Salzburg, Austria

We traveled with Melanie, Adam, Ashley, and Matt to Salzburg, Austria 18-21 April. It was our first big trip of 2008 and we had a great time! Since there were 6 of us, we caravaned the 5 hour trip with a boys' car and a girls' car. We did get separated a bit towards the end of the trip...but the girls were very proud that we beat the boys to the B & B where Ashley and Matt had reservations. Both the B&Bs we stayed at were just outside Salzburg and had amazing views of the alps. Salzburg is a quaint city that reminded us a lot of Prague.

On Friday, we mostly just walked around Salzburg and took pictures of the beautiful sites like Festung Hohensalzburg, fountain in the Residenzplatz, and the Salzburg Cathedral. On Saturday, we went inside the Salzburger Dom, which was first built in 774. It was rebuilt after a fire and consecrated in 1628. Following WWII, the church was reopened in 1959. Next, we took the funicular up to Festung Hohensalzburg or fortress, one of the largest midieval castles in Europe. From the fortress, we were able to see a beautiful panoramic view of Salzburg and the Salzach river. We were able to tour a set of living chambers inside the fortress including ye old toilet (which 'flushed' out the side wall). The walls were ornately decorated and the lower half was at one time covered with velvet. Also, inside the fortress was a Marionette Museum. Interesting to see, but rather scary at the same time! Also in the museum was a stage similar to the one used in The Sound of Music. Below the fortress is St. Peter's Cemetery, which date's back to 1627. It is also the cemetery modeled in The Sound of Music. It is a very small cemetery with a good number of people buried there; it was interesting to see new graves from 2008 among the ones from many years ago. We read somewhere that if someone doesn't pay the dues for the grave, the grave is emptied and reused by a new patron! After St. Peter's, we walked up a long hill to Nonnberg Abby, where Maria von Trapp lived.

Afterward, we went to Mirabell Gardens where we were able to take gorgeous pictures of flowers and statues and relax a bit before heading to Hellbrunn Castle which is known for its trick fountains. Unfortunately, it was a little chilly so we opted not to go through the castle since we would definitely get wet. The castle grounds were beautiful though. We were also able to see the gazebo from The Sound of Music. The gazebo was donated from the studio where the movie was filmed to Hellbrunn castle after its restoration. From Hellbrunn, we walked through the countryside a bit before finding the house that was used as the front of the Von Trapp family home. That evening, we drove to Mondsee to see the Stiftskirche where Maria and Captain Von Trapp were married. We also played at an amazing playground in the town and took beautiful pictures of a rainbow over Mondsee.

Sunday morning was bright, sunny, and clear so we decided to take a cable car about 1300m to the top of Untersberg Mountain. It was fun to walk on the snow and see great views of the valley below. Afterward, we toured a salzwelten (salt mine) in Bad Durrnberg. Through the tour, we crossed from Austria into Germany and back again. Also, we had to take a boat from one portion of the mine to another. The most fun part of the tour, however, was sliding from level to level on original wooden slides!

Before leaving on Monday, we had fun shopping for hand painted eggs in several shops downtown. There were thousands of eggs for every holiday imaginable. It was very hard to choose only a few! On our way home, we made a short...ok long....detour to visit a town whose name caught our eye. It was in the middle of nowhere and we don't even think there was a restaurant there, but it was a fun visit! Check out our pictures to see where we went. Also, on our trip home, we passed by Burghausen, which is a castle almost 1000 m long! We hope to go back to visit it at some point.

Salzburg

Space Shuttle on the Rhein!

On Thursday April 10th we went on a space shuttle hunting adventure! On our commutes home, we both noticed a lot more people standing on bridges over the Rhein river than normal. After checking the 'local hometown paper' Stars and Stripes, we discovered that a Russian space shuttle was being transported down the Rhein from Rotterdam, Netherlands to it's new home at the Technick Museen Sinsheim & Speyer near Heidelberg. Kurt quickly navigated through the interwebs and found a live tracker indicating the exact place the space shuttle was on the river. We grabbed the GPS and cameras and headed out to find the shuttle!

Unfortunately, we missed it in Mainz and again in Mainz-Laubenheim, but continued driving along the river hoping to catch a glimpse of it. Traffic turned out to be horrendous...apparently, we weren't the only ones out to see the space shuttle. The banks of the river were lined with people and their cars were lining construction sites and every possible pull-off. There were even Polizei on a loud speaker telling onlookers to get off the road. After about 45 minutes of driving, Kurt spotted the barge carrying the shuttle. Luckily, the river split a bit here and the barge went on the side furthest from the road, allowing traffic to pick up a bit. At this point, our goal was to stay ahead of the barge and get to the next town to park and then make our way to the riverbank. We parked in Nierstein, a town known mostly for its wines and made it to the river just in time to take a few pictures of the space shuttle.

Look at our pictures and videos from our adventure:

Space Shuttle