These are a few of my favorite things...

For all of its faults, Salzburg is still a lovely city with plenty of qualities that make it worth a (short) visit. In keeping with the Sound of Music theme, these are a few of my favorite things:
1. The Weather.

Apparently Salzburg is one of the rainiest cities in Europe. I figure this statistic can only be right if the entire UK is taken out of the running. While we were there, we had some of the prettiest days I’ve ever experienced. We went 3 whole days without seeing a single cloud in the sky. There were several times when we just layed out on a park bench and soaked in the pleasure of a shady spot on a hot afternoon.

You don’t get many of those opportunities in Scotland, so we tried to take full advantage of the warm sunshine on our faces.

2. Fraulen Maria’s Sound of Music Bike tour.

It was fun, educational, and active which is just how I like my European vacations.

3. Coffee Ice Cream at Café Tomaselli.

I’m not saying that the waiters were pleasant or the bathrooms were free, but their coffee ice cream was good enough to keep me coming back for more.

Yep, three total stops for coffee ice cream during our trip. If nothing else this is a must do in Salzburg, and you can justify your indulgence by this cultural fact: Mozart used to eat ice cream here back in the day.

4. St. Peter’s church and catacombs.

Lately I’ve been having a heavy heart about a few things.  I won’t go into detail, but for the first two days of our Salzburg trip, I was pretty grumpy. I stumbled upon St. Peter’s church while wandering the streets by myself, and decided to have a look inside.  

A sign indoors said ‘No talking’ because it was a house of prayer, and suddenly a light went off in my head: “Duh! Prayer!”. I realized it had been about a week since I had humbly bowed my head, and so I helped myself to a pew.

I had a serious heart to heart with God, and before realizing it, I was having a big ole ugly cry…in public. But it was so cathartic. Afterwards I felt as light as a feather, and my bad attitude was wiped away. It’s so nice to realize that I don’t have to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, because I can just hand my worries, fears, and grief over to God and he will carry them for me. Hallelujah! And to have such an intimate moment with the Lord in a lovely historic church made this simple experience one of the most memorable of my Austrian vacation. Who cares if I had mascara running down my face for the rest of the day?  

After lifting my spirits in the chapel, I headed next door to the Catacombs.

The price of admission was 1.50 Euros, and admission granted me access into a few of the tombs and stunning views of the Salzburg skyline.

5. Drinking beer on patios.

Yes, many of the restaurants and beer gardens close around 8 PM, but we still basked in the pleasure of drinking brewskis outdoors. It was perfect weather for it, and it’s something we've profoundly missed while living in the UK.

Something about drinking beer outside just makes it taste better. Kind of like candy bars when they come from vending machines.  

6. Mirabell Gardens.

One of my best friends Jill is pregnant with a baby girl. Before becoming pregnant, her favorite name for a girl was Lydia, so when she made the gender announcement, I thought I knew what to expect from her name reveal. Wrong. Her sweet husband had a different name on his mind: Mirabell.

I spotted a Mirabell Hotel in Bad Gastein.

The couple took a trip to Germany and Austria for their anniversary and when they visited Mirabell Gardens he started thinking about what a great name it would be for a future daughter. And well, I just  think that’s the sweetest story I have ever heard. I love when daddy’s help to name their little girls. I know it makes me love my own name that much more to know that it was one my one dad chose. And I’m sure little Mirabell will feel the same.

I just loved the experience of visiting these gardens and thinking of my dear friend and the inspiration behind her sweet baby’s name. And plus, the gardens are simply beautiful. I visited early in the morning so they weren’t yet crowded. I learned later that it is one of the most photographed places in Salzburg and gets quite busy, so I recommend an early visit if it’s on your Salzburg itinerary.

7. Hiking.

From my Bike tour I learned of two walks, the Monchsburg and Kapuzinerburg Hills, that offer incredible views of the city and the surrounding Alps.

We spent our Sunday morning walking these paths before heading home to Scotland.

8. Mozart Balls (or Mozartkugel).

Chocolatey, pistachio, nugget goodness. The perfect treat after long days of walking, hiking, biking, and bench napping.

9. Churchbells.

The city of Salzburg has a long Christian history, and within the Old Town alone there are 84 churches. When the bells go off, it's quite magical. It's hard to capture this beautiful sound in pictures, so instead I took some video. You're welcome.

And of course...

10. Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens.
Because when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad: I think of a few of my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad......

The Train to Bad Gastein

Ladies and gentleman, I have recently discovered a revolutionary travel option which avoids the long security lines and nonexistent leg room of airplanes and gets rid of the pesky parking problem that cars usually present. Yes, that’s right, Jonathan and I took our first European train ride while in Austria and it was ah-mazing.

Honestly, we had no idea that European train travel was so effortless. We just showed up at the train station, bought a round trip ticket to a random Austrian town, hopped on and hopped off about an hour later. Easy peasy.

No security lines. No throwing away water bottles. No worrying about all travel sized toiletries being separated into ziplock bags.  No turning off our electronics during take-off and landing. Nope, we just kept on playing angry birds throughout our voyage. Ah-mazing. So amazing that I kind of wish I’d planned April’s upcoming trip via train so that I wouldn’t have to worry about driving on the small country roads of Western Scotland. Hmmm…Is it too late to change plans?

Anyway, back to Austria. Somewhere in my research I read about a small resort town named Bad Gastein. It looked lovely and quiet and perfect for a romantic and sunny Saturday with my honey. After 3 days, Salzburg was old news and we were ready to explore a different locale. Since we didn’t feel like 1 day was enough time to do Vienna justice, we decided to focus on a more manageable sized city.

We leisurely rolled out of bed, packed a day bag with snacks and water and headed to the train station. One good thing about our hotel’s location: it was two blocks from the train station. Silver lining. When we got on the train, it turned out that we were about the only ones with the idea to check out Bad Gastein that day and we had the entire train car to ourselves. 

 We set up camp with our books, electronic devices, and of course, gummy bears.

(On a side note: I always travel with gummy bears. I find they ease my motion sickness. It may just be a placebo effect, but it’s working, so I keep doing it. Only problem is, gummy bears are quite hard to find in Scotland. Well, not in Austria. They were everywhere, including vending machines. Needless to say, I stocked up and now have enough gummy bears to last us our entire stint in the UK. Speaking of which, Jillian, I brought you back some so please remind me to bring them to you! Wow, is this post a rambling mess or what? I warned you the next few weeks would be like this!)

As we traveled from Salzburg deeper into the Alps, the scenery was incredible. I kept rushing from one side of the train to the other, just trying to take in the views.

Being from the flatlands of Louisiana, I enjoy land with some curves. Well Austria was like the Beyonce of landscapes. As we got closer and closer to our final destination, the scenery got more and more breathtaking which was easing our minds about our spontaneous and random day trip decision.

Jonathan and I are not usually spontaneous and random people, so we were a bit apprehensive that our poorly planned excursion would end up a disaster. Well, pulling into the Bad Gastein station, we were pretty confident that we were going to have an incredible day.

The weather was picture perfect which matched the awe inspiring mountains surrounding us. Since the resort town is best known for it’s skiing, the town was very sleepy during our visit, and many of the shops were closed in preparation for the winter season.

However, we quickly found some hiking trails and went exploring, finding waterfalls, thermal baths, and a trail that stretched between several other ski towns within the area.

 

It was a happy, relaxing day, just hiking in the sunshine through the Alps with my bestie. Does it get better than that? Yes, it does. You wanna know how? Hiking in the sunshine in the Alps with my bestie and also feeding squirrels.

Mind blown. And it gets even better! Hiking in the sunshine in the Alps with my bestie, feeding squirrels, eating ice cream, and using FREE public restrooms.

You rock, Bad Gastein! We hiked downhill for about 2 ½ hours before realizing that what goes down, must come up, and we had quite the trek ahead of us.

We took lots of breaks and detours to explore along the way, and rewarded ourselves with cheeseburgers and beer once we made it back to our original elevation.

We still had an hour or so to kill, so we weaved around exploring the town's postcard worthy streets.

Similar to Salzburg the town is built into the side of the mountain overlooking a valley, so our vantage point was constantly changing, leading to a lot of picture taking. Here are some of our favorites from the day:

It was definitely our favorite part of our Austria trip and we wished we had spent the night here so that we could indulge in one of their famous spa treatments. A nice thermal steam would have been quite nice after all of our hiking.

But instead we headed back to the train station, hopped on and hopped back off in Salzburg about an hour later, which was pretty relaxing, as far as travel goes.