Austria, Slovakia and Hungary

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We left Munich early and arrived in Salzburg in the morning. We parked near Schloss Mirabell and made our own tour of the filming locations from the Sound of Music. Everywhere you go, you are reminded that this is Salzburg’s favourite movie. Film locations include the winged Pegasus statue, the grumpy gnomes, the Mozart bridge, the Felsenreitschule Riding School and Salzburg Marionette Theater. Of course, we visited them all over the course of the day. Riley really liked the playground at Mirabell Park that had a pyramid that reached over 40 feet with a big slide at the top. We crossed over the Salzach River into the old town and had lunch in a cozy outdoor courtyard. I moved the car to a parking lot located inside a mountain and went off to visit the Horse Fountain (like a car wash for horses), St. Peter’s Abbey, Salzburg Cathedral, the massive Hohensalzburg Fortress, the Concert Hall, Residenzplatz (that was under construction), Mozart’s house, then crossed over the river again to see the Kapuzinerkloster Monastery. I had just enough time to take an elevator up to the Winkler Terrace to see more views of the city before meeting up with Ann and Riley for dinner. We tried to get a seat at the fancy rooftop terrace restaurant at Hotel Stein but were turned away. However, we got the last seat in the sunshine at the neighbouring Platzl where Riley watched kids playing in the fountain, and Ann and I had drinks and a snack. Ann had the night to herself while Riley and Dada trooped through the streets singing ‘boys night out’ and making super hero poses.

Since we saw so much of Salzburg yesterday, we got another early start today and headed to Vienna. We had several stops along the way including Mondsee Cathedral, Linz (where we had a good walk around), Melk Abbey, Durnstein Castle ruins, and the drive along the banks of the Danube to Krems an der Donau. We arrived later in the day to Vienna and had to make some calls to get a code for the key box. This was a $200 apartment near the Karmelitermarkt and Ann’s favourite of the trip. Fortunately we were close to the city center so started walking along Karnter Street. We almost made it to Ann’s famous coffee shop, Sacher Eck, but stopped for a quick bite. Ann and Riley met a new friend, Rolf, and Riley lost his superhero figures. After the coffee shop (for the Original Sacher torte to-go), we all visited the Albertina, Burggarten Park, Maria-Theresien-Platz, Heldenplatz, Hofburg Palace, and St. Peter’s Church. A wrong turn led us towards Burgtheatre, Rathaus and Votivkirche Church which meant we had to get a taxi back to our apartment. We had another busy day planned tomorrow so didn’t get another chance to look around in the morning. We made our way directly to Bratislava, Slovakia, where we crossed the “UFO bridge” into town, climbed the hill to Bratislava Castle, found some playgrounds, got a picnic lunch with pizza that we ate on the back streets, found a local market, and visited Grassalkovich Palace before we continued on our way. We headed straight to Budapest, Hungry, to get the most of our afternoon and morning in this fabulous city.



We found our hotel tucked away on a side street on the Pest side. We were conveniently next to a metro station so took the underground to Széll Kálmán tér station on the west side of Buda Castle. We spent the afternoon wandering the town inside the castle, visiting the magnificent turreted lookout towers of Fisherman’s Bastion, then exploring the Labyrinth. Near the palace, we found them shooting a movie scene. I can understand why they chose there with the wonderful views from the castle. We hiked down to the Széchenyi Lánchíd Bridge just as the sun was setting behind Buda Castle. We could see the Citadella on another hill but it was too far to walk. We crossed back into Pest and walked around looking for dinner. We ended up getting a snack dinner and eating at Deak Ferenc ter square. There was a busker singing English songs that Riley and I listened to while eating dinner. Ann took us to Erzsébet Square Park to see the Budapest Eye, then we crossed through a myriad of inner city streets hosting restaurants bars and night clubs on the way back to our hotel. The next morning we headed to Varosliget Park to see the Budapest Zoo, the Millennium monument and the famous Széchenyi Thermal Bath. Unfortunately the weather was not great and the baths’ outdoor pleasure pools were under maintenance so we didn’t go swimming and got on the road for a long drive to our next stop in Zagreb, Croatia. We chose to take the smaller road on the north side of Balaton Lake so we could visit Tihany Monastery and have lunch with a view. We also stopped at Helikon Castle in Keszthely for a quick look around. We received a surprise when we found our first border crossing from Hungry to Croatia. We had to show our passports and wait ten minutes while two sets of customs officers (Hungry and Croatia) stamped them. All was good and we made it to our hotel in Zagreb.

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