Brb, Climbing Every Mountain

Stay tuned to hear about my fabulous weekend in Austria... But first, a quick summary of my past week before traveling! 

My photography went to Cascine Park during our studio last Tuesday to practice shooting landscape pictures. Such a great way to learn and have fun while in class! Unfortunately, when I returned to the lab and put my SD card in the computer it deleted all my files and corrupted the drive. Thankfully I had just saved all my pictures from before that day, so I only lost my shots from the class trip. But I still had to go back to the park on my own to re-take pictures for the assignment. Just another reminder that technology can most definitely fail. At least this gave me some extra practice using all the manual settings and more experience with the bus system in Florence!

Jackie and I have now officially booked a trip to Bologna and Modena for this next weekend! While definitely more stressful than doing a trip through a travel company, I'm looking forward to being more on my own time schedule and being able to walk around and explore. We will be touring a balsalmic vinegar factory in Modena, which Jackie is the most excited about. :)

And nowwww Austria! Thursday night around 8:30 I finished eating dinner with the Ricci's and met everyone else in the group (bus2alps) at the Santa Maria Novella train station. We departed around 9 for Vienna- and 10 hours later (accounting for one 30 minutes stop for snacks and several other stops for who knows what reason) we arrived at the hostel. We got there around 7 am- just in time for a quick shower and breakfast. 

Vienna is such a beautiful city! We did group walking tour around the city center that lasted about 2 hours and then we had some free time to grab lunch and explore on our own. Most everyone had wieners- basically fancy and better hot dogs. Then we got torte from the cafe across the street- Vienna is famous for it! I had hazelnut creme, even though most others got the chocolate. The next stop was Starbucks (there aren't any in Italy!) where some people ordered drinks and we ate our tortes. Yum. :)

We were able to purchase 24 hour metro passes for around 7 euros which was great as it let us go basically anywhere in the large city without a problem. Also, I thought the metro system was easier to understand than most of the ones in the US- even in a foreign language. 

At 3 pm, there was an optional tour of a Schnapps museum which I attended-- mostly to make my grandfather jealous. :P The company originally started many years ago by producing non-alcoholic raspberry juice until the founder traveled to the world's fair and bought a schnapps making machine. Later he was employed by the empress to supply drinks for her party, and he recieved several medals when he was able to get everyone drunk! It was interesting to learn about how the schanpps is made (many things can go wrong!) and we even got to try some at the end of the tour! Most of them were way too strong for me, but I did like the hazelnut creme liquor- I think it would taste amazing in coffee! 

Before getting dinner, we climbed the 343 steps of the tower of Stephansplatz, or Saint Stephen's Cathedral. This church is very old and has been burned and rebuilt numerous times. At one point during the reconstruction, all the men refused to do the roofing work because of the intense slope of the roof (it's almost vertical!) so instead 6 women rose to the challenge and completed the roof. The view from the top was amazing and we timed it perfectly as we arrived just in time to see the sunset! The climb- or the descent, for that matter-was definitely not easy however. The tower is not very wide and after about 3 minutes of walking up or down the spiral staircase everyone started to become very dizzy. I was very happy to be back on the ground and outside of the church!

Dinner was at Figlmüller, a restaurant known for their authentic Schnitzel! I tried Radler beer- mostly lemonade with 2.1% alcohol. Liz and I split a plate of Wiener Schnitzel (veal) along with parsley potatoes, and then, of course, we had apple strudel for dessert!

Even though I was very tired, I decided to stay out to explore more of Vienna. What an...interesting night. Essentially, we snuck into the opera. That night the Swan Lake ballet was being performed. The opera house in Vienna is world famous and while tickets are not cheap, they also offer a standing room that patrons can access for much less money. 
However, by the time we finished dinner the ballet was already half finished, all seats were sold, and the standing room was full. So we wandered around for a while, waiting to see if anything would free up by the second intermission. Margaret and Kristin ended up buying tickets off a lady who we overheard arguing with the opera employees about her seat. After being overly dramatic, she deciding to leave the theater because they refused to refund her money. Liz and I found the control room used to film the show to be broadcasted live online. We stood at the door quietly watching for a while until the man in the room saw us. We thought he was going to tell us to leave, but instead he said "you can come closer!" So we watched there until the second intermission, where we met up again with Margaret and Kristin and attempted to switch off with them and use the tickets. Long story short- that didn't work, but we later watched more of the show from the screening room. 

After the ballet finished, we had some tea at a cafe and then we were able to see the interior of St. Stephens Cathedral which was covered with purple neon lights! Although I'm not quite sure the rationale for this, it was certainly gorgeous! To end the night, we walked to see the Danube river before boarding the metro to take us back to the hostel for the night. 

The next morning after packing our bags, putting them in a storage room, and eating breakfast, we took the metro to Schönbrunn Palace and bought tickets for a self-guided audio tour of the interior. Marie Antoinette was the daughter of the emperor and empress that used to live here. Also the interior was all designed in a Rococo style, so it was very cool to see that. I felt like I was walking around in my interior design history textbook. *Please excuse the quality of the picture- technically cameras are not allowed.* 

That afternoon we stopped for kebabs (or kebaps, if you spell it in German) on the way back to the hostel/bus. I was expecting a stick with meat and vegetables, as I think most others were as well. However, my lunch was more like a sandwich- and very good. I believe the name kebab refers to the giant "stick" of meat that small slices are carved off of and put in sandwiches or wraps. Search "doner kebab stand" on google images to get a better idea of what I'm talking about. 

On the 3 hour bus ride to Salzburg, we watched the sound of music to get in the spirit!

Once we arrived in Salzburg (approximately 3 pm), we checked into the hostel and walked to Mirabell Gardens, which I'm sure would be much lovelier in spring but were still beautiful. This is one of the locations the Sound of Music was filmed at; the horse statue in the gardens is seen during the "Do Re Mi" song. Afterwards, we ventured over a bridge that crosses the Salzach river. I got another bowl of apple strudel (arguably better than the first one) at an adorable little cafe called Schatzi. 


That evening we visited the Augustiner Brewery, which was originally founded by monks! They sold beer by the half liter or the liter (3 euros for half, 6 for whole liter). You just grabbed whichever size mug you wanted and paid for it, then handed the receipt to another man who filled it up for you from giant barrels. It was difficult to find a table, but once we finally did about half of us went to go buy dinner. I split 3 different plates of food with 4 other girls- which ended up being great because I got to try a lot of different things and only paid 4.50 total for dinner! Later that night, we also went to an alehouse where I got to try cider. I wasn't really a fan of the beer at the brewery, but I did like the cider! 

Sunday morning we had breakfast at the hostel (unfortunately this one didn't have a cappuccino machine like the hostel in Vienna), and then it was time for the sound of music tour! This was one of my favorite things of the entire trip (ha, see what I did there?). 

The movie was actually filmed in quite a number of different places. All the scenes that happen inside the house (Maria's room, stairwell, ballroom, etc.) were created inside a Hollywood studio. We got to visit the house that the scenes that show the back of the house, the patio, and the lake were filmed at, however; the house that provided the front facade view we were only able to drive past - and too quickly for a picture. Many other scenes were filmed far in the country outside of Salzburg- one in particular was in Mondsee where St. Michael's Church is and the wedding scene took place. Unfortunately, the opening scene was filmed all the way in Germany, so I didn't get to run across the field or see those particular hills alive. Our guide also let us in on some other "secrets" of the film. For example, the actress who played Mother Abbey had her voice dubbed on the soundtrack. 

Later, we stopped at a grocery store to get snacks/lunch quickly before starting the ride home to Florence. 

My weekend was amazing... and so were the 11+ hours of sleep I got last night/this morning. :)