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| Salzburg, Austria |
| Wow, Austrian men sure are hot! First Arnold and now this distingushed gentleman in the traditional hat. Wait a minute. . . that is just Jeremy and we all already know he is hot. Well anyways. . .the city of Salzburg and its surrounding countryside is almost as beautiful as the man in the picture. It is truely one of the most incredible places on earth. We felt like such good photographers when we were there although to be honest it was impossible to take a bad picture. The city of Salzburg ranks very highly on our list of Europe's must sees. |
| A few pictures of Salzburg by night and then below, by day. After taking a funny little train from Prague with our friend Liz and then finding our hostel which turned out to be super nice, we were ready to go out and explore the town! We were immediately shocked by how clean and picturesque the city was and I was super excited because there was more snow than I had seen in the last year. Blue skies, snow-capped mountains and a yet to be explored city. . .what more can you ask for? |
| The hills are alive with the sound of Griswalds. . .(a little quote for all you National Lampoon's European Vacation fans). Most of the pictures below were taken while on our Sound of Music bus tour. Salzburg is where the real Von Trapp family lived and where the famous movie was eventually taped. Even though Jeremy has never seen the movie (can you believe that?) we had a great time tracing the scenes of the musical and singing along to the sound track. The famous lake district where most of the film was taped was amazingly beautiful and you can see several pictures below with the lakes and mountains as the backdrop (including the one below taken by Liz). The tour was a fun time despite the fact that our guide obviously needed to cut back on the caffeine and I was really excited when we ended the afternoon by yodeling "One little girl with a lonely goat herd" and were sent off with our own pack of eidel weiss seeds. (A little piece of trivia: did you know that the famous song "Edel Weiss" was actually written by an American and is not even know to most Austrians? In fact, most Austrians have never even heard of The Sound of Music because it was a complete flop there. You never know, you might need that info someday. . .) |
| A few artsy pictures of the lake district which was so breath-taking. The shots can't even begin to do it justice. This little village we visited on the tour was also where we were able to taste the famous marzipan stuffed "Mozart chocolate balls". I swear that is a direct translation. They were very yummy...no comment. |
| A couple funny shots taken at another one of the villages we stopped at in the lake district where we went into a fancy tea room and had traditional goulash and warm apple struedel with vanilla sauce. Yum. After the Mozart chocolate balls and the warm struedel, I was pretty hyper. . .hence the random pictures and the crazy Olympic height heel-clicking. |
| Standard kiss picture in front of the famous "I am 16 going on 17" Sound of Music gazebo (to the left) which for your information you are no longer allowed to enter since an 84 year old enthused tourist broke her hip trying to dance on the benches while re-enacting the scene. And on the right you can see Liz and I skipping around the Pegasus picture re-enacting one of the "Do-re-mi" scenes. There was also a shot of Jeremy and I skipping but he is not as graceful. . .hehe. |
| Ah yes, yet another beer hall. We just can't get enough of those! This one had a pretty neat gig going. . .you paid a deposit for your big ceramic mug and then went up to this counter where a man with a gigantic keg of beer would fill and refill it with Austrian brew for you. When you were done there was this huge fountain where you rinsed it out before giving it back. Pretty neat, huh? The beer hall was bumping and filled with people in all sorts of crazy costumes since Salzburg was celebrating Mardi Gras Austrian style. We saw everything from men dressed as bumblebees to yes, that's right. . .Austrian Elvis. In fact, Austrian Elvis took quite a liking to Liz and eventually serenaded her with a very loosely interpreted and very drunk rendition of "Love Me Tender". Ah, I can still hear his melodious voice. . . |
| And then last but not least, we have a lovely picture of me with a traditional Austrian band complete with lederhosen and suspenders who despite the fact that we had no language in common, insisted we take a picture together. They were great. Does anyone know what that washboard/guitar instrument on the right is? |
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