Week 50-51

For the last 2 weeks we have been traveling around Austria, Switzerland, and Germany with Eric’s mom, grandpa, and uncle. Many of you have kept up with our daily Facebook or IG posts, but here you will read and watch all of our adventures unfold.

Below is a brief summary of what we did each day with multiple videos, so make sure to watch all 4!

Video #1

October 2

The morning of their arrival, we had clouds scattered across the sky. I was running up and down the stairs of our house trying to document it, because I knew I wanted it to be in the recap video, while also trying to tidy up the place before they arrived.

We kicked off the trip at the Gmunden food truck festival where the best food trucks in the country come to the city center, most including vegan options!

We showed them our rowing club and Dan even jumped into the lake. The water was so cold, but I think it was worth it?

Ended the day at Spitz Villa for dinner.

October 3

We loaded up the dogs, piled into the car, and drove to Wolfgangsee. We have been here once before. If you recall week 7, we hiked to the top of the Schafberg. This time we took the cogwheel train up the mountain. It is the steepest cogwheel train in Austria. Highly recommend the train over walking up, haha. The train is dog-friendly, so we took our pups up with us. Once we got to the top, we had to ascend just a few more minutes on foot and then ate lunch at the top of the mountain.

October 4

Hallstatt is a must for every guest we have. This was our 4th time here and 1st time with mostly blue skies.

View from Postcard point. — *View from Postcard Point.*

We took the funicular cable car up the mountain and admired the panoramic view from the the free-floating skywalk 360 meters above the town. Then enjoyed pastries and drinks at the Rudolfsturm.

October 5

Spent the morning in Salzburg. Walking around to various Sound of Music sites, gardens, and admiring the cobble stone streets.

Mirabell Garten and the Salzb castle — *Mirabell Garten and the Salzburg castle*

In the afternoon, we did a 4-hour private tour of the Eagles Nest and the surrounding area. Every other day I would ask the group what their favorite thing was and every time it was “the Eagles Nest.”Eric and I have been to the Eagles Nest once before back in 2018 when we were visiting Europe for our anniversary. A bit surreal to be back again, with our same tour guide.

*The entrance of Hitler’s Eagles Nest Tunnel.*

We were nervous the clouds would prevent us from seeing anything, but once we got to the top we were above the cloud line and it created the most majestic, picturesque view for us to enjoy.

Video #2

October 6

We drove to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial. It was raining and cold, but seemed fitting for the place we were in. “Impressively depressing” was the term we landed on as we were walking back out to the car. A total of around 190,000 people were imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp and at least 90,000 died.

Eric being our tour guide. — *Eric being our history tour guide.*

October 7

We left the house at 7:30am and headed west towards Zurich. Our first stop was to the Swarovski Crystal Museum. It was pretty cool, but nothing to oooh and ahhh about.

We got back in the car and continued only for about 30 minutes and then we reached Innsbruck. Innsbruck is the capital of Tyrol and is a city in the Alps that has long been a destination for winter sports. The 1964 olympics were held in this town and you can still see the big ski jump park off in the distance.

Eric and I could 100% see ourselves living in this town if we ever moved from Gmunden and were able to stay in Austria. We ate lunch at Lichtblick. Every article I read said this is a must if you are looking for food in Innsbruck. I think the view was better than the food, so I would recommend finding somewhere else to go if you ever find yourself in this town. After lunch, we walked the streets checking off the colorful house row, St. Annes Column, Stadtturm, Golden Roof, and the Innsbrücke (bridge).

*Eric and I in front of the row of colorful houses.*

Around 6:30pm we arrived in Zurich, the land of cheese and chocolate. We stayed at Hotel Adler, right in the middle of Old Town. Eric and I had also been to Zurich back in 2018 and stayed in the hotel just next door to this one.

Video #3

October 8

We woke up and had to go move our car. Then ate breakfast at the hotel. At 11:00 we joined a 1.5 hour free walking tour. There were about 25 other people from all around the world who joined the tour. After the tour we headed to Haus Hiltl, the oldest vegetarian restaurant in the world! I wish there were more of these restaurants in Austria. It is located right on the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, which means it was a bit pricey, but the food was delicious.

After lunch we stopped at a fabric store and a chocolate store named Läderach. We were told not to go to Lindt, because you can get that anywhere. The chocolate was as good as our tour guide said it would be.

We ended the afternoon on the Limmat River Cruise. A 50-minute cruise taking you past the most beautiful sights Zurich's old town has to offer and goes out onto Lake Zurich.

After a few hours of resting from a long afternoon of sight-seeing, we had dinner downstairs at the hotel restaurant, Swiss chuchi.

October 9

Our short stay in Zurich came to an end and we were bound for Munich. But first, we stopped at Neuschwanstein Castle. Tickets to go inside the castle were sold out, but we were still able to have lunch and enjoy a horse carriage ride up to the castle to take some pictures.

Eric and I infront of Neuschwanstein Castle — *Eric and I in front of Neuschwanstein Castle*

We arrived at the Holiday Inn, just a few blocks from the City Center. We ate dinner in the square and were all getting tired, but had to stay awake because we had a big surprise for Eric’s grandpa. At 10.00pm, we walked over to the Lichtspiele theater and revealed we had tickets to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I documented the reaction so make sure to watch the Munich video.

I had never seen the show before, but Eric’s grandpa watches it every year on Halloween and has always wanted to see it in a theater.

Dan purchased prop kits for all of us. The kits included a bag of rice, a glow stick, a playing card, a rubber glove, toilet paper, streamers, a party hat, a newspaper, a cracker, and a bazooka. During certain scenes of the movie you take out an item and interact with it, like, for the wedding scene, we threw the rice into the audience towards the screen.

October 10

This was the first day that did not have a minute-by-minute planned itinerary. We had hoped to spend the morning at the Viktualienmarkt, a daily food market and a square in the center of Munich. Turns out it was closed on Sunday. Instead, we walked around town, had lunch at the Hofbrauhaus, then did the Hop-on hop-off bus tour around Munich.

Video #4

October 11

It was time to head back home. So we checked out, drove 2 hours, and arrived back in Gmunden around 11am. The weather was beautiful. I made us all lunch and we ate in our garden outside. Then we walked to a nearby dock where Charlie overcame his fear of water and got in to chase the ducks!! We were so proud of him, but told him he should wait til the summer to get in the water as it was pretty cold now.

We ended the night with dinner at sunset on the Gmundenerberg.

October 12

We headed back into downtown Gmunden, walked through the weekly farmers market and then went to an Austrian hat store. Eric has been wanting to get one of these hats since arrived almost a year ago and today he finally got one.

October 13

This was a pretty relaxed day. Since it was raining, we went to the SEP shopping center nearby, but mostly stayed at home. For dinner we went to Hotel Schwan.

October 14

I woke up, fed the animals and walked into the dinning room with everyone staring at me. They were waiting for me to realize our new surprise table setting! I have been wanting placemats for our table for several months, but just never got around to getting them. So to see them unexpectedly on our table was so wonderful! It all matched and was the style I would have picked myself.

Thank you!!!!

For our last day of adventures, we drove to Oberndorf. A pretty insignificant name, which I doubt you have ever heard of, but I know you have heard of the Christmas song, ‘Silent Night’. This song was first created here in Oberndorf, around 20 kilometres north of Salzburg.

The story goes….

Between 1817 and 1819, Joseph Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber’s friendship resulted in “Silent Night”. During the afternoon of 24 December 1818, the assistant priest Mohr passed a poem that he had composed in 1816 to the teacher Gruber, asking him to add a melody to it. On the evening of the very same day, the two men sang the song following the Christmas mass.

On our way back home, we stopped at the Ebensee concentration camp memorial and a picturesque bridge that had two very friendly swans.

Finally after two weeks of eating all kinds of Austrian, German, and Swiss foods, we ended the vacation with yummy Austrian pizzas just down the street from our home.

October 15

After 14 days, 4 countries, and over 144,000 steps we said our goodbyes.

At 4:00 am, the family headed for the airport and we headed back to bed. When I woke up, I found two more gifts left on our mantel. A gift certificate from Eric’s grandpa back to the delicious restaurant where we ate on October 11 and the cutest fall sign from Eric’s mom. Dan also brought us the American flag!

Now each year when we start decorating for fall we will be able to take out the sign and remember the time they visited us in Austria.

Next week marks our one-year anniversary living in Austria! I am so happy I started this blog. We have been to so many places and seen so much. We probably would have forgotten most of our time here had we not kept track of everything. I will be sharing a special mid-week post to celebrate, so stay tuned.

:)