Our Easter travels started off in a somewhat interesting manner. Firstly our driver to Stansted airport was seemingly drunk and had little competence in driving which was combined with the possibility that Al was going to be car sick was quite eventful. However after Caz told the driver off for being too ‘crazy’ and then having to explain to him this was a bad thing we arrived at the airport. Due to our ridiculously early flight the next morning, we were going to sleep over at the airport (as in the cold, hard ground - not a nice airport hotel). However at the strike of 12 it was Easter so we celebrated and stuffed ourselves silly with chocolate hoping it would take away some of the dreadfulness of not being able to sleep that night.
Anyway with the excitement of being in a new country the next morning all of our tiredness was forgotten. We arrived in Salzburg which is a beautiful old town with a huge castle on the top of a mountain in the middle of the city. We started wondering around the old town and as it was Easter Sunday we were delighted to see many Austrians
coming out of church in their traditional outfits (this included some strange pantaloon/shorts that the men were wearing and lovely witch like hats). We also found these great markets and soon enough tried as much of the Austrian food as we could. As Salzburg is also the home of the Sound of Music, our hostel kindly provided viewing of the film on a huge screen. So after watching the movie and recapturing the scenes we had just seen that day we fell asleep with songs of Maria floating through our heads.
The next morning to our absolute delight, snow was absolutely everywhere. This was a stark difference from the day before and the whole town looked completely different. We wondered around, went into the cathedral where Maria was married however we were quite affected by the cold weather and had to stay inside for a lot of the day. This meant we got to met the epitome of American arrogance through a guy at our hostel who started rambling on about how Vienna ‘shits’ on this place (being Salzburg) and making other such obscene remarks.
The next day we managed to get ourselves outside long enough to get
up to the castle (admittedly, taking the elevator as the outside climb up the mountain could have been very dangerous!). At the top of the mountain we found ourselves in another little town inside the castle with the most amazing view over all of Salzburg. Unfortunately whilst we appreciated the rooms and other ornaments inside the castle all the explanations were in Austrian so we couldn’t grasp the full importance of the history of the castle.
After a sad farewell to Al who had to return to Leeds, we went to pick up our car (later named Ausfart) we planned to hire. We were delighted to find we had a beautiful VW Golf and thanks to our amazing GPS (and Ruth who persuaded us to get one) we made our way easily to Innsbruck. The drive to Innsbruck was amazing, we had huge mountains either side of us the whole drive and once we arrived we found the city to be completely encircled by beautiful snow capped mountains. The next day we got up bright and early to experience our first day skiing in Austria. We went to a resort called Nordepark, which was supposed to be especially good
for snowboarders. So all excited we bought our ski passes at the bottom of the gondola where they assured that we could hire all our gear at the top of the mountain. However as luck would have it we arrived at the top of the mountain to find they had run out of gear and then arrived back of the bottom of the mountain to find out they wouldn’t give us a refund. However we managed to sell one of our tickets to a lovely Austrian behind us and then went straight down into the town to ensure we had gear before heading up the next day. So the next day we were pretty excited and we knew nothing this time could go wrong. We decided to go to a different, larger park called Axamer Lizum (where part of the Austian Winter Olympics were held) and after parking literally 10 meters from the bottom of the skiing slope we knew we had made the right choice. As it was the end of the ski season and it had just been snowing we were greeted with amazing slopes covered in snow with barely anyone around. Not only were the slopes long,
we were able to be snug and cosy on the chairlifts which were fitted with a cover that you could pull down over you. We attempted every run we possibly could, even a black, mogully run which we probably shouldn’t have attempted in the first half hour of arriving! We also attempted a jump which looked much easier than it actually was. Caz and I just made it over but poor Ruth’s slow speed and skis meant that her landing was quite forced and unfortunately she had chest pains when she laughed for the next three days. Sadly closing time came around too quickly but we were exhausted and sore but it was a good exhausted and our sleeping that night was very sound!
The next day we woke early and drove to Vienna and due to the amazing scenery, fast speeds (which were legal) and a bit of driving switcheroo the 5 hour drive went surprisingly quickly. We arrived in Vienna at a hostel called Wombats which for the record has been the best hostel we have stayed in. It had a great atmosphere, a great bar and fun people around. So after an amazing huge Indian meal
which probably could have fed 6, we fell asleep full and content.
The next day we sadly returned our car and made our way on foot around Vienna. I found the city so beautiful, there were so many amazing buildings and the sun was out which made everything a bit more spectacular. To our delight we found this courtyard surrounded by typical Austrian stalls and we felt like authentic Austrians as we ate our bread and cheeses basking in the sunlight. Our first art gallery stop was Kunstforum which was small but had some key artworks by Money, Kadinksy and Rothko. We then wondered into the main city area with the big cathedral and were surprised to find the whole area filled with people protesting about some EU proposal. We kept on walking and found the most amazing food markets, it was hard to choose what to buy but we couldn’t go past these apples which were the biggest I have ever seen, almost impossible to pick up with one hand! I then separated with Ruth and Caz as I wanted to see some of Klimt’s artworks. However on the way there I somehow managed to walk into a
large private garden and so after walking around for a good 20 minutes I realised there was no way out but the way I came in. However to my despair, the door was locked and I couldn’t get out. There seemed to be no one else in this park and the walls were way too high to scale so for a moment I thought I would be spending the night in the park however luckily I saw someone running in the distance and ran over to ask him to let me out... Phewwww. The Klimt paintings were worth the kafuffle and I think I may have stood in front of ‘The Kiss’ for about 20 minutes. That night was also a fun night, we met some Austrian boys in the hostel bar who took us out to an Austrian club were we received free cocktails and entry due to our Austrian connections. Caz also managed to get her hair alight on a candle and proceeded to make everyone smell it for the rest of the night. After this club closed we found a 24 hour bar open which satisfied our food cravings and as this place had no windows we
were completely astounded to find that when we eventually left, the sun was shining and the time was 7.30am! So this meant our next day was filled with mainly sleeping but I don’t think I would have had it any other way.
The next day due to accidentally turning off my alarm, we woke up late leaving much less time than anticipated to get to our train for Prague. However we still managed to fit in our buffet breakfast - we just had to run the rest of the way which was so stressful and bloody exhausting (especially seeing that we had all of our luggage). Anyway to our surprise we made it on the train and were delighted to find it was exactly like the Hogwarts Express Train; it even strangely stopped mid trip and the door to our compartment mysteriously opened - dementors I am telling you!
Anyway Prague is a whole new blog, but I absolutely loved Austria. I though the scenery and things to do were amazing and the people were also so lovely! I can’t wait to come back, especially to hit the slopes again!
Austria's Flag
Map of Austria