***Sorry for the delay in posts! This was written Thursday the 11th but not posted until now. Florence post to come soon!***
My three days in Austria are now over, as I'm riding an overnight train to Florence. I very much enjoyed this country, and since they speak German it even lessened my disappointment in Germany due to Berlin. The first day was spent in Salzburg and the second two in Vienna, and both were quite enjoyable in their own way. Here's why.
On Tuesday, Sarah and I took the train out to Salzburg to go on a Sound of Music tour. Yep, we are the ultimate American tourists, but we heard amazing things about this tour from other people who had done it, so we decided we had to follow in their footsteps. The train ride to Salzburg was a HOT three hour trip, but once we got off and walked around the town, we were much happier. Salzburg is famous for two things: the location of The Sound of Music, and Mozart. Nothing else. So the entire town is gardens where the Do-Re-Mi song was filmed, or Mozart's first house, or rows upon rows of souvenir stands touting the two attributes. After exploring and getting a quick lunch, we embarked on the 4-hour official Sound of Music tour, led by a hilarious Austrian man who knew every little detail about Salzburg and The Sound of Music. We stopped in multiple places along the tour: the Von Trapp house, the lake where the kids and Maria fell in while boating, the tree area the kids run through in their curtain clothes, the place where the gazebo from "16 Going on 17" is now housed, the Unternes mountain Maria is first filmed on, and the church where Maria and the Captain get married, to name a few. We drove into the countryside and stopped in Mondsee, the town with the church, and we indulged in some apple strudel there. After another train ride, we made it back safe and sound to Vienna.
On Wednesday, Maggie left us mid-afternoon to continue her own trip in Munich, and Michelle finally arrived to continue traveling with us! So Sarah, Maggie, and I went to the zoo in the morning, which was one of the best zoos I've been to. My inner child was extremely excited to see pandas, reindeer, baby giraffes and elephants, tiny monkeys, swimming penguins, and more. We grabbed a nice lunch at the Naschmarkt across the street from our hostel, which is a long food and souvenir outdoor market. Then it was time for Maggie to leave, and Michelle arrived at the exact same time! So we went back out with Michelle and toured Schonnbrunn Palace, which looked like a mini Versailles from the outside but was very underwhelming inside. The gardens were nice, though. After, we explored along the canal, walked through an amusement park that had the famous Ferris Wheel in it, and finally ate dinner at a decent restaurant in Judenplatz (Jewish Plaza, of all places!).
On Thursday, we walked basically the entire city. We started by seeing a church in Karlsplatz, then went to Stephansdom (the largest cathedral) and climbed the 400 stairs to the top to see the view. Then we continued along what's called the "Inner Ring" of the city to see more churches, Parliament, City Hall, multiple museums and parks, and my personal favorite, the Schmetterlinghaus. In English that's "Butterfly House," and Sarah and I ventured inside to find hundreds of butterflies gliding around the flower and plant-filled greenhouse. We took a ton of gorgeous pictures and felt like 5-year-olds, but again, our inner children were very happy. We had a good lunch in a plaza, and afterwards walked to a street with strangely-built apartments. They reminded me of Gaudi's houses in Barcelona but on a smaller, weirder scale. We strolled back through a nice park, bought ourselves some snacks for later, and are now on the train on the way to Italy. Tomorrow we'll meet up with Katy, Michael, and Jenna, so it'll be a massive Vandy party in Florence, and I can't wait! Florence round 2, here I come. Let's leave out the pneumonia this time.
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