Salzburg, Austria

We started off our trip by flying into Munich and driving over to Salzburg which is about 2 hours away. I booked tickets for 8 am to save money, sounded like a good idea at the time but at 4:30 in the morning it seemed really dumb. We had to get there early to return our car (have I mentioned our car situation? Jamie was promised a car and the leasing program got messed up - so their solution? Rent from Avis. Yes, for the last 8 months we have rented a car from Avis. There are perks, like trading it in when we need a bigger car and not having to worry about transport to the airport. We dont pay for it but it is still crazy, we offered to buy a car but their policy does not allow them to reimburse us so we let them pay Avis and Jamie is now a platinum member with free rentals)

The flight went well and as we drove out of the city we were shocked at how just gorgeous Germany is. When I was planning the trip I kept looking for specific things to go see and there just didnt seem alot of "sights" like I found in Paris. As soon as we got on the road it made sense, alot of Germany is just being in Germany. We drove on the Romantic Road, and it deserves the name, we wish we could have captured the beauty with the camera but we cannot do it justice.

We got into Salzburg and stayed at a little hotel close to center of town, the entire trip we had great luck with our hotels. I did a ton of research using Rick Steve's and Trip Advisor and we had great experiences. In every hotel there was a queen/king size bed but each person got their own comforter, loved it! Jamie is always too hot and I love to "cocoon" so it worked out nicely.

We wandered around the town and had Doner Kabaps - they were amazing! In my head I had heard they were kabobs and was expecting skewered meat, these were amazing sandwiches! Went back the next day...also had one of the best pizzas I have ever eaten in Salzburg. I was so shocked but they said there is a ton of Roman/Italian influence and there were Italian restaurants everywhere, so maybe that explains it? Or else I have lived in England too long...

We thought about doing the Sound of Music bus tour, but I would rather be flexible with Hadley so we picked a few sights to go see on our own and then did the town tour out of the book. Ok, onto the pictures....

Massive Roman inspired fountain.

One of the rulers was hoping to make Salzburg the Rome of the North, I guess he got pretty close but then fell out of favor. There was a glockenspiel in the same plaza that we timed to arrive when it was supposed to go off - turns out this one was just bells, no dancing dolls.

Salzburg Cathedral.

We ended up there the day after Easter and they were holding mass in the morning. We were able to see the deacons/priests exit the building, it was really impressive. The actual building is gorgeous and if you look closely, the fountain of Mary lines up with angels on the Cathedral to appear as though they are crowning her from where I am standing on the edge of the plaza.

St Peter's Cemetery

One of the prettiest cemeteries I have ever seen (not that I have seen alot...) but each plot is like a mini garden. The catch is that your family is expected to pay rent on the plot, so after a few generations nobody remembers you and the payments stop. You get booted and a new person gets the spot, most people in this really old cemetery were within the last 100 years.

Hohensalzburg Fortress

We took a train up the side of the hill (literally straight up) to the fortress

View from the fortress, beautiful city

We drove out to a few of the lakes in the musical, Jamie really wanted to and I was so glad he insisted. It was gorgeous, you could see straight to the bottom and was a bright blue. It was right in the mountains, our pictures don't even get close to how pretty it is.

Picture of the town at the lake. We pretty much felt that we should try ice cream in each town we visited, this one had the best vanilla gelato

Second Lake, so picturesque.

We didn't hear the hills sing, but we were so glad we headed out to Salzburg.