Salzburg

Wednesday

We arrived in Salzburg after a one hour train trip from Munich. After dropping our bags at the hostel we head for (surprise!) the Christmas markets. Much like the markets from Ulm or Munich these have Christmas gifts and decorations with food and mulled wine. Here we find dinner of corn on a cob, baked potato and Gluhwein.

Thursday

Waking up in Salzburg. The breakfast for the hostel is quite good - standard fare of cereal, bread, jam, ham, egg, cheese and coffee. There is a frost outside, and in the daylight we can look at the view from the hostel, which is the Fortung Hohensalzburg perched on the cliffs. Today we have booked a tour for the Sound of Music film sites.

For the afternoon we look through the Mozart museum. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born and lived in Salzburg. The museum is interesting, but doesn't get many points for coherency in the presentation.

Salzburg is nestled in between two cliffs, the Monchsburg and Kapuzinberg. At dusk we ascend the Kapuzinberg cliffs to get a good view of the city. We go back to the old town and peek inside the cathedral. For dinner we have a quick, but good curry meal, no frills and cheap. By accident we stumble across two stores, Easter in Salzburg and Christmas in Salzburg. They sell painted eggs and Christmas baubles of all kinds.

Tonight we spend some time planning the next few days. Once again the Sound of Music movie is on at 8pm, and we are sitting in the common room of the hostel planning our trip, but half watching the movie. Now that we have the inside information and have visited the movies sites the movie takes on a different appearance.

Friday

Another glorious day in Salzburg. Today the plan is to ascend the cliff on the other side of Salzburg, the one with the fortress and abbey. 144 stairs and halfway up the Monchsburg cliffs is the abbey that was used in the filming of the Sound of Music. It is also in its own right a very nice chapel. The haze has lifted a bit today and we are offered great views of the mountains around Salzburg.

From the abbey it is a steep walk up to the fortress. The fortress was not set out as a normal castle re-creation, it is mostly a museum. The views from the ramparts were stunning. The fortress is well known for being impenetrable, it has never been taken by force in all of its time.

After the castle we walked along the ridge that castle is on where we found a nice cafe for lunch - beer, hot chocolate, pork schnitzel and views. Down the other side of the ridge is the Augustiner beer hall. This beer hall brews its own beers and serves them in stone mugs. We nip in of course for a quick one before wandering back through the old town for dinner.

Our original plan was to only be in Salzburg for two nights, but we loved the city so much that we decided to stay for a third. Unfortunately the room we had was booked and we had to move to a shared dorm. For travellers like us this made for quite an experience.

Saturday

Our night in a shared dorm in Salzburg. There were a couple of guys that could really snore. It was not much fun having to be quiet when moving around the room.

Today we leave Salzburg, which is a city that we really enjoyed. The scenery is just so beautiful and the town is peaceful and easy to get around. We pick up a car today to drive from Salzburg to Vienna.

Click on the photo to see more of Salzburg

Salzburg

The Sound of Music

The hills were alive... every night at 8pm in the hostel we stayed in. For the three nights and days that we spent in Salzburg I think that both Kelly and I were humming, singing or playing in our head the soundtrack to The Sound of Music. It didn't help that everywhere we looked in town there was a scene from the movie to be spotted. Movie repetitions aside, it was interesting to grit the teeth and watch bits of the movie each night to point out more of the movie scenes that we had found that day.

On our first day in Salzburg we signed up for one of the three 'official' Sound of Music tours that bus you between the sights and scenes from the movie. Of course it had the obligatory stops and a souvenir shop or two. The tour covered

• Mirabell Gardens where the Do-re-mi smash-hit video clip was filmed,
• Frohnburg Castle, the front of the movie house,
• Garden Gazebo for Sixteen Going on Seventeen,
• Leopoldskron Castle, the back of the movie house and the lake the kids fall off the boat into,
• Untersberg, the mountain peak that the family escapes to Switzerland over. Ironically, on the other side of the peak is actually Germany, the Switzerland border is 300km to the south,
• Mondsee which has the church that the movie wedding was filmed in,
• Tree lined street where the kids hang out of the trees,
• The real Von Trapp family house

In addition there are numerous sights around Salzburg that we found on foot. If you keep your eyes open around Salzberg you will likely see every outdoor scene from the movie

• Nonnberg Abbey, which was the abbey for the movie
• Mozart Bridge and the path along the river, again for Do-re-mi
• Scenes in the old town

It was really interesting seeing the places from the movie. Most are still in the same condition as when shot, however a lot are now private residences so tours of the ground or getting too close to the buildings is not possible. Most of the inside scenes were shot in the studios anyway.

Click on the photo to see more of The Sound of Music
(Audio not available... Sorry!)

The Sound of Music

Munich

It had been cold for the last few days. Not so cold for the locals, but coming from sultry London it was cold for us. This morning we woke up to snow! For the morning there were extremely large flakes of snow falling, enough to dust the fields with a white coat. Driving down to Ulm we borrowed some internet to find out where we are going to stay tonight.

Then we basically just drove to Munich on the autobahn. Steven and Richelle came to Munich with us on their way to catching a train to Nurenburg. We had a little 1.2L car with four of us and luggage stuffed in, but it still managed to sit on 150-160km/h for the main stretch of the road. You know when you drive the M1 from Brisbane to the Gold Coast and you hit the 110km/h section of road and it is just sweet relief from the slowness of 100km/h? Well, reverse that feeling and multiply it by 10 when you hit a 120km/h section after 160km/h. It is just painfully slow!

Coming into Munich, Steve's eyes lit up and nostrils flared as he smelt the Augustiner brewery in town. Before too long we were there in our first Munich beer hall, which is attached to one of the oldest brewerys in Munich. Everyone had a round of 1L beers which went down just a bit too easily for some.

A quick train ride to town brought us to the Marienplatz, the main square of Munich. The square was filled with more Christmas markets. What would have been good is to go up the town hall tower. However it seems that closing time was 30 minutes earlier than stated so we missed out. Tonight we spent our time wandering around the markets and town centre, having some Gluhwein and Bratwurst.

Wednesday

This morning we had a look around Munich before leaving Germany. Our bags are stored at the train station and we head back to the main town square, Marienplatz. First thing is to watch the end of the disappointing glockenspiel performance of the town clock before we get the lift to the town hall tower for the outlook that we couldn't get last night. The view of Munich is good, but we can't see to the Bavarian alps due to the haze.

Today we pass the Hofbrauhaus (a famous beer house) and decide to stop in for a sneaky drop. The Hofbrauhaus is a tourist mecca, much different from the Augustiner beer house yesterday. We can definitely understand how this, and every other drinking establishment, could be jam packed to the rafters with beer swizzlers during Oktoberfest.

We continued wandering around the Munich sights before boarding a train to Salzburg mid afternoon.

Click the photo to see more of Munich.

Munich

Ulm

A bit of a slow start today. With moving, finishing jobs and a week of parties and catchups we need to ease into this holiday. Carolin and Steven provide us with a great German breakfast with meats, little baby Jesus cheeses, eggs, spreads and breads. Once we did get going we all jumped in the car to drive around the eastern area of Baden-Wastermann, where there are a number of castles and castle ruins.

First though we stopped at Blaubeuren where there is Der Blautopf. This is a spring that is fed from under the pre-Alpine ranges, many kilometres away. At its lowest flow it is 310L/sec, but at snow break this can get up to 32000L/sec. The spring is 20m deep and the water is an amazing pure blue with great visibility to the bottom. We have a look and take a few photos. Just near the spring is an abbey that is just picture perfect.

Leaving Blabeuren we drive around the area and to the castle ruins. The first stop is a restored castle on the edge of a valley. Unfortunately it is shut for the winter, but we are able to amuse ourselves on a flying fox and with some apple trees. The apples taste great, made even better by the fact that we have to throw other apples at them to get them down. Ah, its the little things that amuse.

Next stop in the valley is a castle ruin. The ruin is in a spectacular position on a rocky outcrop into the valley. Continuing on we find a guest house that is open, as opposed to the countless that we had passed that were shut. Here we find a well earned coffee and beer.

We head home to dinner with Steven, Carolin and Richelle.

Click on the photo to see more of Ulm.

Ulm

Dachau Concentration Camp

Today we start our Christmas trip. Everything is packed and stored at Dave and Karen's and we leave with our backpacks on. The flight from Heathrow to Munich is a bumpy one, so much so that we can't even get a hot drink.

We get a car in Munich and head straight to Dachau. Dachau is an industrial town outside of Munich. It has one of largest and first concentration camps used by the SS from 1936-1945. Many of the original buildings and non-camp areas no longer remain, but it has been built back up as a remembrance site. The guard towers still dot the perimeter and the original gatehouse is constructed to give visitors the feeling of being led into the camp - through gates that read 'Arbeit macht frei' - Work brings freedom.

What strikes you about the camp is that it is such a large area. There are prisoner barracks lined towards the back of the camp, each barrack being 10x100m. Each barrack had sleeping quarters and a living area. The sleeping quarters had bunks three high and the beds were no wider than 2-3 feet.

The barracks are separated from the main building by a roll call area, which is a wide expanse where prisoners would stand for hours on end at the whim of an SS officer. The main building now has a museum. Towards the back of the camp are memorials from some of the main religious groups involved in the camp - Jewish, Catholic, Protestant.

Outside the main camp area is the crematorium. It is here that the bodies of dead prisioners were incinerated. In the 'new' crematorium are the gas chambers. Although there is no record of these particular ones ever be used, they were obviously designed for mass murder of prisoners, who would then be incinerated.

The memorial site is a sobering area, one of the many throughout the German occupation. In memory to the attrocities performed in camps like these there is a simple message on the memorials - Never again.

Click on the photo to see more of Dachau

Dachau

We left Dachau and drove west through Bavaria to Ulm. These winter days aren't going to offer us much light for sight seeing. We arrive in Ulm at Steven and Carolin's. Ulm has Christmas markets on in the main square and we sample some Gluhwein to warm ourselves up. It is much liked mulled wine. Ulm is quite cold and we head to a restaurant in the fish area for some dinner and beers.

Respecting the Fallen

This year we have walked many miles around London, the UK and Europe. Today, as we prepare to pack everything, respect must be paid to the fallen heros who won't be returning to Australia.

These brave soles from the Colorado battalion have served us tirelessly.

Well travelled shoe companions, we salute you!

St Paul's

A pretty standard Saturday in London. First of all an early gym class, followed by the post office and then off to St Paul's.

St Paul's is one of those things in London that both Kelly and I have walked or driven past nearly twice a day or more all year. And yet we have never stopped to find the time to walk into it for a good look, let alone climb to the dome. Today was different, as we have made the effort to visit the church properly.

The cathedral is amazing. It has rich paintings, lavish trims and a huge dome in the middle. One can imagine why Dianna preferred this church for a wedding over the somewhat more somber Westminster Abbey. The dome paintings are incredible; however the view from the dome is similar to that of Monument. We could see the church near our flat and Arsenal stadium. That made us realise just how close we are to the city centre. That is the distance I have been walking to work for the past 10 months.

Once again the church has a rich history with all of the usual names - Wren, Henry VIII. But this isn't the only St Paul's cathedral - this is at least the fifth to be built on the site. The cathedral also featured in WWII when it was relentlessly bombed with grenades - it was only due to the group of people who camped on the roof and disposed of the bombs that it survived.

Click on the photo to see more of St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's