. For a chocolate milk and an amazing raisin cinnamon roll, it cost us a little less than 3 Euros. A great price! We then traveled 30 minutes to Munich from Weilheim, and then caught our train to Salzburg! We have Eurorail, so all this travel was included in the Eurorail price. The train ride is only about an hour and a half long, which is not bad, considering that it's in Austria. The ride was beautiful, through the Bavarian countryside and mountains. Since we were up so high, the clouds felt very low, almost resting on the little country towns we passed through. It made for beautiful scenery!

We got to Salzburg, and it was a little rainy, but not too bad. We put on our coats and headed toward the old town. The walk to the town of Salzburg from the train station is only about 5 minutes. Don't wait around for a bus! While walking, we stumbled across Mirabell Gardens. For those that don't know, this is where the Sound of Music was filmed and where Maria Von Trapp (from the movie) and the kids sung part of their amazing song Do Re Mi. Of course, I had to dance around and sing like in the movie! The gardens are filled with colorful flowers and statues. We even found a troll garden, with funny looking little troll statues! It also has the best view of the city here!

 Don't mind the outfit too much...i know it's outrageous. My husband told me I looked good, from these pictures...I look outfit challenged. No big deal!

We then continued walking out of the garden towards the old town of Salzburg. The Mirabell Gardens are located in New Town Salzburg. There is an old town and new town, because the new town part was almost completely destroyed by WWII. On our walk, we crossed a lock bridge. It had FAR LESS locks then Paris does. After crossing the bridge, we arrived at Getreidgasse Street, and it takes you right to the main square! Just a little note on Getreidgasse, they have really cool metal signs hanging above each store door. Back in the day, the signs used to just be pictures so people could have an idea of what was sold inside. Illiteracy was so bad, that pictures were more useful than words if you wanted business.On this street, you will also find the home that composer Wolfgang Mozart lived in until he was 17. As you follow this street, it takes you to a big square that has a cool name with "-platz" at the end of it. The streets are filled with talented street musicians and beautiful music. Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart, so a lot of tourist attractions are based around that. Honestly, I am much more interested in the city's Sound of Music and architecture history, but to each their own!

 LOOK how beautiful Salzburg is! If anyone is thinking about going...GO! We want to go back, it was so beautiful!

There are several churches right in the center of old town, so we started with Franzkirche. This church has a marble lion that gaurds the pulpit. I touched it. :) 

We were then making our way back to the largest church, but caught a glimpse of St Peter's church, and decided to check that out first. In saint Peter's church are the remains/tomb of saint Rupert, who named Salzburg a long time ago. The name actually represents how Salzburg is a salt town...meaning salt was/is transported on the river that runs through Salzburg. Outside of ST Peter's church is the cemetery. It is the most peaceful and beautiful cemetery I have ever been to! Each grave site has flowers and is well taken care of, and the little hills make for a nice stroll. It was the inspiration for the cemetery set used in the sound of music near the end of the movie when the family was escaping, and I could see how it may look creepy at night, but it was very interesting to see today, as we walked around and read the inscriptions on the grave stones.

On our way back to the big church, Dom zu Salzburg, we caught a whiff of something amazing! It was a little pretzel stand, selling all kinds of giant pretzels. The chocolate covered pretzels caught my eye, but Kevin chose a salt pretzel, so we shared that and decided we'd come back for a chocolate one later! The pretzel was so good!

We finished it first before entering the church. This church was where Mozart performed a lot of his music and where he got baptized. The baptismal font he was baptized in is on the left as soon as you walk in. A really cool thing about this church is that it's darker near the entrance and gets brighter as you walk up the aisle toward the dome. On this walk, in the dark part, you will notice painting of the tortures Christ when through to reach the crucifixion. In the bright part of the dome, represents the Resurrection. On the outside of the church, you will find a statue of Mother Mary. If you step back and view the statue, facing the church, and get at the right angle...you can see angles on the church holding a crown and crowning her. Also, the church has gone through many construction projects over the years from destruction by fires and a WWII bomb. You would never know this just by looking at it though.

By this time, it wasn't really raining anymore, so we decided to go up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress! When you buy a ticket for the fortress, you can include the ride up by funicular railway to the castle and back, for a few extra euros. We decided to buy the ride, since the walk looks intense! Plus the view from the railway is beautiful! The fortress is on top of a giant hill that the city is set against, and it is a steep climb! During the tour, we learned that Salzburg was never attacked during all the wars of the middle ages, probably because no one wanted to try to attack that castle! I definitely understand that! The fortress was built for intimidation purposes, and it worked. They had a torture chamber inside with the popular torture tools of the day, but they were never, if rarely, used. Only once was the fortress surrendered during war, and that was smartly so to Napoleon Bonaparte.

 View from the VERY TOP of the fortress!

 When they were doing renovation on the fortress, they came across these arches. I don't know why someone decided to cover them up, because they were cool and much better than a solid wall.

The views from the castle are amazing, as the city is just below and spreads out across the river and into the valley. On all other sides is beautiful green farmland with little red roof houses. We took lots of pictures, as the views here are unbeatable! We then did the tour of the castle, which included a medieval torture chamber, which was never used, a puppet room, and the royal chambers. It was very different from the castle we saw in Krakow, Poland, since the Salzburg castle was much older.

We headed back into town after we were done with the castle, and headed over to get our chocolate pretzel! But, they were all out, so sad!! I guess everyone else thought they looked good too, and I'm sure they didn't last long.

It had started to sprinkle a little bit by this time, so we wrapped up our visit to Salzburg by going by Mozartplatz, a square with a statue of Mozart, which apparently looks nothing like him!

 We also kissed in this tunnel...which means that our love is now eternal ;-)

 Sound of Music cow we saw on our walk back to the train station!

 Views from the fortress!

 A dude standing on a ball, looking at the fortress. Don't worry, this guy is a statue. The place where we bought our delicious pretzel is on the left side of this picture where the tents are.

 It was a great day, and I absolutely love Salzburg! It is a beautiful, clean, fun city that you must go see if you have the chance! It is definitely in our top 5 places to visit, if not top 3! LOVE Austria!!

Ta ta for now!

Schloss Neuschwanstein

Today was the day we got to visit the beautiful castle! It was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the 1800s. It was worked on for 14 years until the king died an early death at age of 40, in which construction completely stopped. Only 1/3 of the inside of the castle was complete. The parts that were complete, we got to tour and man was it beautiful!

Let me start back with our day though, I got a little excited. I woke up around 6:30 this morning from nightmares of missing trains. Kevin woke up later! We got ready and checked out of our wonderful place in Weilheim around 7:15. With our backpacks only, we headed to our favorite bakery for the last time. We spoke our English with the always happy lady working there, and ordered chocolate milk, a glazed donut, and a plum pastry! We were very satisfied!

We then caught our train to Munich! Here we found our train that went to a place called Buchloe, which then connects to a train to Fussen...the town of our castle!

We arrived around 11 AM...it takes two hours to get there from Munich. The train ride is beautiful! Lots of hill and mountain country, with little towns every now in then. There was also fog, which added beauty to the mountains as they rolled over them. This part of the world smells like farm land and cows, which is awesome because it reminds me of home.

When we arrived to Fussen, we quickly found a locker to store our backpacks. Ain't nobody want to haul those around all day if you don't have to. Then we were on the hunt for lunch. There was this wonderful little cafe here that had kebab, so Kevin and I split a kebab wrap! It was so delicious and very filling! We then got dessert from a pastry shop. I picked out what was called a nuewgutring(the spelling is way off as it was in German). This delicious dessert had a crisp bottom, with nuget on top, then almonds, all covered in milk chocolate! It was very tasty!

After filling our tummies, we found bus 78 to take us to the top of the city where the castles are. There were three dogs on our bus...I petted one of them! He was a Rhodesian Ridgeback and very nervous to be on a bus, but was nice to me! There are two castles in Fussen, but we just visited one, our favorite sleeping beauty castle! The bus ride took only 10 minutes. When we arrived, you could see the castle through the clouds at the top of the hill! It was beautiful!

Then there is the ticket line to get in...Oh the ticket line.

 If you enjoy waiting in lines that take nearly two hours, this is the place. If you want to avoid this, just reserve your ticket online! This must be done two days in advance. No more, no less. There is a reservation fee, but it is not very much and it will be some of the best money you've ever spent. We got to bypass the very long line with the reservation line that only took us maybe five minutes to get through! Thank you internet! You have to arrive at least an hour before your reservation, but that is still worth it!

Next comes an important choice to be made...How to make it up the hill? By foot, horse carriage, or bus. The latter two cost, as the walking is obviously free but is supposed to take 40 minutes. I bet you can guess what we chose! We walked :-)

The walk is beautiful and well worth it! It was through a Bavarian forest with lots of tall trees and walking paths. We even came across a waterfall! Soon, we were at the castle in a walk that was supposed to take 40 minutes, only took us 20 minutes! Speed walkers right there...I guess that can tell you how good our waking endurance has gotten!

Once at the top, the views were amazing! You could see all the little cities, lake, and countryside! A view that needs to be seen at least once in your lifetime! We then ventured up to the castle! There were many tourists, but that didn't ruin our time here! The place is too beautiful! The front orange gate part of the castle was used as the king 's apartment while the castle was being worked on. We didn't get to go in that part.

A few minutes later, it was our scheduled time to go on the tour. But not before Kevin touched an Australian Sheppard, in s slightly creepy way, that we had had our eyes on for awhile. We began calling this...petofile...in a not creepy way! We just like petting animals!

When our tour began, we learned that King Ludwig modeled his whole castle to honor Richard Wagner who was a poet writer. I think I will research these when I get home. One that sticks out is the story of Tristan and Isolde...I think they made a movie out off this one. This story was depicted in his bedroom.

Pictures were not allowed in the castle, so if you want to see what's inside, you need to tour it yourself! I highly recommend it! Or...there is always google ;)

Every square inch of the completed parts of the castle are painted! We first passed through the servants area! It was very nice! Part of me was picturing there would be similar situations to Auschwitz for some reason...but there were no bunk beds or gross bathrooms. They seemed to be very well taken care of. We then entered the throne room. There was actually no throne here as it was not completed before he died. There was, however, a huge crown like chandelier, amazing tile work of animals on the floor, and stories of six kings around the walls. There was even a picture of a man defeating a dragon with a castle he hoped to build in the future in the background. This was also never completed though because of Ludwig's death.

We then walked to Ludwig's bedroom. There was hand carved wood everywhere. He has 14 wood carvers in there at one time, and it definitely paid off because the work was spectacular! The top of his bed had all kinds of church like spires, like a castle itself. There was also a toilet, which was very high class for it's day, a drawer, throne, secret doorway, and mini cathedral room. From here we walked into the living room. There were lots of swans in here, as his favorite animal was a swan. Even the door handles were swans.

As we passed into the next room, we went through a cave that was built in the castle! It felt like a true cave with even a neat balcony room that looks out over the land. We then passed by his office and then up into an entertainment hall. Here was where plays and concerts could be performed, with a stage backdrop that looked like a forest. Again there were many paintings on the wall here of another Wagner story.

This concluded our tour, but we didn't exit the castle just yet. We got to go out on a balcony that over looked the lands with an even better view of the country than what we had seen before! We then went into a little cinema, that did an animation of the stages of the building of the castle, future plans, and designs of things that would never get to be finished...including the other castle that the king wanted to build. It was very interesting.

As you exit the castle, you pass through the kitchen and get to see all the tools used! Imagine what you think a king 's kitchen would look like, and it probably looks like that. Just with older ovens and stoves. It was just like I had imagined from books. The head cook even had an office where he could order food and plan recipes.

We then left the castle and took another hike up to the lookout point bridge. As a fan of not pushing, I pushed to get on this bridge as the crowd was ridiculous! Once you pass the immediate congestion of people getting on and off the bridge, make your way to the middle of the bridge! Here is the best view and the last amount of people! You would be surprised by how many people stop as soon as they get on the bridge and take pictures...causing more congestion!

Anyways, we made it to the middle of the bridge and took pictures for a little bit and then just admired the view for a good 10-15 minutes, maybe more! Not really sure because we weren't taking time! We just talked...made out a bit, and enjoyed love and the fun we've had on this trip so far! It was amazing how many people just walked on the bridge, took a picture, and left. The true beauty isn't in a picture, it's in the moment...and we soaked it in! I would love to go back there some day!

Eventually it was time to go. The hike down the hill was faster, yet worked some unusual muscles! It was great! We then caught a bus back to Fussen and then caught a train at 5 to go back to Munich! If you are planning a trip to Bavaria, put this castle on your list! Make sure to reserve a ticket online, or arrive here below right to beat the crowds! You can even stay in Fussen if you want and tour the romantic road! Do it however you want, but please visit!

The train back to Munich was pretty tough. A lot of people were coming back from the castle. The first train we were on was fine and we had a seat. We had to switch trains to get to Munich though, and for this one we had to stand for 45 minutes. That was pretty awful after 6 hours of being on our feet. Also, the people around us smelt like alcohol and body odor. Kevin and I have a joke now that whenever we smell someone with bad BO...We relate it to Poland because people smelt bad there. Anyways, we made it to Munich alive.

Dinner was first and we split a subway sandwich! It was delicious and filling. Next we got a chocolate muffin, which was spectacular and hit the spot! We recovered for a couple hours in the train station, however we were on a night train tonight that heads out close to midnight, so we had plenty of time to kill.

After our rest time, Kevin was ready to head out on the town. It was cool setting Munich at night. This was a first for us, as we like to be off the streets when it gets dark. We saw a cool fountain, lots of street cafes, cool Munich buildings, Marienplatz, and the cool Munich church that is super tall. We also listened to street performers, which were all so good, and people watched. It was great seeing ninjas, kids trying to be cool, and happy older and younger couples. Sometimes just sitting and watching the people and making up stories for their lives is the best!

I'm so happy to be spending this trip with my best friend and true love! We are having so much fun! If people are people watching us, I know for a fact they will know we are in love...and tired, but having the times of our lives!

Ta ta for now.