While how I got to this point is an adventure in itself, I am going to use this post to talk about my incredible experiences.
First, we took an overnight flight (which was not overnight per Texas time, but with the time zone change it became overnight) that took forever. We flew from DFW to LaGuardia, transferred to JFK, JFK to Berlin, and then Berlin to Munich. Whew. Lots of sleeping was attempted, but my nerves got the best of me and I only slept for a couple of hours at a time.
Munich Day 1: We arrived at the airport, grabbed our bags (two carry ons and one back pack- definitely the way to go) and took the S8 into the city. Then, we took the U3 to our hotel. At first we were a little nervous, but by the end of the day we had public transportation figured out. It is the coolest thing. Coming from a place where it takes 25 minutes to get to the nearest point of public transportation, I was in heaven.
We dropped off our bags, showered, and went to the Deutches Museum. It had lots of airplanes, cars, science, technology advances, etc. and was HUGE. There was no way we would see the whole thing, and jet lag set in.
Jet lag is like walking without knowing why your legs are moving. My ears began to hurt, my reactions were delayed, and I almost felt nauseous. John and I made it about 2 hours before it was time to pack it up and head back to the hotel to sleep.
Munich Day 2/ Salzburg Day 1: We woke up pretty early, which was fine for us as we had to find some hygiene items not allowed on the air plane. We took a U train into Marienplatz and got to see some sights as we searched for a razor and nail clippers. I fell in love. The city is so beautiful and I felt at ease.
After finding what we needed, we checked out of the hotel and headed to Salzburg! We saw the train was pretty full, so we hopped on. Turns out we were on the wrong train, but it was going to Salzburg so we need not worry. We took a taxi from the train station to our hotel and wow did we pick a good one. Check out our view!
It was breathtaking! Oh how I wish I could wake up to it every morning. (Turns out about 150,000 people do) We toured the city and ate dinner, then settled in for the night.
Salzburg Day 2: We woke up bright and early and had an amazing breakfast. The food was so filling, yet easy on the stomach. We had our tourline- Grayline, come pick us up and they dropped us off at our SOUND OF MUSIC bus!!! Oh how I have wanted to do this ever since I was a little girl. We started off at Mirabell Gardens which were so beautiful and big! Then, we traveled to the gazebo where they had the song "16 going on 17". John and I were told to be the "Leisel and Rolf of our group so we did :)
We saw Hellbrun Palace, The Nonnberg Abbey, St. Gilgen/Lake Wolfgang, and the Church at Mondsee. A perfect tour! We even stopped to do a toboggan run! Right as our tour ended and we boarded the bus to head back to Salzburg, it began to rain. Now I know this may sound awful, but it wasn't because we did not have rain our entire tour, and by the time we got back to Salzburg, it stopped!
We decided to walk around some more and then we went to visit Hohensalzburg Fortress. It was a great castle visit and full of little museums we got to enter for free with our ticket. The views were, once again, amazing. For dinner we grabbed some food from a grocery store and took a taxi back to our hotel. Then, we had a small picnic in our room.
Salzburg Day 3: We woke up well rested and had our next tour, Panorama, pick us up at the hotel. We had a FULL day scheduled. The first stop was Eagle's Nest. The views from here were the best we had on the trip. It was a lot cooler at the top of the mountain, but worth every minute. I think we may have our Christmas card picture!
After that we went to Berchtesgaden and had lunch and did some shopping. We had typical Bavarian food, which I love! The shops were cute and the town was more than I could have hoped for. If I can go back to Germany, I would love to stay in Berchtesgaden for a night so I could try to find all of the fountains in the city!
Shopping was fun, and next up on our tour was the salt mines. It was interesting to do and a cool experience. However, I would not recommend going through every salt mine in Europe. No pictures were aloud here :(.
After the salt mines we went to Lake Konigsee and the shops around the lake. Talk about a gorgeous lake! We stayed here for a few hours, then went back to the town of Berchtesgaden for more shopping! We arrived in Salzburg around 6:30, about 9 hours after we left. It was a long day. We ate dinner at our hotel whose restaurant was finally open and then went to bed.
Salzburg Day 4 / Hallstatt Day 1: This was our last morning at the hotel. Looking back, I should have cherished this stay a little more as we never stayed in the same room for two nights in a row again on this trip. The train to Hallstatt took about 2.5 hours, and we arrived in the rain. Ugh! We had to take a small ferry over the lake to the town and since it was raining, we stayed in the covered part and did not get many good pictures. Once we arrived in town, we bought an umbrella and headed off to find our new bed and breakfast.
The place turned out to be an old German lady's house. She did not know English, so communicating was a little hard. The room was so different than anything I had ever been in. It was small, the lamps were homemade, and the shower and sink were in the room, but no toilet. The toilet was shared with the other room she rents out and was located across a common area right before you head down the steep and narrow stairs to the front door. We were in for an experience, and could do nothing but laugh about the situation we found ourselves in.
When the rain subsided we took the opportunity to explore the town. This took about 3 hours and the entire town was covered. We even did the bone house and archeological find which was mentioned on their tourism website. With nothing left to do, we grabbed dinner and headed back to the house we were staying in.
Hallstatt Day 2/ Munich Day 3: We woke up in the morning, had breakfast, and prepared for the day. As we began our walk down the street, the woman began yelling at us in German. We went back to see what was going on. Long story short, she had rented out our room which we had reserved for 3 nights to someone else and we had to leave. We packed our bags, and headed back to the ferry.
Now at this point in our trip we had a decision to make. We could take a train back to Munich and continue our vacation there- or we could go somewhere else. This is where my heart aches because it would have been so easy to go to Prague, Vienna, Venice, Paris, Frankfurt, etc. However, we decided to just head back to Munich as we had things planned we could do there.
This time, it took almost 6 hours and 3 trains to get back to Munich. When we arrived at the hotel we did not have reservations for yet, they were booked. We had to find another hotel for the night. Eventually, we found a hotel, had dinner, and went to bed after a long and exhausting day of travel.
Munich Day 4: When we woke up in the morning we had our breakfast, then headed to our other hotel where we could stay for 2 nights in 2 different rooms. AFter dropping off our bags, we explored the amazing city of Munich. The buildings were amazing, the people were great. We even ran into a few festivals and a free outdoor opera! We went to the Munich City Museum, which was awesome, and the Hofbrauhaus! I really enjoyed this day in Munich.
Munich Day 5: This morning we had the best breakfast of our entire trip. They had warm butter croissants and a huge espresso machine. Lots of fruit and nutella with bread completed the meal. We went with Raidus Tours to Dachau concentration camp. It was a very memorable experience and surreal to walk on the same grounds that for 12 years was host to a variety of threats to the Nazi party. The tour broke for lunch and the afternoon group went on a city exploration of the Third Reich and where the party met and how it started. This was also interesting as most history classes do not really go into how this whole thing even happened to begin with. It usually starts with "Hitler came into power and the Nazis... etc." This tour was about how he did come into power and what happened to those who opposed him. Very eye-opening stuff.
Munich Day 6: To end our trip on a happy note, we took a day long tour to Neuschwanstein Castle! Wow it was incredible. The views were amazing, the inside was very detailed, and the climb up and down the mountain was photo friendly. I really enjoyed this day trip and was glad we got to go!
We met a couple from Australia and talked to them for the 2 hour train ride there and boy was that fun. It also helped as we had someone to trade cameras with to get some couple pictures :)
The train ride back was another 2 hours, and afterwards we were beat. However, I wanted one more good German meal. I got it. I had schnitzel with warm cream sauce and homemade noodles. We also had an apple strudel for dessert. It just may have been the best meal in Germany!
As our meal came to an end, we gathered our things and went to the train station. We headed to the airport where our last hotel for the trip was- a Holiday Inn Express.
Munich Day 7: To end our trip we woke up at our new hotel- the Holiday Inn, ate breakfast, and headed to the airport. It took everything in me not to just say "forget it! I am staying!" I will not bore you with the layovers, delays, etc. that entailed our trip home. I will just say we made it home safely, and with a lifetime of memories.
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