Hohensalzburg Fortress, the Countryside, and Königssee

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 21, 2012 | 2 comments

Before starting our recap of today’s events, I wanted to mention what happened late last night after I posted the blog post. Since it is pretty warm here and Austria typically doesn’t see too many warm weather days, none of the buildings have air-conditioning, including our hotel. This means that we need to sleep with the windows open and the fan on to be comfortable at night. As soon as I settled into bed with a good book, Andrew and I heard what sounded like a small helicopter enter our room. We both watched as a giant wasp flew across the room and settled near our headboard…and by giant, I mean 2 inches+ in length. We weren’t really sure whether or not they are aggressive so Andrew waited until it had walked to the bed and then quickly trapped it in a glass. We carefully released it outside (a 2 person operation) and shut the window. I think we really made it mad though because for about two minutes it was buzzing against our window trying to get back in to likely take revenge on us. Once the coast was clear, we opened the windows again and shut out the lights since we read online that they are attracted to light. You would think that would be enough excitement for one night, but no, at about 2:00 a.m. we were woken up by the heavens unleashing the largest amount of rain we have ever experienced. To say that it was coming down in buckets would be understating things. We stood at the window and watched for about 20 minutes until the rain had subsided. Finally we could sleep in peace.

When we woke up this morning, the sun was pouring in like it had never rained at all. We headed down to breakfast and were surprised by the amazing selection they had. Cereal, toast, meats, cheeses, fresh fruit, dried fruit, raw honey, spelt porridge, cottage cheese, homemade yogurt, fresh juice, pastries, coffee, tea, etc. And most of it is organic! Hopefully tomorrow we can get a picture of it all because it really is unbelievable. This hotel came highly recommended to us and we were told that the breakfast was good, but we weren’t prepared for this.

After we ate and sat in the beautiful courtyard planning our day, we borrowed bikes from the hotel and headed to Hohensalzburg Fortress. Since it’s perched on top of rocky cliffs, you take a funicular (a type of tram car that goes up the side of the mountain), to the top. While inside we visited a few different museums and walked around the grounds, but the highlight was definitely the spectacular view from the back side of the fortress of the valley below and the Alps in the background. We liked it so much that we ate lunch on a terrace overlooking the valley. Since it was pretty hot and humid today, we decided that after we rode our bikes back to the hotel, we would take a drive into the Alps in our air-conditioned BMW. We drove south toward the mountains and ended up in Königssee, Germany near Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at a beautiful and pristine Alpine lake with the same name. Before we left town, we picked up some sushi from a little takeout restaurant near our hotel so we could enjoy a picnic dinner by the lake. It was a great end to a great day here in Salzburg.

Two quick things we have noticed in Germany and Austria…one, people love their dogs and bring them everywhere with them (it makes us miss our own pugs at home) and two, being as though this part of Germany and Austria is so close to Italy and France, people here speak four or more languages and it’s not uncommon for menus to include a wide variety of items from the region.

Cheers,

Chelsie & Andrew