Salzburg

December 10-12

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg is just about a 90 minute drive from Munich.  We spent our last two days there.  It was delightful!  We stayed in a hotel right in the heart of Salzburg, and could look out our window to shoppers walking around the pedestrian only streets and hear the beautiful bells chiming.  

An Alphorn Quartet performing near the Christmas Market.

Such a cool sound!

We bought the Salzburg City Pass that got us in to lots of places for free, so on Friday, we spent the whole day walking around Salzburg soaking in as much as we could.  We visited 3 or 4 museums, the Mirabell Palace Gardens, and the Salzburg Fortress.  We ended the day in the charming Salzburg Christkindl Markt and had dinner there.  

Mirabell Palace Gardens

(Lots of Sound of Music footage was filmed here)

This fountain is featured in Do Re Mi (an ariel shot with Maria and the kids walking around it)

Picture these gates open and Maria and the children walking/hopping up these steps at the very end of  Do Re Mi

Mozart's Childhood Home

Its museum houses some of his violins, original manuscripts and other instruments belonging to the family.

We walked up to this monastery on a hill overlooking Salzburg and took in some beautiful views from the top there.

Walking back down into the town.  Lots of stairs!

Cool bell tower--view from the Salzburg Residence Museum, center of government and residence of the archbishops who ruled Austria for centuries.

Hohensalzburg

(Salzburg Fortress)

We rode this crazy little tram right up the side of a mountain to get to the fortress.  Construction of this fort began in the 1100's!  The oldest building I've visited so far.  

We took both a guided tour and explored on our own and loved the views from this fortress above the city of Salzburg.  The sunset was breathtaking--pictures can't begin to do it justice.

Just fun pictures from the Christmas Market.  

The next day, we hit a few spots in Salzburg that we didn't get to the day before, and then drove out to the Lake Country to look at the Cathedral where they filmed the wedding scene in Sound of Music.

St. Peter's Cathedral and Catacombs

The twin-towered Mondsee Cathedral is the film location for Maria and Capt. Von Trapp's wedding.  It was beautiful.  Good choice, SoM film guys.

The little village of Mondsee

We drove around Austria a bit more before heading up to Munich to spend our last night and catch our flight home the next morning.  The only thing I really wanted to see that we missed was a tour of the salt mines.  Apparently the mine we chose was sold out that day, or only sold their tickets online? We're not exactly sure because they didn't speak English and we don't speak German.  That was, surprisingly, the only place we went where not a person spoke English!  Guess we better learn German for next time.  Or just buy our tickets online.   Anyway, no salt mine tour for us this trip.  But that just means I know exactly where to start the next time we go to Germany/Austria/Bavaria.

It was a dreamy 10 days together exploring the Bavarian area of Europe.  We loved experiencing new sights, sounds, and tastes together!  But wow, I was tired and it was time to get home and do some Christmas shopping/packing/preparing!  

Can't wait for our next adventure together.

Munich and Dachau

December 7-10

Ingolstadt, Munich, Dachau

Sunday we left Fussen and headed up toward Munich to meet with the English Speaking branch of the church.  On the way up we stopped in a cute little village, to get a few pictures because we had some time to kill before church started.  I needed a picture of this woodpile because it was so typical of every woodpile we saw in our driving through the country side.  Look how perfectly it's stacked!  Every piece is precisely measured and stacked so tidily!  When we drove through Austria, the neatness of the wood piles was visibly less exact.  

Every village has a church and every church has a cemetery in its courtyard.  I loved the cemeteries because each gravesite has it's own well kept little garden plot, each one so beautifully tended and cared for.

After attending sacrament meeting in the Munich English Branch, we drove into the center of Munich, miraculously found a place to park, and walked very fast (in my boots, acquiring a nice blister on my foot) to the Frauplazt Cathedral just in time to catch the Adventsingen concert.  It was standing room only but definitely a treat to hear the beautiful singing in that massive cathedral.

The next couple of days we split time between Ingolstadt (where Arthur needed to be for his meetings) and Munich.  He had meetings for four days and I took two of those days to just chill out in the hotel room.  Did I feel bad for staying in my room while visiting a foreign country?  Yes.  For a few minutes.  And then I just enjoyed the peace and quiet.  I took naps, I read books, I got ready at as slow a pace as I felt like it.  It was actually quite luxurious.  The other two days I went out and explored.

In the evenings we usually went out to dinner and enjoyed the local Christmas Markets.  They were so festive!  Lots of delicious food to taste, warm drinks, twinkling lights and fun merchant booths to peruse.

That tower behind me houses the famous Munich Glockenspiel.  

The two trips I made without Arthur were to Dachau and the Munich Residence Museum.   

Dachau Memorial

On Tuesday, I met up with my new friend, Stacy, (who was the girlfriend of one of Arthur's co-workers there for the same meetings as Arthur) and together we went to visit the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial.  It was the first concentration camp in Germany and was in operation from 1833-1845 when the USA liberated it.  It was also one of the largest, with over 100 sub-camps that were work camps.  Over 32,000 documented deaths took place here as well as thousands of undocumented deaths.  The memorial consists of many of the original buildings, and a large museum inside one of the buildings.  We took a guided tour that lasted a couple of hours. 

"Work Will Set You Free"

Ironic that they would put this on the entrance to the camp, since so many of its prisoners were worked to death.  Although I'm sure compared to Dachau, death was indeed a sweet liberation.

The gas chamber/crematory building.  The prisoners could smell their fellow prisoners burning as they worked a short distance away.

 It was a valuable experience--I'm glad that I went, but  it was definitely a heavy day--very emotionally draining.

Munich Residence Museum

On Thursday, I ventured out into Munich by myself to explore the Munich Residence Museum.  Fabulous baroque art, sculptures, furniture and tapestries lined the rooms of this museum that used to be the residence of the ruling family of Bavaria, the Wittlesbach's.  I finally found my way out after 4 hours! (I saw enough tapestries to last a lifetime!) Arthur had finished his meetings and came to pick me up to begin our drive to Salzburg.

The sculpture hall

I loved the paintings all over the ceiling.  

This was the game/music room.  I need to make one of these rooms in my house.  Notice the cute little game table in the center of the room with a built in chess/checkers board inlaid on its top.

Beautiful bed, but doesn't look very comfy!

Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau

December 5, 2015

Saturday

Hohenschwangau/Neuschwanstein Castles

Saturday was a Castle Day!  Just outside of Fussen are the two famous castles, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein.  "Mad King Ludwig" built Neuschwanstein, his dream castle, to overlook Hohenschwangau, a smaller "castle/summer home" where he spent his childhood summers.  There is a beautiful, glassy lake in the valley below the castles and the whole area is surrounded by gorgeous mountains with a perfect view of the Alps in the background.   A pretty dreamy spot to spend your childhood summers, if you ask me.  

Schwan means swan in German.  Both castles have the word in their names because they are built in Schwan County.  Appropriately, there are swans who reside on the lake near the castles and the image of the swan can be found in many places around the castles, in the carvings on the furniture and in paintings and tapestries that adorn the walls.

Hohenschwangau

"Just" a summer home

The M on this gate stands for King Maximillian.  He was Ludwig's father and Hohenschwangau was built under his direction.

Neuschwanstein

If anyone ever films a movie here, I volunteer to be the princess who runs down that staircase.

GERMANY! Oberammergau and Fussen

Dec 3-4, 2015

Thursday/Friday

United Airlines/Munich

We found out in November that Arthur would be making a business trip to Germany the first week of December.  Well, I decided that I'd better go with him to keep him company, so we made arrangements for my sister Emma to come watch the kids for us for 10 days, booked my flight and frantically prepared to go on our first trip to Europe! (It was my first stamp in my passport!  Super exciting for me).

Arthur had meetings four of the days, but we got to explore a lot together in the days before and after the meetings.  We left on Thursday morning and arrived on Friday morning in Munich.  After we got an international sim card for my phone, some Euro, and our rental car, we drove south toward Fussen.  On our way, we stopped and explored the charming village of Oberamergau and had lunch there.  I would love to return to Oberamergau in 2020 when they put on the Passion Play which only takes place once every 10 years and has been a tradition in that town for over 400 years!

Everywhere we drove, there were beautiful green meadows, broken up by woods and villages.  Each village had a church with an onion top steeple that is so charming.  I loved it. The architecture inspired Disney's Fantasyland at Disneyland.  It looks like it came right out of a story book.

That night we arrived in Fussen, where we stayed in the Hotel Hirsch, which was founded in the early 1900's.  Made my little history heart happy.  We wandered around the town square that evening and into the Christmas market.  We also ran into this scary parade of school children dressed in raggedy orange robes and masks.  They carried cow bells and sticks other noise makers and I think maybe they were scaring away the evil spirits?  So that was kind of special.  (I got video but no pictures of them.) 

By the end of that day, (after having gotten just a little bit of bad sleep on the plane the night before,) we were dead tired!  I lost track of how many times I fell asleep during dinner.  I remember Arthur "waking me up" from some very extended blinks during dinner.  I just could NOT keep my eyes open anymore!  So as soon as we paid for dinner, we walked back to the hotel and crashed!