Salzburg.  Wow, what a breath of fresh air after 2 days of stuffy train rides. The train ride through the Alps helped set the scene and mood of what was to come. So I suppose spending an unexpected night in Milano was a blessing in disguise, because the Alps train ride was definitely a highlight and had we taken the night train, we would have missed the Alps during the day. The steep mountains just surge out of the ground and go straight up. There are no foothills like Utah, it’s just gorgeous, bright green hilly valleys and then rocky mountain. It was so stunning, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. At times, I felt like I was in a train model with all of the bridges and charming villages, all centered around an old church steeple. We had a stop in Innsbruck, and it was a scene from the Sound of Music; was green as Hawaii, more exaggerated mountains than Utah, and the small European city. It help our sour mood too to see something worth seeing. This is one of those places where pictures would never do justice.

Salzburg, like a lot of other European cities, has a river bisecting it. It’s also on the northern boundary of the Alps so it’s very green with enormous outcrops throughout the city. On top of the one of the largest hills in the city sits Hohensalzburg Castle, looming over the city. Mozart was born here, Hitler had his Eagle’s Nest retreat near here, and the Sound of Music was filmed here, among other trivia. We got to Salzburg pretty late in the afternoon, after traveling for 7-8 hours. So we just found our hotel and then went to dinner. Our hotel had two great features that most don’t. In our room we didn’t have any air conditioning or a fan. It was already pretty warm, so I was a bit worried about that night with the noise of the creaky old building and the heat. I went to open the window and discovered a large stream right beneath our window!  It cooled the room off right away and drowned out background noises. It was so charming. I loved it. This hotel also had a pretty large garden area with kids bikes, balls, toys, and rabbits, and all right next to the almost-river that went past our window (but it was fenced off, because, well, safety first).  I really appreciated it for the open, green area that Skye could play in and explore after being cooped up in the stroller and trains for days. It was wonderful. This is actually where walking clicked for her and she took off and hasn’t stopped since.

The following day we woke up to some pretty intense rain. Our little river was now reaching its banks. But we didn’t have time to sit inside all day so we just dressed for it. We grabbed some breakfast from the hotel and off we went. By the time we finally got out the door and to the bus stop (conveniently located across the street from the hotel) the rain had stopped. It was a little drizzly by the time we reached old town, but the sun was beginning to peak through. To get to the top of the castle we took a funicular (cable car) up the side. I guess the rain scared away the swarms, because we we got to the top, it was deserted. It was so gorgeous being on top of that hill, with the mist and rain clouds being pushed aside by the sunshine and to have it be so peaceful and quiet left quite an impression. The cobblestone floors were still a little wet and the restaurants were just setting out their chairs and getting ready for the masses. It was so extremely nice and peaceful up there. The castle is very large, and we discovered that we were merely on one of it’s flanking “decks”.  It kind of winds around until you end up in the center of the castle. They renovated it, so it seemed right out of the story books. It was really fun and by the time we left, everyone was just starting to arrive because it was safe, the rain was going to stay away. We walked down the hill instead of taking the funicular which dropped us back into old town around noon. We were lucky to be there at noon when every cathedral bell rang at once and for about 5 minutes. Benjam was in heaven. We sauntered around the maze of small streets and shops and had a great lunch of local food. We slowly worked our way back to the hotel to play in the garden and just relax for a bit.

We still had a few hours of daylight so we went to the Hellbrunn Palace, an early Baroque villa of palatial size (thanks Wiki).  Really though, besides the residence/villa of some Archbishop it was also a sprawling park and garden with a lot of fountains and statues. We wanted to take the tour of the trick fountains, so we walked around the immaculate grounds and let Skye practice walking more while we waited for the tour to begin. The trick fountain tour was actually pretty fun. The archbishop built all of these trick fountains to play pranks on his guests when he had parties. Pretty impressive actually. The outdoor dining area had holes in the seats where water would squirt up guests behinds and then along the garden path fountains would surprise you. Pretty fun.  

We worked our way back to the hotel, walking most of the way in that perfect time of dusk. We grabbed some Chinese food to eat back in the room since Skye was getting tired and there was no way I was going to take her to a restaurant at her bed time. She really seemed to love the walk home, too, because she wasn’t ornery at all, even though it was 3 hours past her bed time. Got back and tried to put her to bed. It was so cute, she was rolling around, looking for the edge of the crib like at home, but because they didn’t have a crib, only a bed, she rolled right off. Benjam nearly caught her in time but it was still really cute. She slept with us both nights. We brought the mattresses to the floor, right beneath the window and let the river put us to sleep.

The following day, we were off on another packed train home to Bratislava via Vienna. The last leg of traveling is always pretty hard and we dropped to the floor when we got home. We had a great time though and made some terrific memories and some not so terrific memories. Here are the highlights:

]]> http://iohelix.net/blog/2009/07/salzburg/feed/ 0 http://iohelix.net/blog/2009/07/italy-trip-overview/ http://iohelix.net/blog/2009/07/italy-trip-overview/#comments Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:02:51 +0000 benjam http://iohelix.net/blog/?p=2177

so I’m going to break up this trip into a few posts because the trip spanned several cities (in a couple countries), and if we tried to cram all the pics and info into one post, it would be huge. so this post is a basic overview of the trip as a whole, with the individual city posts linked in this one.

we left for italy on friday, and it took us three buses, one plane, an inner city train, two metros, and a fair sized walk to get to our hotel in Rome… talk about exhausted. it didn’t help that we didn’t really know where our hotel was, where we were, where the train was going, where the metro stops were, and all that…  but we got there. we did the Rome thing, which was seriously amazing, if you ever get a chance, I highly recommend it, although I definitely would not want to live there. it’s a bit too dirty and touristy and crowded for my tastes.

after Rome we headed off to Tirrenia (a little beach town between Livorno and Pisa), where we took in some beach and sun time because, even though the weather forecast said rainy in italy for the whole week, it was a blazing 30C (~85° F), which is really nothing compared to the 100+ heat of Utah, but add in 100% humidity and it will suck the sweat right out of you. but again, highly recommended, the water and beach were perfect.

after Tirrenia, that’s when the fun began…  there was a pretty major train accident in Viareggio (not too far from La Spezia, our next stop), which caused all the trains to La Spezia to be cancelled. because of this, our 1 hour train ride became a 4 hour bus ride, and Skye is not too fond of trains, and doubly so for buses. we got there quite late, and were completely frazzled from the bus ride, so we went to our hotel. we had planned to do a little day trip to Cinque Terre, and take in the amazing sights there, but just couldn’t make it, it was too late to do anything, and our train for Milano left pretty early the next day, so we stayed in.  =(

we left for Milano the next day, and again, because of the train accident, had to take a longer train, so we got to Milano a bit later than we had hoped. we had planned to go to the science museum in Milano, and check a few other things, but only made it to the museum. the museum was supposed to have a bunch of hands-on stuff for me and Skye to play with, but they were only available on the weekends (it was Wed.), and the rest of the museum kinda sucked. after the museum we headed off to the train station to catch our night train to Salzburg.  unfortunately, the “night train” was actually 3 trains, and none of them had sleeper cars. so we really didn’t want to be sitting up with Skye all night and switching trains at 4 in the morning, so we got a nearby hotel and stayed the night in Milano with train tickets that left at 7 the next morning.

after the 7 hour train ride through the Alps via Innsbruck to Salzburg, we arrived at around 4-5 in the afternoon, went to our hotel, dropped off our stuff, and grabbed a bite to eat. it was already too late to do anything, but that was ok, because we were there for as long as we wanted, no more early morning trains, and no more rushing to get somewhere.

Salzburg is probably my favorite place in Europe so far. it is simply breathtaking. The mountains were amazing, the country was amazing, and the city was amazing. we left Salzburg and headed home late Sat. morning. the train we were going to catch was about to leave, and we were hoping to get an empty coach to let Skye nap in, but the ticket girl said it was probably full, so we got tickets for the next one. as we walked out on the platform, we saw the train we skipped, and it was nearly empty, and as I was about to go back and exchange tickets, it pulled away. our train arrived from another city, and was packed solid. the only reason we got a seat at all was because we had reserved some. but we finally made it home, and crashed.

overall, it was a good trip, there were some poopy parts about it, mostly due to the train accident and not wanting to travel for extended periods with a toddler, but the cities we were able to see were pretty amazing. i highly recommend any of them.