Tim and Gem's Honeymoon Adventure: December 2013

Monday, 23 December 2013

The Hills were alive with
the sound of tourists - Salzburg Austria November 17-20

The place that Gemma has been most excited for this whole trip, Salzburg and the home of everyone’s favourite sing along movie, The Sound of Music (and probably the main reason we went to Salzburg).

We dropped the little car we had fell in love with back to its home and got everything sorted at the hostel, and then went for a walk to find some lunch, and soon found out that on a Sunday in off season, just about everything is closed. We eventually found somewhere that served a mean feed for a reasonable price.

We took it pretty easy that afternoon exploring the beautiful city, stumbling across a few spots from The Sound of Music, and then went back to the hostel to enjoyed a beer and booked a tour for the following day, The Sound Of Music tour in the morning, and then straight after a visit to the salt mines. I don’t know how much Gemma slept that night due to excitement!

Bright and early we rose, ate breakfast and were picked up ready for our tour. We were picked up in a nice 12-seater mini van, and I was stoked thinking no big buses with Sound of Music playing and sing-a-longs, but that feeling quickly diminished when we pulled up next to a huge bus, complete with branding and all.

The tour started and we were led by a very informative guide who pointed out and explained some pretty interesting city facts, some Sound of Music related, and others not. It wasn’t long though until we got our first taste of some Sound of Music sights, with a quick view of the house that she walks into at the start of the movie. Then next up was the lake where all the kids fell out of the boat, and where the original gazebo was located, until the new owners of the mansion relocated it, probably due to the six million tourists coming to Salzburg every year to scope it out. It still does exist though, and was the next stop on the tour. Gem also had a skip down the lane that Maria skipped down at the start of the movie singing.

After seeing a few of the sights around the city, we were then off and into the hills and onwards to the lakes area where all the lovely scenery scenes were shot. Along the drive, it happened, the part I had been dreading… the sing alongs started, and the guide made a point of walking up and down the bus to see if everyone was singing.

We stopped at the roadside and had a lovely view of one of the four lakes, before heading to a small town that was home to the church where the wedding at the end of the film took place. We also had some strudel but there was no schnitzel and noodles on the menu which disappointed Gem a little. After a feed we jumped back on the bus and headed back to Salzburg to visit the gardens and wait for our next adventure to the Salt Mines.

We wandered around the impressive gardens for a while, Gem ran around the fountain, skipped through the leafy archway, patted (and licked) the gnome the kids pat, and of course jumped up the steps of the garden signing Do-Ray-Me. Even though I’m not the hugest, die-hard Sound of Music fan, it was still a fun and interesting tour and really cool to see and recognize the places where the movie was filmed.

Time flew and we got into a mini van and headed for the salt mines, located not far from Salzburg, in the Bavarian mountains. Random fact of the day, Salzburg is named due to its salt mining. Not really knowing what to expect from a visit to a salt mine, we were pretty open minded to how it could go, but we weren’t the most clueless ones, with one Japanese lady in the van not even knowing what tour she was doing, the Bavarian Mountains or the Salt Mines, and when she realized the Salt Mines had a slide/slippery dip, this was the one she had booked. She booked a tour based on a picture of a slippery dip, so we had more of an idea than her of what we would be seeing.

It turned out it was a really interesting tour. The process to get salt, that little white stuff we all take for granted on every dinner table, was actually quite a mission. Mining deep underground, drilling huge pool size holes and filling them with water to remove the salt, and then processing the salty water to extract the salt. A lot of time, effort and money it involved to mine salt!

The appearance of the mine was pretty impressive too, with a small rail running through the mine that had been carved out from the side of the mountain, dark coloured walls with occasional vibrant orange, salty spots and the most impressive sight was the salt lake inside the mountain, that looked like a mirror it was that still and reflective. When we first walked into the room I actually thought it was a mirror, not water!

Just over an hour passed, and a few shiny, extremely fun wooden slides later and our tour had finished, and we were loading back up for a quick stop in a little Bavarian town for a look, and of course a Bavarian beer. We found a little local watering hole and quickly ordered a couple of beers. They went down well, very well, one wheat beer and one dark beer. So well we had enough time to order another, so we went one more wheat beer for Gem and I gave a dark wheat beer a try, something I have never tried before, and it was delightful! The wheat beer was the nicest wheat beer either of us had tried. With 20 minutes left, we thought why not, and ordered one more, this time I ordered one that I can’t remember, but the waiter said it was his favourite, and for good reason, it was amazing. So three pints in an hour, we were feeling pretty good and the journey back to Salzburg flew.

Still a little tipsy, we found a restaurant we had been recommended and headed in, ordered a few more beers and some food, including another schnitzel to add to the schnitzel tally. We devoured our food and headed home, and wasn’t long before we were sleeping like babies!

Our last full day in Salzburg and we decided to check out some of the city sights, and the Natural History Museum we had been told about the previous day by our driver. We started the day up at the Modern Art Museum, located high on a cliff overlooking Salzburg and providing probably the best view of Salzburg you can get. After that we headed down to the Natural History Museum where we spent hours! We looked at the dinosaur exhibitions, then moved onto the aquariums and reptile enclosures, and also saw a temporary photography exhibition that was amazing. A collection of photos taken from a satellite kilometers from the surface of main cities, random impressive natural formations, mining sites, tourism hubs and other locations that produced breathtaking photos.

After checking out all the museum things, we moved onto the Science Center that was joined to the museum, and it was awesome! We got our inner child out for well over an hour.

Skiing games, physical and mental challenges, reaction games, laws of science and loads of hands on fun, that’s what the science center was all about, and it was fun. We even had a race through a maze on a wheelchair that was more challenging then either of us expected.

We had worked up an appetite after that little adventure, so we headed to restaurant for yet another schnitty. The amount of schnitzel that had been consumed in Germany and Austria was unhealthy, but when in Germany/Austria!

Another quiet night in with a couple of beers and a viewing of the Sound of Music was a pretty nice and chilled way to spend the last night in Salzburg. We had a train to catch the next day south and into Slovenia.

Lake and Manor seen in The Sound Of Music

Salzburg sights

The gazebo from Sound of Music

Textbook corny shot

One of the lakes in the Austrian countryside

Out and about on the tour

Lakes

In the gardens seen in a lot of the movie

The house in the Sound of Music

Another lake

Suiting up for the Salt Mines

Another Austrian lake

Love locks

Bavarian Mountains

Amongst the Salzburg Hills

Having fun inside the Natural History Museum

Salzburg downtown

The bridge and fountain from the movie

The streets of Salzburg and a pile of Mozart chocolates

Street treats and Christmas wreaths

Re-enactment from the movie...kind of

Another movie re-enactment

Hanging in the gardens

The steps

Being inappropriate with the statues from the movie

The gardens

Roadtrip! Germany, Czech Republic and Austria, November 12-17

I find hiring a car can be like the lotto; you select the car class, mini, compact, mid sized etc, and then the models range from anything from a smart car to top level BMWs.

We opted for the compact class so we avoided the chance of getting a smart car smart car, but it wasn’t going to be a BMW M3 either. In the end we got lucky. Originally we had a two door Fiat 500 which would’ve been a tight squeeze, and would put a sizeable dent in my manhood, but he was a nice guy and we got an upgrade to a beautiful little Mercedes A-Class turbo diesel.

We loaded the car, threw our bags on the nice leather seats and we were on our way. Driving on the opposite side of the road and changing gears with the wrong hand was a little challenging, but it didn’t take long to get used to.

Our first stop on the trip was Dresden in the south of Germany for a couple of nights. It was only 2-2.5 hours away, but that’s depending on a couple of things, traffic and how fast you drive on the autobahn. Ah the autobahn…wide, smooth, flat roads with a line through the speed limit sign (meaning no limit!). Our little speed-machine cruised along at an easy 160km/h, no troubles at all. Even at the peak of our speed (which I won’t mention), there were still cars flying past us!

After about 2 hours, we were rolling along the cobbled streets of Dresden and found our hostel. We had no idea what Dresden would be like and picked it purely based on its location/photo opportunities.

We checked in, and went for a little explore before the sun went down. We were on the northern side of the river, which was the arty, bar scene area, and with a short walk south over the river, you were transported to a magnificent old, fairytale town, with beautiful architecture and horse-drawn carts cruising the streets. We walked around, brought some tacky magnets to add to our collection and sat by the river as the sun was setting.

Day two we decided to visit Schloss Moritzburg, a tiny little town a short drive from Dresden that was home to a stunning manor, complete with surrounding moat. When we got there, we were confronted by a monstrous, impressive manor, but the moat was not what it looked like on Google. It was half dried up and muddy, making it a little less impressive. Don’t get me wrong, the building and the grounds were amazing, and unbelievably symmetrical, but some more water in the moat would’ve been nice. We then drove further north to Spreewald, a little town on a series of rivers that looked like a cross between Venice and the Cotswolds.

The town was tiny, one street probably 300m long, with only a handful of shops, and with it being off season, most of them were closed which made getting lunch a bit of a challange. After a big lunch, we walked around and found the canals we had come to see except due to it being down season we couldn’t take a cruise through the maze of canals, as there were no boats! This little town was so peaceful, pretty and so quiet we still enjoyed wandering around there.

An hour later and we were back in Dresden, chilling out with a cold drink and some currywurst, already packing our bags ready for the drive south to the Czech Republic the next day.

We were on the road pretty early, as we were going to try and see Bastei, as our last attempt wasn’t overly successful, as the GPS didn’t know where it was, but this time we were organised.

It was cold (about 3 degrees), the sun still hadn’t fully risen and there was a low fog lingering around, but we managed to navigate there successfully.

Bastei is a rock formation that towers 200m above the Elbe River, and was formed by water erosion over a million years ago. From 200m up, you can imagine it’s a pretty amazing view down along the river and into the valley, not to mention the appearance of the bridge built into the rocks is a sight in itself. We spent an hour exploring and taking in the amazing views on the bridge and surrounding peaks and valleys.

Back on the road, we decided to stop in Prague for lunch, which only took a couple of hours. We found Prague easy, but finding a park in Prague was as possible as winning the lotto. We drove around for close to an hour with no luck, and decided to cut our losses and continue on the way. We did manage to disrupt Prague’s tram system. We turned up a street and after 25m we realized it was only for trams. So with an Austin Powers style 26 point turn (and holding up about 4 trams), we managed to turn ourselves around and head back to the roads that welcome cars

Two more hours in the car and we arrived in Cesky Krumlov, our home for the next few nights. We parked the car, got our keys and settled into our cosy little Czech style apartment.

We went for a walk that afternoon to check out the tiny little town, and found a place that overlooked the river to have some dinner and have a drink. And this is where I met Eggenberg…

Eggenberg is a small, old school brewery in Cesky Krumlov where the methods of brewing having never changed, and apparently either has any of their brewing equipment, no fancy stainless steel vats or electronic controls there. I ordered one of their dark beers, and it was love at first sip. Unlike any other beer I have tasted, rich and smooth with honey after taste, it was delightful. And I tried three different kinds of their beer, the dark, the larger and then what they call the normal one, and they all were amazing and all had the unusual honey like flavor. I wish we could get it at home! I am looking into getting some shipped over! Anyway, enough about beer…

Our next two days in Cesky Krumlov were pretty chilled and relaxed, it was a small, sleepy town so it made it really easy just to unwind and get lost in the curling, cobblestone maze of streets. We visited the castle up on the hill that provided a stunning view of the whole city, and we learnt some amazing new photo poses from the Japanese tourist groups.

One meal in particular that is worth a mention, was when I was served what looked like a whole chicken, complete with a whole wheel of camembert and a huge serving of cranberries on top, plus about 1kg of potatoes on the side. Gem’s meal wasn’t far behind with an extremely generous lump of steak complimented by a mountain of mash and veggies. We washed it all down with about 5 or 6 beers and it came to the bargain price of about $35! Brilliant.

On the walk home from our feast, we saw flashing lights and heard bad music coming from one of the hotels that we knew was home to Asian tour groups. We hoped they were having a karaoke party and we wanted in. So we let ourselves in through the closed gates and Gem was making a b-line straight for the door, but I thought better check what’s actually happening, and to our bitter disappointment, there was no karaoke, just 3 couples slow dancing on the dance floor, we were pretty devastated, we were ready for some singing!

Cesky Krumlov was beautiful. It was such a cute, little medieval town that made you slow down to be in tune with everything. The buildings were beautiful, the people were lovely and there was some solid street food. We indulged in some goose legs and bacon potatoes for lunch, enjoyed some honey mead that the town is famous for, and tried one of their tasty treats that still to this day I am not sure what they are called, they are like a donut kind of roll thing covered in cinnamon and are brilliant.

Cesky Krumlov was good to us, but our time there had finished, and the next stop we had to part with our little silver bullet. So it was off to Salzburg, Austria, one stop Gemma had been excited for since planning this trip!