Mozart & Beer

Also known as Salzburg and Munich. As our stays are getting shorter in the cities, I've fallen a bit behind on the blog.

SALZBURG

Salzburg was a beautiful little city. We stayed in a campground within the city and sang "Rock Me Amadeus" continuously... well I did. People where asking me where Salzburg is so in case you don't know, it's a... "city" in Austria famous for the birthplace of Mozart and the location for the Sound of Music.

Day 1: we had a short train ride from Vienna into Salzburg. We purchased the Salzburg Card, which gets you a bunch of free things, and made our way to the campground. Once our little love shack was back up, we went on a food hunt. The guy at reception recommended this Italian place called L'osteria, or something like that, because it tasted like authentic Italian food. Well what he forgot to mention was that the pizza was the size of my body if I curled up in a ball (Jordon also forgot to mention this to me before I ordered even though he saw them coming out. This way he knew he would get some). After we had more carbs in our body than anyone needs in one sitting, we walked along the river back to the tent.

Day 2: Salzburg has the largest preserved fortress in central Europe called Hohensalzburg. Our Salzburg card allowed us free entrance so we headed there first thing in the morning. Once we made it to the top of the hill, there was a restaurant that had the most incredible view of the mountains. We decided to pay for the view and grab a pricy beer. After exploring the fortress we headed to the river for our next Salzburg card activity: a river "cruise." The nice thing about the card is that it allows you to do things you would never pay for. The river cruise was a let down as we didn't really see anything. Last thing on our list for the day was to get to the Stiegl Brewery where we were able to do a tour and a beer tasting, all for the price of $0 (we really got the value out of the cards). This brewery was once of the most... eccentric?... tours we had been on. Usually breweries just show you where they make their beer and get you out. This place had a cinema for a video about the beer brewing process, a history museum of beer around the world and a restaurant. We even got a free beer to take home with us on top of the 3 free beers for the beer tasting (... there has been a lot of beer on this trip). After the brewery we headed back into the old town to find supper and overpaid for some Indian food.

Day 3: now that we were aware of the monster pizzas at the Italian restaurant, we went back there to SHARE one for lunch. We used our cards again to take the cable car up Untersberg, which is a 1853 m summit. We must of spent an hour up there just walking around taking in all the views. These places just take your breath away. I can spend a long time just sitting and looking around. On our way back into the town, we stopped at Hellburn palace. The palace was okay, but what was really worth the stop was the trick fountains. Some Archduke put in all these little fountains in the sidewalks, statues and the walls, so as our tour group went through, these fountains would spray us out of nowhere, and it never got old watching others get sprayed so I get why this guy had them put in. We headed back to the town, went to a grocery store, got some pre-made salads and sat by the river for dinner. It was a nice way to end our time in Salzburg.

MUNICH

After an hour and a half train ride, we were back in Germany. Munich is home to beer gardens and Oktoberfest, but it's June, so that second point is mute. I think this is a city that we'll have to give a second chance as it reminded us of Berlin and we were getting tried.

Day 1: this will be the most uninteresting day I write about. We got to the apartment. We went to the grocery store. We made supper. We watched too many episodes of Doctor Who. The end.

Day 2: when we look up what to do in each city, it all starts to become the same. "oh! You can see a church!" "Been there, done that" "Hmm okay. How about an art museum?" "I can't do another one." "Oh I know, you'd like the zoo!" "Does it have a unicorn or dragon?" "Well no... but" "Then no." This is basically how my imaginary conversations with TripAdvisor go now. We did find a different type of museum though. We headed to the Deutsches Museum that was focused on science and technology. I think Jordon could have spent the entire day there as there was so much to see. They had full sized fishing boats and a mining exhibit where you walked through what looked like a huge mine. After the museum, I had found an ice cream shop that was supposed to be great: the massive line confirmed this. We got to try beer ice cream (when in Munich, right?) which turned out to be really good. We headed back to the apartment again to make supper and had a relaxing evening.

Day 3: I was finally able to Skype with my mom which made the home sickness a little bit worse. It's nice to see our loved ones though. Once Jordon was up we headed to the Viktaulienmark which is a famous market. These markets are cool to go see but unless you're buying groceries it's a pretty quick stop. We grabbed a pretzel and a coffee before heading to the English Gardens. This place was incredible. Take any park back in Edmonton, increase the size by 10 and have a surfing wave (seriously) and maybe you'd come close to the beauty in this park (that's probably a lie). We sat for quite some time before heading to the shopping area. It has been getting really hot lately and we both needed smaller shorts. I ended up getting a pretty dress instead of practical shorts but it serves the same purpose of keeping me cool. After our successful shopping, we headed to the central train station as we were doing ANOTHER beer tasting tour (they're very popular here). It's not about the beer though, it's about meeting others, seeing places you might not have found on your own and just general fun. They also served us German food... which I think I've had enough of for one lifetime. Only a foreigner in Bavaria Germany craves a salad and some water. I did eat all the radishes from the meat platter so I got some veggies. Once our tour was done, we went into the famous Hofbraeuhaus beer hall with a couple from Missouri who were on the tour with us. We listened to some Oomp-pa music and then called it a night.

Day 4: we were hoping today was going to be as warm as the previous day but it seemed cloudy in the morning. We ran to the grocery store and stocked up on food before going to expensive Switzerland. We wanted to go to the city beach but we actually ended up back at the English Gardens for some sunbathing. We did find a Mexican restaurant that served a vegetable enchilada so I was really excited about that (who knew carrots and zucchini could make me so happy). We had packing to do for the next day so we headed back.

I am now sweating like crazy on the train to Zurich, Switzerland. It's suppose to be plus 30 so hopefully the good weather holds out for us the next couple of days!

- Vanessa xo