Lounging around Salzburg

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 22, 2012 in Europe 2012 | 6 comments

Today we had a very relaxing day in Salzburg. We ate another fabulous breakfast at our hotel (again we forgot to take pictures of it) and spent the entire morning and early afternoon reading in the garden. Then we freshened up before borrowing the bikes again to head out on the town. We had a very leisurely dinner (and by very leisurely I mean 2 hours or so) at Cafe Sacher where we enjoyed the views of the river and old town Salzburg. We also did lots of people-watching. It was like we had our own private human aquarium. We ordered local favorites like Lake Char (a fish similar to salmon) and Weinerschnitzel. Both were great, but the cafe is really known for its fabulous desserts. We of course ordered a piece of the world-famous Sacher Torte and we also followed the local trend and had an iced coffee float with homemade vanilla ice cream. Both desserts were delectable.

After dinner we walked to a pedestrian bridge that we hadn’t been on before to take some pictures. From a distance we could see tiny things attached everywhere to the bridge and as we got closer we realized they were little locks. Apparently, the recent trend is to bring a lock with you and your lovers’ initials or names carved into it, lock it onto the bridge, and throw the key into the river. How charming! We looked online later and it seems that this trend started in Italy and has started to gain popularity all over the world. Andrew remembered seeing locks on a bridge in London, but apart from that we have never seen anything like it before. We pretty much stayed on the bridge enjoying the fantastic views until the sun set before returning to our bikes. The route we have been taking back to the hotel every night goes through some palace gardens called Mirabellgarten and since this was our last night, we decided to explore it a little bit more taking advantage of the last bits of light. Good thing we did because on the other side of the gardens, there was a free concert going on. We sat and watched for a little while before finishing the bike ride back to the hotel.

We ended the day as it began, back in the garden on the lounge chairs. We had to pack up and go back to the room though because a thunder and lightning storm was brewing and it started to rain. Every day here rain has been in the forecast, but we have been really lucky. It seems like the rain holds off just until it is time to go to bed every night so it hasn’t affected our travels. It has, however made it pretty humid. Tomorrow we head to Fussen, Germany in the BMW where we will spend the last few days of our trip.

Cheers,

Chelsie & Andrew

 

Read More

Hohensalzburg Fortress, the Countryside, and Königssee

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 21, 2012 in Europe 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

 

 

Read More

Dallmayr, BMW, and Salzburg

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 20, 2012 in Europe 2012 | 5 comments

We got up decently early this morning and walked a little over a mile to Alois Dallmayr, the luxury grocery store and delicatessen I mentioned yesterday. It was definitely a worthwhile way to spend the morning in my opinion. Room after room of the best food money can buy including fresh bread, meats, seafood, coffee, tea, chocolate, prepared foods, desserts, cheese, etc. The fountain inside even had live crayfish swimming around in it which were also presumably for sale. Apparently, this store has been around serving the food needs of German Royalty since 1700. Wow! They can literally say that their food is good enough to be fit for a king. I also did some shopping at Ludwig Beck, a high-end department store nearby and bought a beautiful black lace dress by German designer S.Oliver. At this point we were starting to get hungry so we headed to the nearby biergarten where I tried to order Andrew a sausage plate, but ended up getting him a sausage sandwich instead. Oops! That’s what you get when you don’t speak any German. Good thing I had a healthy helping of chicken and sauerkraut so we shared everything including a large pretzel. After that it was time to pick up our BMW 1 Series rental car. This is Germany remember :) We had a lovely uneventful two-hour drive to Salzburg where we saw rolling fields, small towns, forests, and the dramatic alps rising in the distance. We had no trouble at all finding our boutique hotel and checking-in so we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the old part of town and finding a lovely cafe on the river to enjoy a good meal (including apple-apricot strudel). The people here are friendly and well-dressed and so far we like the slow small-town vibe. It reminds us a lot of Edinburgh, especially with the fortress on the hill. We will be here until Thursday morning so I’m sure in the next few days you will be hearing a lot more about Salzburg. We hope everyone is doing well at home.

Cheers,

Chelsie & Andrew

 

Read More

Walking around Munich

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 19, 2012 in Europe 2012 | 1 comment

Today might be our biggest sightseeing day of the trip yet. We walked over 10 miles taking in almost everything Munich has to offer which is especially impressive considering that it was 90 degrees out today. Our sightseeing began at Marienplatz (Mary’s plaza) where we explored Frauenkirk, a beautiful Gothic cathedral built in the 1400s, inside and out. It was especially amazing to see photographs of what the church looked like after it was bombed in WWII versus its restored self today. We then moved on to the New Town Hall which as you can see by the pictures, isn’t new at all. The best part was the Glockenspiel that comes alive (think It’s a Small World, but much older and larger). The figures dance as they spin around and two knights on horses even joust each other at one point. One thing I was really excited about seeing was Dallmayer…probably the fanciest supermarket in the world, but unfortunately they are closed on Sundays so we rearranged our schedule tomorrow in order to be able to see it before we leave town. Since by this time it was time for lunch we headed over to a Biergarten near Viktualienmarkt where we enjoyed our first real taste of German food– beer, pretzels, sausages, and sauerkraut. Everything was delicious…even the mustard, which is saying a lot since I’m not usually a mustard fan. Hey, when in Rome…right? After we finished, we headed to Hofbrauhuas making a quick stop inside St. Peter’s Church along the way. Hofbrauhaus is the most famous beer hall in Munich. Since we had already eaten, we just snooped around inside and took some pictures there before moving on to Hofgarten where we rested in the park listening to a live violin concert. As good luck would have it, I even found a 50 cent coin in the park where we were sitting. Sorry Mom, I didn’t check if it was heads of tails before picking it up ;) At this point, we had two choices…continue on and see the English Gardens or go back and visit The Residenz (an opulent Bavarian royal palace). Since we were up for some air conditioning, we decided on The Residenz which is actually two separate museums– The Treasury including the Royal Bavarian Crown Jewels and The Residenz Museum, a tour of the palace rooms. The tour guide warned us that the museum self-guided tour could be quite lengthy, but since it was so cheap to get the combo ticket, we decided to go into both museums figuring we could always bail out early if we got tired. The Treasury was great…as far as Crown Jewels go, these were pretty good. Unfortunately, the palace rooms tour turned out to be a little too much for us today. We spent 45 minutes enjoying some of the 60 rooms on display and 30 more minutes trying to figure out how to get out of that maze. Once we finally figured it out, thanks to two docents, and many map consultations, we took the subway (U-Bahn) to BMW Welt (World) so we could check it out before it closed for the day. Although we weren’t able to get tickets to a factory tour on a Sunday, we still had a great time here taking pictures and checking out the latest and greatest BMWs. The gift shop was a little disappointing though…mostly $50 polo shirts and Mini Cooper nick-knacks. After a quick U-Bahn ride back to our hotel, we walked to a local beer hall that came highly recommended (Thanks John and Jessica!!!). Since we are no experts in German food, we ordered a beer and a Radler (lemon soda/beer mix) and let our waiter choose the food for us. Wow, did he hook us up with some rich, saucy, German, deliciousness. See the pics below to get a better idea of what I’m talking about. Since we had eaten about half our body weight in sausage and spatzle, we decided to walk back to the hotel even though we could have easily taken the tram. Tomorrow we head off to Austria in a rental car, but not before we make a quick stop to Dallmayr for some chocolate :)

Cheers,

Chelsie & Andrew

P.S. Being here in Munich makes me think of my Grandpa Ron. He would have loved this place and its delicious biergartens. Miss you Grandpa!

 

Read More