Switzerland & Austria

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FRIDAY 8 APRIL – ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

Our last morning we went for breakfast at another friend Nadja's house who also lives in Ingelheim with her husband Michael and 2 daughters Lily and Ava. Last time we were in Ingelheim, we stayed with Nadja but in another house in town. Corky and I were on our honeymoon at the time. After breakfast we said our sad goodbyes, loaded up our van and headed south for Zurich, Switzerland. The drive took us through Heidelberg where we stopped for lunch and to explore the famous Heidelberg Castle. After we were sated with food and history, we headed down the autobahn with Corky reaching 150kph in the slow lane! I don't think the van or my nerves could cope with going any faster, especially since the view started to blur. Soon we were driving alongside the French border and we reached Basal and into Switzerland. Zurich was only 20 mins from there.



Stand aside Madi .... Justin Beiber has a new fan - a 41 year old mum of four!! Madi and I went to his concert at the stadium here in Zurich with several thousand other screaming fans. I was converted! He really knew how to entertain his audience and apart from continual squealing and one fan who fainted, it was an incredible concert I have to admit. I drew the line however at getting a t-shirt (probably because they didn't have my size and Madi was giving me dirty looks!!)







SATURDAY 9 APRIL – ZURICH, SWITZERLAND



Today we caught the train one stop into the centre of Zurich and had breakfast. Corky was converted, it is now a city high on his favourites list. The history, the scenery, the shops were all stunning. We wandered through beautiful alleyways with cobblestones and Swiss flags hanging everywhere. They are very patriotic and clearly very proud of their beautiful, clean city. We found the lake and and a fabulous beer garden with views down the lake and to the snow capped Alps in the far distance. From here we watched the trams, cyclists and fast cars and boats go by while we enjoyed a beer in the sunshine. Every fast looking car was a ferrari to Harry (pronounced 'rari'😉, though Corky was excited to view his favourite car the Aston Martin about every 10 minutes. I was just excited to have a shop in Zara, one of my favourite European stores. We wandered around and had ice cream by the lake and then due to Harry's wishes, we caught a tram back to the train station and then back to the hotel for a swim then ready to go out for dinner.



SUNDAY 10 APRIL - INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA

We headed out of Zurich early morning; destination Innsbruck, Austria. It was exciting to be on the road exploring again and after about 1.5 hours we were in the Principality of Leichtenstein. We stopped here for lunch and there wasn’t much else to see, except glance up at the castle, so we headed off again. We realised by this stage that we had been in 3 countries in a morning – Switzerland, Leichtenstein and Austria. The scenery was incredible and we followed a river for quite a while which we could tell was water coming down from the snow capped mountains. We just had to try some of the freezing alp river, so we found somewhere to stop and we all felt the refreshing water. It was so clear and clean that we filled up our water bottle for the rest of the trip. One thing about Austria, there are hundreds of tunnels under the mountains. The longest we went through was 14kms long – the Arlberg Tunnel, with a toll at the other end of 8.50 Euro. Finally we arrived in Innsbruck about 2 hours after Leichtenstein and we found our hotel, dropped our bags and car off and went exploring this beautiful and historic city. What makes it so stunning is that it is in a valley surrounded by majestic snow capped mountain ranges. The Winter Olympics were held here twice. We wandered down through the city looking at all the pastel and ornately painted buildings and trams everywhere and in a large open plaza, we found an Italian restaurant to have dinner. The whole bill totalled around $50 which was very cheap for what we had. This city is very reasonable in prices compared to some others we have been to so far. After dinner we went for a walk along the river admiring the sun setting over the mountain ranges and then got an ice cream and headed back to our hotel.



MONDAY 11 APRIL – INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA

After breakfast in the hotel, we headed out for a look around in the car. We visited the Bergisal which is the Olympic ski jump and we had a hot chocolate in the restaurant overlooking Innsbruck. Again we headed off in search for greater heights and ended up on the other side of Innsbruck and up in the cable car to Hafelekar which is at 2256m on a snow-capped mountain. The kids were so excited to be in the snow. The views were absolutely incredible with a glider plane flying around in front of us as we looked down on the city of Innsbruck. We played in the snow for a while, feeling quite afraid of the heights and shear drops off each side and finally we headed down one stop to Seegrube at 1905m where we had lunch on the terrace still overlooking the incredible views. The kids had a snow ball fight with Corky and I think all of us ended up with snow down our clothes at some stage. At 5pm we headed back down to the city and put our feet up for a while and then out for dinner. The old city of Innsbruck where we ate dinner was so beautiful with its old, old buildings and cobblestones and back drop of the snowy mountains and I would even go so far to say it is romantic but unfortunately I couldn’t really say that because our eyes were constantly glued to 4 roaming children rather than each other. Once again, gelatos were enjoyed after dinner as we wandered back to our hotel.





TUESDAY 12 APRIL – SALZBURG, AUSTRIA

After a late breakfast in Innsbruck, we packed up the car again and headed to Salzburg, Austria. The trip was only about 2 hours but took us a little longer because the beautiful sunny weather we had experienced up till now in Europe of sunny days and averaging 25 degrees had changed to rain and fog. The average temperature as we drove was about 13 degrees however it was still a beautiful and enjoyable trip and I still love having my face glued to the window and enjoying the views, trying not to miss anything and also trying to take mental pictures of everything I see. I think the kids are probably sick of hearing me say ‘ohhh, look at that’, ‘look at that castle’, ‘did you see that?”. It is incredible to take in the fabulous views and sceneries we were experiencing, you only imagine most of these in movies but incredibly these landscapes and villages are people’s everyday lives. As much as I love Australia, I really feel it has become a bit bland with the views and images we are experiencing. It really is picture perfect, the quaint little wooden houses with a snow capped mountain as its backdrop was too perfect to be true. We crossed from Austria, into Germany and then back across the border into Austria as we arrived into Salzburg.

The Von Corcoran Family had arrived in Salzburg, the land of Mozart and the Sound of Music!

Incredibly it was only 5 degrees as we checked into our hotel just after lunchtime but it didn’t stop us from wandering down through the town and seeing where Mozart was born. We started to wander back along the river to our hotel however we started to break into a fast paced walk/jog because the temperature was dropping quicker than the sun. It had started to rain by the time we got back to our hotel. The kids needed some play time and Corky and I needed some downtime. Austrian McDonald’s for dinner sorted that out!





WEDNESDAY 13 APRIL – SALZBURG, AUSTRIA

The Hills are alive with the sound of music … The Von Corcoran family woke this morning to another overcast and cold day. As we were having breakfast, it started to snow. There were squeals and excitement in the restaurant and then I realised it was coming from us. The temperature is meant to get down to -1 degree over the next day or so, no doubt with some more snow flakes and more squealing. We went back to the warmth of our room and watched the Sound of Music movie (the movie is on 24 hour rotation which thrills Corky no end!) until it was time for the tour bus to pick us up for our Sound of Music tour. Corky was the most excited about this and of course Jack acted all too cool to care though we are sure he is just as excited.



Due to our eagerness, we were prompt and on time for the tour. We joined up with other people and all went on a coach together with an extremely hilarious gay tour guide (actually, when he turned sideways he looked a little like Julie Andrews!) As I mentioned, we were very eager so we all sat in the front rows of the bus, prime position. The other boring tourists sat at the back and didn’t say a word the whole trip despite our Guide telling continual jokes and then saying out of the corner of his mouth to us when no-one laughed except us ‘gee, tough crowd!’



The tour went for 4 glorious hours and we viewed many places where the movie was filmed and heard many facts and interesting tid-bits about the movie and the family. We went as far as the lake district of Salzburg and Mondsee where the wedding scene was filmed – these were about 1 hour from Salzburg. On the way there it snowed which once again us Aussie’s got all giddy about.



When we finally returned to Salzburg with the realisation that our tour was over, we climbed out of the bus and into subzero (well it felt like it) temperatures again and went to find the old Monastery that was recommended for dinner by our new gay friend. We finally found it and once again continued our ‘schnitzel and beer’ tour of Europe. I gotta say though, I do hate the fact that with every meal you have no choice but to have a side of ‘passive smoking’. I find the Europeans such a contradiction to themselves. Daily (especially when travelling through the countryside) we see people enjoying the fresh alpine air, beautiful fields and lifestyles whilst they mountain climb, hike, bike ride and/or walk and jog. They all seem such an outdoor healthy bunch of people … but then …. every single person seems to have a cigarette hanging out their mouths (OK, maybe not while enjoying the countryside, but every other person we see in every town or city does). They just don’t care that we have 4 young kids enjoying their schnitzel right next to them, they may as well ash their cigarettes on our side plates!! I did warn the kids that the Europeans would be like this, but it really is horrible since we are so use to strictly no smoking in public places at home. Anyway, enough about that (except, it really peeves me when we check into a hotel room and it smells like an ashtray … err). OK, definitely enough now.

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