Europe Part IV: St. Johann

On our first night in Austria, we ate dinner at a local restaurant in St. Johann. We opted for outdoor seating, which included live music. The band's lead singer had the most amazing mustache, and he played the accordion! Who doesn't love a little polka with their dinner? I know I do. After Jake translated the entire menu for me, I settled on a wiener schnitzel from the children's menu. And to be clear, wiener schnitzel is not a hot dog but rather a piece of veal that has been pounded flat, breaded, and fried. I ordered from the children's menu, thinking that it would be a smaller serving so that I wouldn't end up with leftovers (no space in our hotel room's tiny refrigerator). Imagine my surprise when a large plate arrived with a wiener schnitzel larger than my face perched on top of the plate-full of sides. How could this large meal be interpreted as a children's item? I guess in Austria a giant wiener schnitzel is for children as long as it is skewered with a Chupa Chups sucker.

Our hotel room was really great but a little quirky. The shower had three temperatures: really hot, scalding hot, and face-melting hot. We never figured that one out. When we opened the cabinet that held the TV, the door would hit the bed so that you couldn't see inside. Jake had to take the door off its hinges so that we could watch it. Oh, and there were no English channels, so we got to watch America's favorites, such as Malcolm in the Middle, Scrubs, and How I Met Your Mother, with German dubs, and don't forget Germany's Big Brother. So entertaining. Despite its quirks, we really enjoyed our stay. With a balcony view like this, how could we not?

A couple of pictures from around town.

 

In our hotel room, we found this Book of Mormon in the night stand.

 

A previous guest had left it in our room with her testimony inside. It was from the year 2000! That book had been there for 11 years, so Jake and I decided to add our testimony in German. Maybe someone will take it some day. We were so excited to find it.

Ahh, how I miss this creamy, dreamy drink, aptly named Hazelnut Dream. Seriously, they sell everything in a hazelnut flavor in Europe, which is a practice that I whole-heartedly believe we should adopt in America immediately. This creamy, hazelnut-flavored milk was truly a dream, while it is now merely a dream.

One of our adventures near St. Johann was the Hallein salt mine. They make you wear these stylish outfits to protect your clothes. Mine was so huge, and Jake's was really wide and really short. We looked ridiculous so fabulous.

The salt mine was sooo much fun. First of all, our tour guide was tri-lingual. What? Yes, he spoke German, English, and Italian. His accent was so strong, though, that I couldn't tell when he had transitioned from German to English. All of a sudden, I would hear a word I recognized, and I would realize he had been speaking English for several minutes. When he told us how they "weberized" the water, I thought I was learning some new science word. Then Jake leaned over to me and whispered, "He means vaporized." Odd word choice, seeing as no alien weapons were involved.

Part of the tour was a boat ride through a cavern in the mine. They turn on colored lights to reflect off the salt in the ceiling. It sounds beautiful, but mostly it just reminded us of the creepy boat scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. We did really enjoy the slides, though. When the mine was still active, the workers would slide down these wooden slides to get to different parts of the mine. They let you slide down them, and it is so fun. You can get going pretty fast on those things. One of the slides even crosses the border from Austria into Germany, which is kind of cool. They take a picture of you on the slide and try to sell it to you, but Jake and I didn't want to pay for it. So imagine that Jake and I are in the picture below, which I found on the internet.

via mariusescu

 Another great adventure we had near St. Johann was our hike to the Liechtensteinklamm (Liechtensteinklamm Gorge or Klamm for short). It turned out to be much more of a hike than we had anticipated. We walked 3 miles up and back, and if you add that to the hike inside the gorge, we walked a total of 7 miles that day. It was worth it - the gorge was beautiful. Hence the excessive number of pictures below.

  

 

I'm on the boardwalk in this one.

Jake and I asked someone to take our picture in front of the waterfall at the end of the hike up through the gorge.

On our last night in Europe, we slept in a hotel near the airport in Frankfurt. We had spent the entire day traveling to Frankfurt from St. Johann, so we really only had time to eat dinner, repack our chocolate stash, and go to sleep. Since the hotel was out near the airport in a sort of warehouse district, there weren't many dining options. So we ended up eating dinner in the hotel's Mexican restaurant. Mexican food in Germany? This sounded really weird, and we did not have high hopes, but it was really good. It was one of the better Mexican restaurants I've been to in my life. We were pleasantly surprised.

My next surprise was in the morning. I came out of the bathroom after getting ready for another day of traveling only to discover that the only shirts Jake and I had saved for this day were identical - our Harvard shirts. I put a cardigan on and figured no one would notice. Our British flight attendant nicknamed us Mr. and Mrs. Hahvahd. Whelp, what can you do?

It's hard to believe, but these posts do not contain even close to all of the photos that we took, so please ask us to see the rest sometime. We had such a great time in Europe, and we are so grateful for the opportunity we were given to go.

Europe Part III: Salzburg

Upon finishing up our adventure at Neuschwanstein, we hopped on a train to Salzburg, Austria. Well, actually a little farther to a town called St. Johann, which is where we were staying. We ventured into Salzburg a few times, though. So I'm splitting the posts by town. The first time we made the trek into Salzburg, we made a very quick stop to grab breakfast pastries from a bakery on our way to the train station. When we got there, we couldn't find the ticket we wanted on the ticket machine so we had to buy it from a slightly perturbed man in a booth. While he was taking his time typing in the information, sliding our card, and printing our receipt, and looking cranky, the train arrived. Then it left without us and we had to wait half an hour for the next one. Although this was kind of disappointing, Jake and I were able to enjoy our pastries under the clear, blue sky on a quiet, Austrian morning.

Germans and Austrians sure know how to make a good pastry. Some of the best things we ate on our trip came from the bäckerei. Chocolate Croissants: As the name suggests, this is a croissant filled with chocolate, and it is divine. Why they don't fill croissants with chocolate in every bakery in America is anybody's guess. Laugenbrot: We called this pretzel bread. Picture a roll or bread stick that is not crunchy like a pretzel but has a dark brown exterior and salt on top. Jake loved these, which led me to discover an ingenious meal. Pretzel Sandwiches: I don't know how to do them justice. It sounds like a simple concept, and yet, I had never seen such a heavenly creation. Thin slices of delicious salami and tomatoes on the most wonderful salty bread - I wanted to eat this every day, and in Salzburg, I probably did. Since our return, I am haunted by the absence of pretzel sandwiches in my daily life.

Salzburg seemed smaller and more quaint than Munich. Hohensalzburg Castle overlooks the city, which is divided by the blue-green Salzach River. It is beautiful, as are the sights there. We were able to visit the birthplace and residence of Mozart, Mirabell Gardens (beautiful flower beds, fountains, and statues surrounding a palace), and the Getreidegasse (a lane in the Old Town that is packed with little shops).

The picture below is of a building right next to the train tracks in Salzburg. As you can see, there is a lot of construction going on. This caused a lot of headaches for us. Because of the construction, there were only stairs rather than ramps to the platforms. Trying to haul our heavy suitcases up and down these stairs while hurrying to make our trains was quite a challenge (for Jake, who ran up several staircases carrying both our suitcases while I scurried behind him). One day, almost late for our train again, we were trying to hurry down a staircase full of sixth graders dragging suitcases and duffel bags twice their size up the stairs. They were literally filling the entire staircase, and they would not scoot over for anyone. I'm pretty sure I got cussed out by a 12-year-old girl in German as we pushed our way through in order to catch our train. Oops.

Mozart's Residence

Mozart's Birthplace

 

One end of the Getreidegasse...

 

The other end of the Getreidegasse.

 

In the picture below, Jake and I are standing in front of the fountain where the von Trapp children sang Do-Re-Mi with Maria in the Sound of Music.

The next five pictures are from the Zwergerlgarten (Dwarf Garden), which features statues that were modeled after real dwarves that served the Archbishop.

The castle museum featured a marionette exhibit that was awesome! Spot my favorites, the goat and the monkey face, in the picture below.

Jake as Captain von Trapp - so dreamy.

A gun chest made out of gun parts.

 

A view of the city from a castle cannon.

 

A better view of the city from the castle.

Europe Part II: Neuschwanstein

Visiting this castle was one of our favorite parts of the trip. It was quite a journey - it took 3-4 hours to get there and the same to get back, but it was definitely worth it. On the train ride there, we met a Canadian couple, Kevin and Linda, who were also on a little European vacation. They were going to see the castle as well. It was so nice to talk with them on the train. First of all, it makes the ride seem so much shorter, and second, it was refreshing to be able to have a conversation with people who speak English as their first language. We were able to exchange travel tips since they had just been to Salzburg, which is where we were headed next, and they had just arrived in Munich, where we had been for a few days already. It was fun to hear about the adventures they were having and get the inside scoop on some of the attractions.

So back to the castle. Neuschwanstein is probably the most famous castle in Germany. It was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle. The castle was commissioned by "mad" King Ludwig, who was inspired by the operas of his friend, Richard Wagner, to build this fantasy castle. It was under construction for 17 years and still only 15 of the 200 planned interior rooms were completed, which demonstrates how ornate this place is. It even has a man-made cave inside - awesome! The king moved in when the castle was partially completed and lived there for less than a year before he died.

It was the perfect day to go to the castle. It was overcast: not too hot or too cold, and the clouds on the mountains behind the castle added to the fantasy. This is what we saw when we stepped out of the bus:

Below are pictures of Schloss Hohenschwangau, or "high swan county palace." This castle is very close to Neuschwanstein. Tour tickets can be purchased together, so we walked through both. Although Neuschwanstein is infinitely more impressive inside, we enjoyed walking through the grounds surrounding Hohenschwangau Castle.

You can see Neuschwanstein in the background of this one.

The countryside in this area is beautiful.

 This is a picture of Hohenschwangau Castle from the grounds of Neuschwanstein.

Below is a picture of the lake on the left in the picture above. 

Before our tour, we went to a bridge above and behind Neuschwanstein. The view was spectacular.

Entering the courtyard before our tour.

A lady approached me and asked if we would like her to take our picture together. When I nodded and gave her our camera she almost threw out the words, "Then of course you will do the same for us." She had the air of a salesman, tricking me into a purchase that had fine print. She could have just asked. Unfortunately, I did get the raw end of the deal. When I looked at the picture later, I realized that she cut off the top of the castle. It was just so important that our waists be in the picture.

I don't know how well you can see it, but in the picture below there is a sculpture of St. George slaying the dragon on the turret.

On our way down from the castle, we walked through the most beautiful wooded forest, which contributed even more to the fantasy surrounding this palace. Seriously, if I had seen little fairies flying around in there, I would not have been surprised.

We couldn't take any pictures inside, but believe me, it was fantastic. The king's wash basin had a stone swan faucet powered by natural spring pressure to make the water come out of the swan's mouth, or beak. I now officially understand why a toilet is sometimes called the throne. The king's toilet was just that, a throne, equipped with padded seat. The canopy over the king's bed looks like an ornate, wooden diorama; it took fourteen carvers over four years to complete it. Below is a really old picture of it that I found online. It's not very good, but you can get an idea. The carvings are over the bed in the back left of the room below.

When we were done with the castles, Jake and I thought we would find dinner in Füssen, a small city beneath the castles, while we waited for our train. Ha! Good try. I don't think that I explained before that everything in this part of Europe closes early. Even in Munich, the bulk of the restaurants and stores close at 8pm, which is shocking given the size of the city. In Füssen, a lot of the restaurants were closing at 6pm! We were too late, and we had a 3-hour train ride ahead of us. We finally stumbled upon a grocery store that was open and were able to buy some snacks for the ride, expecting that we would find something in Munich when we got back. However, as I already explained, things close at around 8pm in Munich, so again we too late. I don't know what we were thinking. So we ended up eating Curry Wurst in the train station, which is a white sausage on a roll with curry ketchup on it. Curry ketchup - never heard of it? Well, I hadn't either until I met Jake. It is so good! It isn't spicy; it just has the flavor of curry. And guess what. It's made by Heinz. It's always really weird to me when I find out that a big name company that we all know makes a product that is really popular in another country but is unheard of in America. We brought some home with us, purely as evidence of its existence, of course.