The Hills Are Alive!

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Greetings loyal readers! We have arrived back in the West, in Austria to be exact. We travelled three hours from Budapest to Vienna where we spent 3 very enjoyable days. We arrived at our hostel, the famous Wombats Lounge, after walking only one block from the train station (best case scenario for backpackers!). We set out immediately to explore the city, walking along the main shopping street (similar to Robson) to the Old Town. As we walked along, we noticed a poster for Quantum of Solace, the new Bond movie! Moments later we noticed that it was playing at the ENGLISH movie theater! It was fate! We purchased tickets for a few hours later and continued on. We visited St. Stephens cathedral which is in the heart of Vienna's old town. It is a beautiful old gothic church with enormous stained glass windows and intricate ceilings. The next square over we peeked in the much less impressive looking St. Peters church and were rewarded with an incredibly beautiful interior. By this time it was dark and we admired the lit up Parliament building and Hofberg palace. That evening we watched James Bond a week before it came out in North America and enjoyed it immensely.

Day 2 we dedicated to sightseeing in Vienna, and we started with the Hofburg, the palace of the Hapsburgs (royalty), notably the queen Elizabeth (Sisi) who TJ hated because of her selfish vanity and the King Franz Josef who seemed like a pretty responsible ruler. We visited their staterooms and got a sense of the immense wealth of the ruling family. We met up with a friend for lunch, and the 3 of us took the metro to the Hapsburgs' summer palace. The palace is enormous and yellow, and quite expensive to go into, so instead we walked around the beautiful gardens. The gardens have gazebos, statues, a maze, a zoo and many fountains, making it reminiscent of Versailles in France.

On our last day, we took the train an hour east to Bratislava, mostly because of the part the city played in Eurotrip .The movie emphasized the depressing Communist architecture, which we certainly encountered, but it failed to mention that Bratislava has a beautiful old town. We enjoyed the sunny day and climbed up to the castle on the hill, which was mostly off limits due to construction but allowed us a nice view of the surrounding countryside. An amusing feature of the old town is that there are hilarious statues scattered around it. There is one called "The Watcher" which is a man coming out of a sewer grate, and another of a jolly looking man tipping his hat. Of course we took silly pictures with each one. We ate lunch at a nice restaurant that had stuffed jaguars lounging on couches near the washrooms... not sure what was up with that but we took a picture to show you all later.

With our time in Vienna at an end, we travelled 3 hours east to Salzburg, a much smaller Austrian city set in the Alps. The movie The Sound of Music was set here, and many of the scenes were filmed at locations that tourists can visit. In fact, there are full sound of music tours that take people to many film locations. We skipped the tour due to the cost and the bad weather. Instead we walked into the old town and enjoyed the cute shops, already decked in full Christmas decorations.

The next day, we braved the cold rain (very Vancouver-esque) and hiked up to the fortress that overlooks the city. Salzburg was ruled for a long time by archbishops, who built and lived in the fortress for their own safety. Salzburg means "mountains of salt", so obviously salt was the valuable resource that drove the town's economy. Inside the fortress we visited the archbishops quarters, the belltower, the guardrooms, and got a chance to see old coins that were discovered during a renovation. At this point we were soaked so we returned to the hostel to warm up. Next we walked to a beer hall recommended by Lonely Planet where they serve in huge litre steins the local brew, made on the premesis. While TJ enjoyed a frothy glass and Teija soaked up the ambience (it was packed with enthusiastic locals) we were joined by the brewmaster himself, who bought us drinks and sat with us for the next few hours. Another brewer also joined us, and the four of us chatted for a long while. The friendly brewer, Oliver, then invited TJ on a private tour of the brewery!

The next day we headed off to Munich!! More updates to come soon!

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