There're no Kangaroos in Austria

So, while we were sitting in a bar in Berlin, we decided that we wanted to venture out of the city and take a break from all the city life and really take in some of the country side.  Hence the stops in Karlovy Vary and Telc.  We decided that as much as it pained us, we were going to skip Vienna.  It wasn’t something that either of us really had on our dream list, and it was a longer drive than we wanted, plus it was another city.  So, we left Telc with the intention of getting to Salzburg, one of Sarah’s favorite places from her trip through Europe about a decade ago.  

As we’re driving through Czech on our way out, we start getting turned around.  Trying to find your way through tiny back country roads is one thing in the US.  It’s tough, but you can figure it out.  You should really try it in a foreign country where you can’t read anything and there aren’t really any street signs worth a damn.  And the main road, well that’s a one lane road, where you have to pull over if someone is coming from the other direction.  There were some great things to see along the way, and again the country side was unbelievable, but wow.  This is truly a small town place. 

After a little while driving, we came to the Austrian border.  Which was really interesting, we just pulled over to take pictures because it was a bizarre place.  Mind you this was a border crossing between a communist country and a western country during the cold war.  Here was an abandoned check point that would have had barbed wire all over it and armed guards working it.  And now, it’s just abandoned, with a box of statue heads (?? Looked it up and couldn’t find anything about it? If you find anything let us know in the comments) and a rusted out welcome sign.  It’s for sale if you’re interested… 

The change between Austria and Czech is quite remarkable.  The roads are different, the signage is way, WAY better.  But still tiny little farm towns out in the country side.  We wind our way through to find the A1 freeway, which is something that we haven’t seen since we were in Germany, a good old multilane freeway, with people driving FAST.  Hooray!!!

So, we pull into Salzburg and we have to find a hotel.  I wanted to stop through Fucking, a small town right north of Salzburg just for the name, but Sarah had strategically fell asleep next to me when I would need to make the turn.  She magically woke up right before we got to Salzburg, so we didn’t have an hour detour so I could take some fun pictures.  It’s probably for the better. 

Regardless, we park in Salzburg around 4 o’clock and start looking for a café or bar that has wifi so we can find a place to stay.  No luck on the first couple of places we walk into.  But then we walk into one, and they said they didn’t have wifi, but the town provides it free of charge downtown.  Thanks a lot other places. 

Our hotel was through the tunnel on the other side of the city, and it sure was interesting… and suggestive.  Check out the painting on the wall and the fancy décor. 

Once we unpacked we headed off the brewery.  We had finally come to a proper Bavarian brewery.  You take your liter mug off the wall, pay for your beer and they fill it straight out of the keg.  Then you walk out to the courtyard and get some chicken and bratwurst and chug it all down.  It was great, and a good warm up for next weekend… Oktoberfest. 

In the morning we needed to find breakfast, so we went back downtown and started walking around.  Only to find a farmers market.  YUMMM!!!  I got a breakfast pretzel that had nuts and was the size of my head.  Sarah grabbed some strawberries and we found a little café to get a cup of coffee.  Look up and it’s Mozart’s Geburtshaus (sounds like: Get Birthed house, so his birthplace) we’re sitting there having coffee where Mozart was born.  Hey, who knew?

Sarah had mentioned that she wanted to do some stuff that wasn’t in a city, she mentioned that we should do the Kehlsteinhaus.  It’s Hitler’s vacation house in the Alps.  It’s technically in Germany, but it’s so close, it might as well be in  Austria.  Neither of us knew really what to expect, but we figured we’d go and see what it was all about.  

We started driving up the mountain and ended up at this gorgeous hotel in the alps the Intercontinental.  They told us we had missed the turn and needed to go back down the hill.  So we found the place.  And we got on the bus to take us up.  Whoa!  Buses full of people climbing about 500 meters up the side of a mountain with sheer cliffs over the guard rail.  Crazy!!

Then you get to the top, and you have to walk into a tunnel only to get on a brass elevator and go another 120 meters up, and you walk out into what used to be Hilter’s living room.  Then walk out, and you’re 1800 meters or about 6000 feet up overlooking all of the German and Austrian Alps.  It’s quite breathe taking. 

Admittedly, there’s a bit of solemnness hanging over the place since it was built as a 50^th birthday present for Hilter, but it is now a restaurant that donates all its profit to charity and it’s a bunch of hiking trails and things on the top of the mountain.  It was crazy because we were high enough that the clouds were forming around us.  And we were climbing on rocks to stand on the ledge.

It almost looks like a painting.  And by the way, that’s the city of Salzburg off in the distance on the right side of the picture.

Afterwards we left, and headed towards another one of Sarah’s requests the town of Werfen.  She wanted to see this Ice Cave that she read about, so we figured what the hell.  We pulled into the town.  There had to be maybe 3,000 people that lived there, and we were looking for a room.  We found a house with “Zimmer Frei” (Open Room) on the front, so we went around back to find a lady playing Chinese checkers with what must have been her mom and son.  She was in her 60’s I would guess, and didn’t speak a lick of English.  But somehow we figured out that the room was available, and she didn’t cook breakfast.  And she showed us our room, it had quite a view.  Day and night.

So we wake up and go into town and grab breakfast and on to the Eisriesenwelt (Giant Ice World).  Again, drive half way up a mountain, stop.  Walk about 20 minutes, but this time to a cable car.  And wow, this cable car went straight up about 500 meters and fast.  Then walk another further 20 minutes to get to the entrance of the cave. 

They wouldn’t let you take pictures or video inside.

But you can google it to see what it looks like.  And it was mighty impressive.  They give you each a little oil powered lamp and you walk through this door and the wind whipping through it is enough to blow out everyone’s lamp.  So they relight them and you continue your journey 750 steps up into the cave, and back down.  It’s about 1 degree C in the cave and that’s now, in the middle of Sept.  And there are sheets of ice in the cave that are about 25 meters thick.  It’s really crazy to see. 

Along the way we were hungry.  So we stopped at McDonald’s.  Again with the travel sacrilege, but I tell you what, it tasted mighty good.  And Pulp Fiction was right… I had a Royale With Cheese. 

Then we went to the Krimml Wasserfalle, the tallest waterfall in all of Mainland Europe depending on who you ask and how it’s defined. Again a brief hike away from the car.  To see this magnificent waterfall.  It was rather breath taking.

And from there we continued on to Innsbruck. What a cool town.  We got into town later in the evening and only really got to walk around at night, but it was really a cool place.  We definitely loved it.  We went and had dinner in the town square, by the Golden Roof.  We had traditional Tirolian food.  It was really fantastic, and kind of unfortunate that we only got to spend a short time there.  That seems to be the theme for this trip.  We find places we really love, and wish we could stay longer, or find places that we don't really care for and take off before they get old.  It's not a bad way to be.  They say you never want to over stay your welcome.

Well, early start means early to our destination, unless of course you get stuck behind a truck on switchback through the Alps.  That makes for a very long morning and a very long drive.  None the less our drive spits us out in a tiny town by a beautiful castle Nueschwanstien.  It's an interesting place... Ludwig II was the king of Bavaria in the 1860's and he had this castle built to be like medieval castles.  He ever saw it completed as he died unexpectedly at 40 before it was finished, the German government took over it and opened it as a tourist attraction not even 6 weeks after his death. It was interesting, but basically this castle was built because the guy was delusional and wanted to live 500 years before his time.  I guess this is the castle that the Cinderella castle is modeled off, and this might as well have just been it, with all the tourists and stuff.  I don't know, it was beautiful, but Sarah and I are finding things a lot more interesting if they were actually used for something, other than some delusional guys wish to be a true kind. But none the less we checked the box...

So with that we're off to Munich and Oktoberfest.  Prost!!!

We're both looking forward to Oktoberfest, and to staying in one place for more than one night.  It'll be nice to do some laundry as well.  Here's an update to the map...