Last week we made our much-anticipated winter trip to Austria! Angie and I flew out on Saturday Morning on the fantastic Austrian Air into Vienna and then straight on the train to Salzburg which was again very comfortable. The Austrians really know how to do public transport. Salzburg is famous as the birthplace of Mozart and (more importantly for Angie) where The Sound of Music was shot.Unfortunately, the weather was a bit against us (rain on every day from when we arrived until the day we left which was clear and sunny!) but we certainly made the best of it. We spent our two days in Salzburg walking around the old town and checking out the fantastic Christmas markets. There were horse drawn carts coming and going, the snow tipped mountains in the background and LOTS of tourists!
We also walked up from the old town to the Castle in the background of the Salzburg photos - it was a steep hill and we got a bit lost but we saw a bit more of the less touristy stuff. One little street we walked down had quite a few buildings that were marked as being built in 1501.. one of them had a leather worker in it that no doubt had been a leather working shop for many of those years. You just don't get that in Australia!On the third night we caught the train back to Vienna and met up with some of Angie's parent's friends that they met in Athens. Andy (English by background) and Beatrix (Austrian) took us on a nighttime tour of the central area of Vienna and then to dinner in a cellar. The cellars in Vienna are very deep - it was a sign of wealth for the Viennese because the deeper you could afford to make your cellar, the colder your beer and the fresher your food. Because of all these cellars being together, the people actually started linking them together to make tunnels under the city. This actually saved the city on an attack from the Turks because even though the city was surrounded the tunnels allowed the people to get out of the city!
The next day, we went on an extended tour with Beatrix - she very kindly took us around and showed as the city sights and told us heaps of really interesting stories about the city (more than the one above!). Before that though, we went to the beautiful Belvedere, a baroque place which is now a gallery to see some Gustav Klimt paintings and tapestries.
Next day we went to Schloss Schoenbrunn which was the Vienesse Apartments of the royal family and also where Marie Antoinette grew up. There are 28 rooms in the short tour, and 40 in the long one, but the whole place has 1441 rooms! They are so ornate and spectacular - one is called the Million room because of the cost to decorate it. The gardens are absolutely huge as well, with a large fountain and lots of art.Of course, we managed to have Weiner Schnitzel (Wein is the Austrian word for Vienna - we made sure they were not Veal though, only pork and turkey) and Apple Strudel, and quite a few hot chocolates to warm up from the cold and rain! I also managed to fool the Austrians with my German - at one point I spoke so well that the reply I got was completely over my head! After that I toned it down a bit and surprised us both by being quite functional, which was a very nice change from the usual.
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