Amalia and Matt's blog

The new transit system is flawless. We parked our van at the terminal of Vienna’s northern suburb and zoomed to the city centre in under 15 minutes.

Old means of transportation are still used to this day.

Some buildings are very ancient yet well maintained and luxurious.

Some buildings are extremely contemporary.

There is always something cool just around the corner.

The people are very friendly.

And extremely handsome.

Palaces and parliaments litter the streets.

Vienna is somewhat statuesque.

I give the place a 9 out of 10.

The fee to enter the castle was a little too steep in my opinion but at least we got a free funicular ride on the way down. 

I’m pretty confident that you’ve seen the movie The Sound of Music before, I mean the darn thing plays 3 times a day on TV  around Christmas time. As we left Salzburg heading towards Vienna, we stopped that a truck stop close to the lake towns where Miss Judy Dench herself sang her heart out while frolicking one of these hills. Holy crap, what a magnificent place.

What they don’t tell you at the foot of the hill is that once you’ve climbed up all the stairs you MUST buy the 8 euro admission fee to enter the grounds and actually take advantage of the views.

Picture this: Sunday afternoon in the picturesque city of Salzburg, the sun it shinning in such a way that you would swear it’s still mid summer, all your family and friends join you that the town’s plaza and street vendors are lined up to serve you local beer from the tap, cheeses made only a few kilometers away, meats and sausages bursting with flavor and whole fish skewered and grilling on charcoals. Oh, and did I mention that a live Um-papa band is playing amongst the food court!?!

Hey look! Mozart was born here. I wonder how he would feel if he knew that there’s now a grocery store in his basement.

We missed a 5 x pipe organs concert in this church by about 3 minutes. Mom was almost in tears.

Mom, Matt and I arrived in Salzburg in the evening, parked the van by the water and went on a stroll.

Eagles Nest was one of Hitler’s retreats in the German hills. To get there you must drive up a 25% incline road (completely RV unfriendly) for a good 10 Km. You must park in one of the two pay parking lots and proceed to the designated buses. The red buses drive you farther up the mountain to an abandoned shack seldom visited by Hitler and his entourage. Only after paying for 3 hours of parking did we find out that the bus costs a whopping 15 euros per person to go up. We settled on taking pictures from the parking lot area.