Saturday, August 27, 2011

The Hills are Alive!!!

Our last day with Christl, Marita and Volker started with a lovely train ride to Salzburg, Austria.

I will get to the "Sound of Music" later, I loaded my photos in the wrong order since I thought those sights were the most exciting parts to see, but there were tons of things to see in Salzburg before we got to those sights!
(Tania's Aunt Christl, and cousin Volker)
We stayed in an unassuming hotel, which actually was pretty nice inside, and a great breakfast the next morning.
This is Getreidegasse, a famous street for shopping. One person told us it wasn't very crowded this day, but we would disagree! The Salzberger Festspiele is going on right now, and that means every theater in town has huge productions at all hours of the day. We even went to part of a free opera that the kids actually really enjoyed. The performers were american college students and we were all impressed with their talent. We couldn't understand the Italian lyrics, and it was a warm afternoon which made us start nodding off!
The gelato was a definite must, as it got a bit warm!

This is the fanciest golden arches we have ever seen. Even the ornate sign couldn't draw us in!
This is a great view of part of the city and in the background, those famous "Hills". All along the river, there was an outdoor market of craft and goods stalls. All three kids were so excited to look at all the various tents. There was a lot of beautiful hand made jewelry, and artwork. Taylor was so excited to find a wooden cross bow, but he was too tired to have a photo taken!Tania and I were pooped from the shopping, if you can believe it!
We didn't go up to this fortress, but it was an imposing structure overlooking the city.
It was definitely time for some food. We discovered a new favorite drink in Bavaria "Spezi" which Josephine has here. It is a mixture of cola and lemonade. It is quite good, and we will have to tamper with the mixture at home to figure out how to make it.
There is a mountain the cuts right through the city. Here, we are walking through the tunnel from one side to the other.

There is a strip of buildings built right into the rock. I am not sure if it just butts up against the rock or if it goes further back, but you would not have to have windows in the back of your house!



Isabelle: "Josephine and I watched The Sound of Music" on the train before we went to Austria. When we walked around, we saw a lot of the things that were on the movie, like the fountain with the horses, and the statues of the men facing each other with their arms up, and the stairs and bushes at the park. My mom made us sing "do re mi" when we ran around the fountains. Tania wanted us all to sing "Eldeweiss" as we were getting off the train. We watched the movie again after we left Austria."

In these photos, just picture the children skipping around in clothes made from flowered curtains!
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do!!!
The thing that Salzburg is most famous for is it is the birthplace of Mozart. There are pictures of him everywhere. On candy, jewelry, clothing, any souvenir you could want.There were many people in typical bavarian clothing. I really loved seeing the different styles.
Isabelle: " The park was really fun, there were a lot of things at the park that I like to do. One thing I've seen in Europe a lot was this weird swing that is shaped like a circular net. You can go really high on it and it's scary because you can't hold on to anything."

"There are also a few spinny things, and a really big slide that is hard to climb up, but you go really fast down. The kids made the adults go on the slide, and I thought it was funny."



The kids wanted to keep playing, but all of the adults were worn out!

After all this togetherness time, they are still friends! Danny and I have loved spending so much time with them. They are really great kids, and are growing up so quickly. I feel so blessed to have this experience.




1 comment:

Louie said...

It's a shame that Danny didn't dress up in Lederhosen! It would have made an awesome picture, but I guess they don't make them long enough for his legs!

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