I've always wanted to visit Germany and Austria. My parents have spent quite a bit of time there and have always told me about it. Since those countries border each other, we decided to kill two birds with one stone and take a five day trip to Munich, Germany and Salzburg, Austria.
Why Salzburg?
Because it's where the Sound of Music was filmed.
The Sound of Music has always been one of my favorites. I've heard about the tour, and I couldn't not take advantage of the situation if it presented itself.... so, we decided to go. Abby, Alex (girl) and Alex (boy) and I hopped a plane to Munich friday morning and immediately after we got there, we got on a train to Salzburg. They are about 4 hours apart by train, so no big deal. It took us awhile to figure out how to get to our hostel in Salzburg, but once we got the hang of the small city, it was easy to get around to places. That afternoon, we just wandered around the center of Salzburg, enjoying the city!
First meal in Salzburg!
Trying to be romantic on the love lock bridge
Checking out the unique and always beautiful architecture
Mozart's birthplace? Apartment? We're still confused...
The spirit of Mozart had us feeling musical!
Beautiful view of the river that separates the city!
Later that night, we happened to see a huge fortress. You can see it way up high in this picture:
And we also saw that there was still this lift-rollercoaster-cablecar thing that was running, even thought it was probably 9 or 10 at night and pitch black outside. We decided to check it out, and it turned out, even though the inside of the Fortress was closed, we could still walk around the city at the top! We paid like 4 euros and took this lift up an insanely steep part of the cliff. I don't have a picture, but I wish I did, because it was kind of surreal. And a weird way to get to the top.
Being in the fortress that night was one of the most bizarre experiences I've had since being here. I know I've mentioned this multiple times about Europe, but rules are hard to come by. We were basically the only ones up there, and there was this extremely creepy, deserted city surrounding the fortress. At least, that's what we thought. We found out about 30 minutes after we were up there that it was a town and people still lived there. But no one was out, all windows were shut, restaurants were closed, and there was literally no noise. It was like we were on a horror movie set. After we found out that it was an actual small town, I felt like someone was constantly watching me. Shout out to Alex (boy) for taking advantage of this and scaring me TWICE so bad I cried. I wish I could explain the eeriness and creepiness a little better, but I can't. It was so much fun though.
View of the city from the Fortress
Abby and I recovering after being scared by Alex
There was all kinds of stuff to climb
They even had these creepy dementor statues?
The next morning, it was time for the Sound of Music Tour! I was basically giddy with excitement. Before we went on the tour though, we decided to explore a little more. We had read, and heard, that Mozart was buried in a certain cemetery with other musicians and religious figures. We decided to check it out.
We couldn't find Mozart.
We literally scoured the whole cemetery, which was pretty small, looking for his tomb. It was the weirdest thing. The sign out front advertised his tomb along with a few other names, and we found all the others but him! We never ended up finding it and gave up after awhile...
Finally it was time for the tour! Thus began the journey to locate the magical Sound of Music bus.
Excited to get the show on the road
We found the Sound of Music cow? Must be close...
Success! Yes, that's Maria joyfully singing on the side of this tour bus.
Just so everyone knows, this is THE official Sound of Music tour. Not some off brand one. We pulled out all the stops. Now, I'm just going to dump all of my SoM tour photos on you and explain them in the captions. Or else this blog will never end.
At the lake where the backyard/canoe scenes were filmed!
The Von Trapp house (well, in the movie)
Yeah, that's THE gazebo. "I am 16 going on 17...."
Fun fact: it used to be open to the public to go inside, but an 80 year old woman was jumping from bench to bench, fell and hit her head, and died. So no more.
Please excuse this picture. I think it's hilarious. When we began driving through the hills they used to film the "The hills are alive..." scenes, I started crying because the bus driver was playing the soundtrack. Not my finest moment.
A beautiful view from the foothills of the Austrian alps!
I still have no idea what this is but it was just in our faces when we rounded a curve!
The church where the wedding scene was filmed
World-famous strudel with hot vanilla cream and ice cream. So delicious....
Thanks Abby for capturing this enjoying-life shot of me and Alex
We just had a fabulous time
Soaking up the sun at the end of the tour (...Abby?)
And finally, I've been debating whether to post this because i believe it's a little embarrassing but whatever. Here's a one minute clip that explains a beautiful four hour long tour. Please enjoy.
After this wonderfully exciting tour was over, we decided to check out a few more places that were used in the film!
Steps the kids jumped on in the "Do a deer" song scene
Little tunnel thing they skipped through! (We took a skipping picture but it was highly unflattering)
The creepy little statues the kids ran around.
Annnnd finally that's the last of my Sound of Music pictures. Just know it was a fabulous experience. That night, we decided to try a beer house that we had heard about that was attached to an old church. We drank beer that was brewed on location and had typical Austrian food: weinerschnitzel! Twas delicious.
The next day, we took a train back to Munich to spend the last few days there. Sunday we just explored Munich. None of us spoke ANY German, so it was interesting trying to find our way around. Thankfully, we were in a hostel really close to the train station so that was nice. And by train station, I mean mall. It was like Dallas Galleria meets train hub. That was pretty cool. Now please enjoy these pictures of our day 1 walk around Munich (which is beautiful, by the way!)
Statues galore
We thought this was hilarious
Typical German food. So delicious!
Pretty buildings around every corner
These dogs loved me for some reason!
What's more European than giant alcohol bottle statues?
Now, for a more serious part of the post. World War Two history has always been my favorite to learn about, even if it is incredibly sad and heartbreaking. Munich is about an hour from Dachau, a town where the Dachau Concentration Camp was located. We hired a private tour guide, to give us a three hour tour of the Concentration camp. We wanted to do it right and have all of the knowledge about what we were seeing in order to appreciate it. The tour was one of the most eye-opening, intense things I've ever done, and I'll never forget it. It feels wrong to post a bunch of pictures of it, so I picked a few that I think give the idea of the history and tragedy that occurred there.
This is the entrance. It says "Work will set you free."
Never again.
The hallway of the Officer's quarters building.
Baracks. They were extremely overcrowded, especially in the last few months before liberation.
Crematorium.
Gas chamber
It was truly a humbling, somber experience. It's impossible to even begin to understand the Holocaust until you visit one of the places where the atrocities were carried out. So glad I was fortunate enough to go visit.
Moving onwards and forwards, we decided to go to Nuschwanstein (still can't spell it) after we visited Dachau! This castle is extremely famous. It's the one the Disney castle was designed after. Needless to say, that was pretty awesome!
We took a train to the town near it and found out that it was too late to get taken up to the castle by bus, so we had to hike. Oh wait! First, I just want to mention that this town near the castle was like out of Disneyworld or something. Small and adorable and like a little dollhouse. It was pretty adorable.
It was only about a 30 minute hike but it was all up hill so that part wasn't really fun. But the weather wasn't too cold and we were ready for an adventure, so why not?
When we got up to the castle, we were the only ones (because it was not exactly tourist central in Germany at this time, plus it was like 7-8 at night) and so we again had free roam at the place. We couldn't actually go inside the castle, but we got to walk around it and see the beautiful view from the cliff!
So close!
Being a daredevil on the hike up
This view....
Also this view... what a beautiful castle/mountain in the background!
~fUn CaStLe PiCs~
Lucky to have these experiences with my bff Buffabbs
Can ya see me?
After we took a thousand pictures right up close, we decided to hike to a bridge we heard about where you get the best view of the castle. It was getting cold out and also really dark and kinda creepy since we were the only ones, but we did it anyway because Aggies are adventurous.
FIRST I would like to call attention to this photo that we captured when the sun was setting:
RIGHT? RIGHT? Doesn't this look like the Lion King or something? Still in awe of this view we had. Also if you look towards the mid-bottom of the pic, you can see another castle lit up in all it's glory. Like one hadn't been enough.
Alas, after having our breath stolen from us, we continued our hike up to the bridge. We ducked under a danger sign (because it was the most pointless sign ever, there was literally no danger):
and finally, FINALLY, we arrived at the bridge.
They weren't joking when they said it was the best view of the castle, prepare yourselves.
Absolutely stunning.
Love my Aggie friends!
Perfecting the princess wave!
Also, the bridge we were standing on felt like it was going to fall at any moment, especially cause it was windy. It was definitely one of those "Well if this is the way I'm going to go at least it's amazing" moments...
On the way back I got weirdly sick, like non-stop shivering and my body couldn't warm up so thanks to my amazing friends for giving me their jackets and sharing body warmth. Looking at you Abigail. On the train back we got compartments like in Harry Potter, so please excuse my horrid looks for the sake of this HP-esque compartment picture:
The next day, we had a few hours before having to go back to the airport, so we decided to hit up the Beer gardens in Munich. They aren't really beer gardens, its just a huge, Central Park esque place that made for some beautiful photos. And now since I'm tired of writing I'll just leave them here for you to look at.
Cute friends and cute semi-circle fountain thing
Wore green to be one with nature
How cool is this waterfall
Why not climb out there? What's to lose?
Certainly not cheesy triumph pictures
Or weird but adorable poses
I love you Abbsy
Group shot (is this the only one in this blog? sheesh sorry)
I just love this picture of tha crew
Okay so thanks for all your patience. I know this is an extremely long blog post and probably boring for most of you but I appreciate you taking the time to read it. Quick shout-out to my MOM, Stacye Thompson, for being the best mother in the entire world and giving me the opportunity to do all these life-changing things. You are inspiring and perfect. Miss you so much and see you soon!
T-minus 40 days exactly til I'm home in Texas.
GOD BLESS!
