My Summer 2012 Czechlist: The Hills are Alive....a few days in Salzburg!

The Train Ride

Sightseeing in Europe is absolutely wonderful. I can't imagine many things that are cooler than getting the opportunity to see all these crazy awesome places. On the flip side, the actual traveling part? Not so much fun. Our train from Venice left around 9 p.m. on Thursday night, which meant that we would arrive in Salzburg, Austria at around 4 a.m. on Friday morning. It was basically an overnight train, because we didn't want to waste a day of sightseeing. We got to the train station in Venice pretty early because this was our first international train, and we weren't sure how the process worked. We were hoping that since our train was to Salzburg, which isn't an incredibly popular tourist destination like Venice, it would be empty so we could spread out and lay down. We should have known that was too good to be true when we hopped on the train and saw that the ONLY other people on the train so far were a really sweet older German couple, sitting RIGHT in our compartment (the trains in Europe are so awesome; they have compartments like in Harry Potter, so I feel like I'm on the Hogwarts Express-unfortunately, minus the magic and chocolate frogs). This couple was really nice, but they had already taken their shoes, off, so the whole compartment smelled like feet.

We would have been fine with this, except we discovered once the train started moving that the air conditioning was broken. Summer in Italy is already hot, but about 30 minutes into the ride, when we were all sweating like crazy and trying to cool off, we found out that the heat was also on, which made the car about 10000 degrees. The next time someone came around to check our tickets, we asked them to turn it off, so about 3 hours into the 7 hour train ride it finally cooled down.

I slept for most of the train ride, thank goodness, but no one else slept much. Finally, we arrived in Salzburg at around 4 a.m. We couldn't check in until noon, so we decided to camp out in the train station for a few hours until breakfast places opened. I called my parents, since it was 9 p.m. in Southlake!

Chilling out with our luggage at 4 a.m. in the train station

I was finally dozing off in a random corner at about 7 a.m., when I was suddenly awakened by shouts. Standing above us were three security guards yelling at us in German, which was really scary. When they discover that we know about 4 words of German, they ask for our ticket in English, and after seeing that Salzburg is our final stop, scream, "OUT. OUT. OUT." And that is the story of how we were kicked out of an Austrian train station. Did I mention that it was freezing and pouring rain?

DAY 1

After dropping our stuff off at YoHo and eating breakfast at a yummy pastry shop (where we basically had to point at what we wanted because we didn't know how to order in German), we started walking around. It was still raining, but at this point we were just so ready to sightsee!

Salzburg in the rain

We went and saw Mozart Platz (the german word for plaza) and a few of Salzburg's biggest/oldest cathedrals because they open early in the morning. Then we went and saw Mozart's birthplace and Mozart's house:

Mozart's Birthplace

After stopping to grab sandwiches, we headed back to our room to nap! Since I slept for awhile on the train, I wrote my Venice blog entry instead. It was a nice three and a half hour break, but by the end I was ready to go out and see more! Nick and Micah decided to stay in the room because Micah wasn't feeling well, so Mukul and I walked around, got some coffee since it was still cold and rainy, went in a few shops, and ended up at a music festival, where we stood and watched some bands play for a bit.

Then we went back to the room to pick up Nick and Micah, and the four of us went to a fantastic vegetarian restaurant, where we made friends with our waiter who had worked on a cruise line for awhile and had been all over the world. Finally, we walked around Salzburg for a bit, bought some chocolates for dessert, and then headed back to the room to get some sleep.

DAY 2

Yesterday was a wonderful day! Unfortunately, though, Micah still wasn't feeling well, so she slept in for awhile while the three of us went on a "Sound of Music" bike tour around the city. The Sound of Music has always been one of my favorite movies, so I had definitely been looking forward to this for awhile. We saw a ton of places and learned a lot both about the movie and the real Von Trapp family and their story (cool fact; the family didn't actually escape into the mountains of Austria, but instead headed by train to Italy. The day after they left, Austria closed its borders. The movie is ironic because when they climb the mountains, they are actually heading towards Germany!)

About to start the bike ride

The fountain Maria splashes in when she's going to meet the Von Trapp family

The view from the Abbey in the movie/the church where the real Maria and Captain were married

The back of the Von Trapp house in the movie (the front is a completely different house!)

After the tour we came back to check on Micah and were so happy to hear that she was feeling much better. We went to lunch and then went to Hohensalzburg, or Salzburg castle, which is what Micah had been looking forward to the most. This is the best preserved castle in Europe, and it overlooks the city!