Lake & I were very lucky to have spent our Christmas & New Year's break in Europe! Traveling all over the place! We left SA & the USA on Christmas Eve & returned back, a little worse for the wear but a bit more culturally knowledgeable on January 4th 2013! We were gone for 12 whole days, it was incredible, amazing & I wish I could go see the sites every year!
So, here's the recap of the trip blog :)
Day 1: Travel Day to Berlin
We left SA mid-day on Christmas Eve. I've never traveled on Christmas Eve so that was interesting, but surprisingly the airport was pretty low key & the United Airlines ticket girl was in the holiday spirit & let us check our 3rd bag for FREE! Yes, we were those people who packed way too much, but I mean it's hard to pack for that long, in cold weather!! We had a short layover in Newark, New Jersey....this turned into a slightly longer layover because it started snowing right as we were getting on the plane, which was pretty & all, but I wanted to leave already! So we got "de-iced" (which I'd never experienced) & we were off!
Day 2: Merry Christmas from Berlin!
After about 7.5 hours of flying, in which I probably was able to sleep a total of 2 hrs, on & off and very uncomfortably, we finally landed in Frankfurt, Germany. Didn't see any of the city, just the airport & I have to say, it was nice & clean & people were as friendly as German people can be! The only thing that did annoy me at this airport was this it was HOT & travelers were sprawled out everywhere. Taking up seats & seats. I was sleepy & annoyed & not in the mood for these folks. At this airport was when my search for free WiFi started & pretty much continued the entire trip. I know, I'm an addict: "Hello my name is Erica & I'm addicted to Facebook, Twitter & Instagram!" Unfortunately, no WiFi at this airport, at least not for free unless you had a German phone/iPad/computer.
Our layover in Frankfurt wasn't too long so next thing I know, we're on a Lufthansa flight to Berlin & I passed out! I don't remember anything about that flight. It was only an hour but all I can recall is the flight attendant asking me to adjust my seat to the "full upright position"....or at least I thought that's what she said in German, who knows?!?! We landed in Berlin & took a cab to our hotel. I'm always wary of cabbies in foregin countries, or just cabbies in general. Why should I trust you, maybe you think it's funny to leave tourists in bad neighborhoods or maybe you're going to take us the longest possible route & we'll be paying a bazillion dollars, but we don't know any better??? Anyway, that's just something I think about when taking a cab ride in a new country with folks who don't speak the same language as I do. For a funny/scary cabbie story, you should read about our cabbie in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia....click here for a good laugh, look for "KL & Gang Talk?"
So we checked into our hotel & got to our room & had the rest of the day to see what Berlin was about. We were staying in what was West Berlin, but pretty much on the edge of the border. The area was recently modernized & we were near lots of fun shopping, food & entertainment stuff. The area was right next to the Sony Center & we stayed at: The Grand Hyatt Berlin, very nice & the staff was friendly & we even made friends with our bartender who was originally from DC, go figure! The hotel was right by a subway station & just a walk down from the Berlin Tiergarten (their Central Park), it was really pretty!
It was Christmas Day so we knew lots of places would be closed so it was off to see sites that were open! We walked in the cold & rain to Victory Column, it was beautiful, don't get my wrong, but I had not mentally prepared myself for that long of a walk in that cold & wet of weather. Oh well, now to hoof it back! We walked the mile back to the Brandenburg Gate. Lake has waited his entire life to see this site, so I was happy that he was finally there, in front of it. We took some obligatory pics & found a Starbucks over in the corner & popped in to warm up, take a break & mooch off some free WiFi! I needed the break though, jet lag was starting to kick my butt & I needed some caffeine & my feet needed the break as well! We took some time to wander down Unter dun Linden, this is the main drag in what was once East Berlin & is lined with Linden trees. During the Nazi rule the street was lined with Nazi flags, so this was much prettier! The street was covered with shops & restaurants which unfortunately were closed because it was Christmas Day. We found our way back to the hotel, had dinner at the Christmas market just outside & called it a day!!
Day 3: Who knew "West Berlin" was actually smack dab in the MIDDLE of "East Germany" and other fun facts.....
First off, I'd like to thank my amazing husband for doing such an awesome job planning this trip! He's my trip guru & he never fails to find fun, interesting & amazing things to do when we take trips! THANK YOU LAKE! :)
So, for our second day in Berlin we were taking a walking tour of the city. I wasn't feeling so hot that morning, didn't sleep well, was dehydrated, so I was tons of fun to be around! We were meeting out walking group by the Berlin Zoo then taking a train to East Berlin to gather the rest of our walking tour together. Our tour guides' name was Amos, he's from Israel & a law student at Humboldt University in Berlin, this kid knew his stuff! The tour actually started in East Berlin, specifically around Museum Island which is where all of the major museums are in Berlin. This is also home to Berliner Dom which is their national cathedral. We had walked around the inside of the building the evening before, but on this day, we only saw the outside of it. Amos toured us around this area of the city, then walked over in front of the university where in the 1930's there was a huge book burning, all books written by Jewish authors were burned & there's a memorial to this event in the square just outside of the law school at Humboldt. The memorial is very interesting, it's in the ground & covered by a transparent piece of glass, it's very deep & is basically an empty book shelf. This is supposed to symbolize the thousands of books that were burned that day & all the knowledge that was lost, pretty powerful stuff! We then trekked over to an area closer to Checkpoint Charlie where we had our lunch break. We found a place for lunch, I was able to get in my social media fix & even text a few of my besties via "WhatsApp" & was ready for the rest of our tour.
After lunch we walked over to Checkpoint Charlie, at this time we were actually standing on what was once the soviet occupied area of Berlin (East Berlin). There's a demarcation line that goes around the entire city that indicates where the Berlin Wall once stood & it actually encircled East Berlin, not really what I imagined. I also never knew that Berlin sits right in the middle of what was once East Germany! MIND BLOWN! I guess I'd never really looked at a map to consider this but when the Allies split up Germany after WWII they didn't want a powerful city like Berlin to sit in East Germany, they didn't want what happened to ever happen again so it was decided to split the city, just like the entire country was split, so "Checkpoint Charlie" was actually the 3rd checkpoint people would have to go to to get in/out of East/West Berlin if they were coming from outside of Germany (Americans). (Alpha - 1; Beta - 2; Charlie -3). We continued the tour along where the wall once stood, we then made our way passed what was once the center of the Nazi Air Force & then over to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This memorial is totally open to interpretation, but it was interesting & powerful, I'm glad we saw it. The last stop on our walking tour was back at The Brandenburg Gate. We bid adieu to our tour guide & walked over to the German Parliament Building or the Reichstag.
The Reichstag is really historic looking but then it has this modern building in the back, you can walk to the top of it & it's made of all glass. You can look into the actual chambers where parliament meets & see them in session, if they're in session. This is supposed to symbolize the transparency in their government. Maybe it's not a bad idea.....We walked around & grabbed some dessert (which I have officially become an expert on, (tasting it that is) & Irish Coffee) at the Hotel Adlon. OK, so who remembers when Michael Jackson dangled his baby "Blanket" out of a hotel window?!?!? Anyone.....WELL, if you do, then you'd be interested to know that it happened out of one of the windows at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, random, I know. After our mid-afternoon snack we headed back over to our hotel area via the subway to get a bite for dinner, then went to the prettiest Christmas Market ever! What fun! :)
Day 4: I can only take so much museum time....
Our last day in Berlin was spent seeing as much as we could of the city. We were leaving the next day to Vienna so we wanted to take full advantage. We were up early to catch our train out to see Charolttenburg Palace which was about a 15 minute train ride. The palace was home to Sophie Charlotte who was in power at some point in Germany (Prussia). I'm assuming the castle used to be on the out skirts of Berlin, but now it's pretty much in the middle of the city. The palace was pretty, no Versailles, but pretty nonetheless. We took an audio tour & really wanted to see the gardens but as we were leaving it started to rain & it was super cold so we decided to make our way back to the train instead & grab some lunch. We then went over to Museum Island to go to the Pergamon Museum, which let's be real....all museums pretty much house what that country has successfully taken from other countries when they occupy said countries. The stuff was cool & big, but I was sleepy......Lake loved it though, so that was nice. That evening we found a really good Asian/dim sum place in our hotel area and enjoyed a nice laid back meal. We took one last tour of the holiday market outside of our hotel & had one last crepe and called it a night. We packed up & went to bed early for our flight out to Vienna the next morning.
Day 5: Vienna - How bout we lose our new iPad!
We boarded our very early flight out of Berlin to Vienna on this morning. I think we left around 8:30am & landed in Vienna at about 10:00am. The flight was pretty pain free, just a quick hop south & east. The airport in Vienna was really nice & guess what....FREE WiFi, SCORE! When we landed though, we were very surprised to find out that you don't have to get your passport stamped when flying from Germany to Austria. Apparently there's a block of countries in the EU that have made it easier on travelers to travel between their countries, so Germany & Austria are two of those countries, hence no passport stamp needed, my passport was soooooo sad!
We caught a cab from the airport over to Wein (Vienna) & got checked in, though our room wasn't ready for a couple of hours. We stayed at the Hilton Vienna which is located right across the street from Stadtpark (their Central Park). We grabbed some lunch & a coffee & were able to check into our room. We had a park view & it was a comfortable place to stay. We were able to book a tour that afternoon which was a bus tour of the "inner city" & then an actual guided tour of Schonbrunn Palace. The bus tour was great & really let us get our barrings for the city. The tour of the palace was absolutely amazing! This was the summer home of Marie Theresia, Marie Antoinette's mother. There were paintings all over the palace of the family & young Antoinette. The gardens at the palace were also gorgeous! At the end of the tour we were given some free time to wander around the gardens & the Christmas Market out in the front of the palace. Now, I swear on all that's good in the world that our tour guide told us to meet back at the bus drop off point at 5:45pm.....giving us just a little over an hour to wander. Well, Lake & I had a great old time, taking pictures, shopping, I drank some mulled prosecco, GREAT TIME! We go to the bus stop & get there at 5:40pm, no one's around, but we're early so whatevs. Wait, still no one....wait till 5:50, no one....crap! Maybe I got the time wrong....go back to the palace to see if we recognize anyone..nope, not happening! We then both realize...WE MISSED THE BUS! And, to top it off, Lake left his back pack on the bus which luckily didn't have anything too valuable in it, other than our brand new iPad! GREAT! Luckily the cafe that was outside the palace had free WiFi & we were able to pull up a map on my phone & figure out where the closest subway station was. We had just enough cash to buy a one-way ticket to the closest stop to our hotel & things were looking up!
After getting back to the hotel we immediately told our concierge what happened, called the tour company & they promised we'd have our backpack at the hotel the next afternoon, whether the iPad would be in there or not was left to be seen, but we'd safely gotten back to our hotel & we didn't lose anything too terribly crazy, yes, that would have sucked, but Lake locked it remotely, so we couldn't do much more. It was also a good exercise in getting to know Vienna's subway system. Which, like Berlin, only required you to buy a ticket & get it validated to get on the train, no gates to go through to assure you had a ticket. They're very trusting, but they're also incredibly safe cities, I never really saw anything shady going on anywhere. Every once in a while a "subway cop" will go into a car & ask to see your validated ticket, if you don't have one you're fined a hefty chunk of change, so I guess that deters people from sneaking on??
We made our way to Stephansplatz, a very nice shopping area & where St. Stephan's Church is. We had drinks at a cool bar, that I can't remember the name of, and I had quite possibly the best Cosmopolitan EVER! no joke! We then went to dinner at very lovely Italian restaurant. While we were waiting for our main courses a waiter (not our waiter) but a waiter sets down a nice salad in front of me, I hadn't ordered one, but I don't know, maybe this is like Olive Garden, everyone gets a salad. I start eating a little of it, then I see our waiter in the corner "yelling" at the guy who'd given me the salad....OOOOOOPS, salad, NOT for me, the salad was for the couple at the table next to us, talk about awkward! For some reason (maybe because I was on my 3rd glass of prosecco) I was so embarrassed & I couldn't stop laughing, oh well, we aren't known as "Dumb Americans" for no reason! ;)
Day 6 - Buda Pest - Two Different Cities - No Really, They're TWO SEPARATE Cities!
The next morning we were up bright & early to catch our bus to Budapest, Hungary. It was an early morning & I wasn't happy to hop out of bed that morning. We left our bus station at 7:00am & had a three hr bus ride to deal with. I was asleep the entire time, it was glorious! We arrived in the "Pest" side of Budapest at around 10am. So, Budapest is actually two separate cities that are divided by the Danube River. At some point they decided to build a bridge to make it easier to connect with each other. Buda is much more older, historic & residential. Pest is the "business" side of the city, much more metropolitan.
We drove around Pest, stopped at one of the city centers, then headed over across the river to Buda to get ready for our authentic Hungarian lunch. We were served Paprika Chicken, goulash, and a dessert. The lunch was really yummy & the cappuccino I had at the end of the meal was yumm-o as well! After lunch we took a walking tour down the cobblestone streets of Buda & saw some gorgeous sites! The city itself was very quaint, reminded me a little of Bath, England. The church in their town square was absolutely gorgeous & the view across the river over to Pest was one of the prettiest things I've ever seen! By this time it was about mid-afternoon & we hopped back on the bus to take a bus tour of Pest. The tour guide left us at around 4:30 & we were free to wander around the city, I made sure a 100 million times that we knew what time we were supposed to report back. Lake & I took off & had a lovely dessert & coffee at Gerbeaud Pastry Shop, apparently it's known all around the world. I'd never heard of it, but it was definitely good! After taking a breather we walked over to the main basilica in Budapest & wandered a bit, then, because of sheer paranoia, we started walking back to our bus pick up location. We got there with plenty of time so we were able to take some really pretty pictures right at sunset. Just after 5:45pm we loaded the bus & we back off to Vienna, another 3ish hours. This time I wasn't sleepy though, luckily the bus had WiFi so I was able to get some social media time in. If you travel abroad I highly recommend getting the app "What'sApp", you're able to text with people, as long as they have the app & it's kinda cool. I was thousands of miles away & I was able to stay in touch with my friends....the only major problem I found was the time difference. Having one way text conversations is tough sometimes....
When we got back to Vienna we went out to grab dinner & found this AMAZING restaurant called Medusa, everything we had was so good, I'm glad we stumbled upon it! After dinner we went to a rooftop bar & I had a yummy sparkling wine cocktail. Bless the Germans & Austrians for truly understanding my love of bubbly! I had some of the best cocktails while visiting!
Day 7 - Vienna WOWS and Depresses
Our last day in Vienna was devoted to site seeing. The city is just beautiful and if you want to see the historical sites, you go to the "inner city." We found our way to the Hapsburg Imperial Palace and patiently waited to see the Imperial Apartments which is where the Empress Elisabeth (AKA Sisi) once lived. So, Sisi is like Austria's Princess Diana. She was empress at the end of the 19th century. She was a recluse & hated being the center of attention. She was incredibly thin, scary skinny in fact & had crazy long hair. Towards the end of her life she was obsessed with traveling everywhere & anywhere. Ironically, this led to her death. She was traveling to Geneva in 1898 under an alias when an anarchist stabbed her. She actually didn't realize how seriously injured she was & hopped on her boat back to Vienna, she ended up collapsing on the boat and dying a few days later due to an infection. After her death, she became a martyr. Her whole museum was really depressing, she seemed really lonely & her entire life seemed so sad & tragic.
Now that I've depressed you thoroughly, let's move on to the rest of our last day in Vienna. We walked around the city & found the most beautiful architecture ever! We loved it! Lake keeps saying how much he wants to go back there. For lunch that day we dined at Cafe Landtmann, which is a cafe that Sigmund Freud would frequent. It was here that we had our first apple strudel, which Austria is famous for! This one was served cold with whipped cream, it wasn't until we enjoyed another one at a small cafe in Salzburg that I understand how truly wonderful a strudel can truly be! The afternoon was filled with church site seeing and just taking in as much of the city as we could. We had dinner that night at another cozy Italian restaurant and went to bed early to catch, yet another incredibly early flight to embark on the last leg of our trip to Munich.
Day 8 - Munich - BEWARE of Live Fireworks!
Day 9 - The Sights, Sounds & Beers of Munich
Our first day of 2013 was spent just kind of wandering around the city of Munich. We rode on the subway & just went here & there. Nothing was really planned out, which was nice. The thing I found hilarious as we were going through the day was all the bottles of Moet just lying around, like NBD. It was crazy. The aftermath of New Year's Eve was evident all over the city. The bottles & also the "popped" fireworks were everywhere, it was insanity!!
The evening we took a "beer tour", which was fun!! We stopped in at a couple of local "pub halls" and of course made a stop at Hofbrau Haus, which was very interesting. I can't even begin to imagine what it would like to be a server there. First off, my arms would be cut! Those mugs that they have to carry are crazy HEAVY & they carry multiple ones! WOAH! We made a couple of new friends & ended the evening at a hostel that was right down the block from our hotel. I'd never been in a hostel, so that was interesting, it was much cleaner than I'd imagined. We made friends with a Spanish couple & a Japanese couple who spoke Spanish....who knew the Spanish language would make us some new friends ;) The tour ended & we were off to bed, we had an early train to catch for Salzburg! YAY!
Day 10 - "The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music" and the Taste of Strudel!
On the second to last day of our trip we had a day trip planned to Salzburg, Austria. The train station was right across the street from our hotel so we didn't have to wake up too terribly early to catch it. It was a pretty painless ride and we got to see some snow on our way over there. Unfortunately, no snow in Salzburg (city proper), but we did get to see some later in the day (more on that later).
The main train station in Salzburg is a bit of a walk to the "old town" so we started our trek over. It was a good 20-ish minute walk, but on our way we came across our tour home for the Sound of Music Tour that we were going to take later on in the day, so it was nice to know where we were headed. We finally managed to find our way to the Old Salzburg Fortress which is way up on a hill/mountain. You have to ride a trolley/car thing up the side of the mountain to get to the top, but wow, the view from up there was amazing! I'm not sure if I've ever truly understood what the term "breath taking" meant until that moment. The day was a little hazy but off in the distance (and it really wasn't that far) were the Alps, it was one of the most gorgeous sites I've ever seen, EVER! It's impossible to describe. It was one of those moments that makes you feel really tiny in the grand scheme of the world and puts you totally in awe of God's majesty, it was just incredibly beautiful!! :)
We stayed up at the fortress and made our way around, then headed back down because it was time to find some food!! We came across the most adorable cafe where we decided it would be a good place to have lunch. The food was great & of course, the dessert was even better!! I had a raspberry/chocolate tart thing & Lake had a warm piece of apple strudel with vanilla cream sauce on it. OMG they were both so good. I washed my dessert down with a "Mozart Hot Chocolate" which is basically just hot chocolate with a shot or two of "Mozart" liqueur. DELISH!! After lunch we did a little shopping at "Christmas in Salzburg" which was this cute little ornament shop that had thousands of eggs that were made into ornaments, they were everywhere! I ended up buying a few for me & a few for some folks that I <3 :="" class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: yellow;">nbsp
="">Shopping time ended & it was time to start our "Sound of Music Tour" which I'd been looking forward to since we got on the plane from SA!! The tour was so much fun!! I think our tour guide helped though, he was the funniest guy ever! Literally, he even had Lake cracking up, he was a total smart a** but it totally worked! We got to see the home that was the "back" of the VonTrapp family home, then we saw the home that was the front of their house, the gazeebo from "16 Going on 17", the lakes and mountains from the opening shots of the movie & the church where the Captain & Maria were married. So, here's the recap of the trip blog :)
Day 1: Travel Day to Berlin
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| Ready to take off! Right before we saw Eva Longoria at the airport! |
Day 2: Merry Christmas from Berlin!
After about 7.5 hours of flying, in which I probably was able to sleep a total of 2 hrs, on & off and very uncomfortably, we finally landed in Frankfurt, Germany. Didn't see any of the city, just the airport & I have to say, it was nice & clean & people were as friendly as German people can be! The only thing that did annoy me at this airport was this it was HOT & travelers were sprawled out everywhere. Taking up seats & seats. I was sleepy & annoyed & not in the mood for these folks. At this airport was when my search for free WiFi started & pretty much continued the entire trip. I know, I'm an addict: "Hello my name is Erica & I'm addicted to Facebook, Twitter & Instagram!" Unfortunately, no WiFi at this airport, at least not for free unless you had a German phone/iPad/computer.
Our layover in Frankfurt wasn't too long so next thing I know, we're on a Lufthansa flight to Berlin & I passed out! I don't remember anything about that flight. It was only an hour but all I can recall is the flight attendant asking me to adjust my seat to the "full upright position"....or at least I thought that's what she said in German, who knows?!?! We landed in Berlin & took a cab to our hotel. I'm always wary of cabbies in foregin countries, or just cabbies in general. Why should I trust you, maybe you think it's funny to leave tourists in bad neighborhoods or maybe you're going to take us the longest possible route & we'll be paying a bazillion dollars, but we don't know any better??? Anyway, that's just something I think about when taking a cab ride in a new country with folks who don't speak the same language as I do. For a funny/scary cabbie story, you should read about our cabbie in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia....click here for a good laugh, look for "KL & Gang Talk?"
So we checked into our hotel & got to our room & had the rest of the day to see what Berlin was about. We were staying in what was West Berlin, but pretty much on the edge of the border. The area was recently modernized & we were near lots of fun shopping, food & entertainment stuff. The area was right next to the Sony Center & we stayed at: The Grand Hyatt Berlin, very nice & the staff was friendly & we even made friends with our bartender who was originally from DC, go figure! The hotel was right by a subway station & just a walk down from the Berlin Tiergarten (their Central Park), it was really pretty!
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| Brandenburg Gate |
Day 3: Who knew "West Berlin" was actually smack dab in the MIDDLE of "East Germany" and other fun facts.....
First off, I'd like to thank my amazing husband for doing such an awesome job planning this trip! He's my trip guru & he never fails to find fun, interesting & amazing things to do when we take trips! THANK YOU LAKE! :)
So, for our second day in Berlin we were taking a walking tour of the city. I wasn't feeling so hot that morning, didn't sleep well, was dehydrated, so I was tons of fun to be around! We were meeting out walking group by the Berlin Zoo then taking a train to East Berlin to gather the rest of our walking tour together. Our tour guides' name was Amos, he's from Israel & a law student at Humboldt University in Berlin, this kid knew his stuff! The tour actually started in East Berlin, specifically around Museum Island which is where all of the major museums are in Berlin. This is also home to Berliner Dom which is their national cathedral. We had walked around the inside of the building the evening before, but on this day, we only saw the outside of it. Amos toured us around this area of the city, then walked over in front of the university where in the 1930's there was a huge book burning, all books written by Jewish authors were burned & there's a memorial to this event in the square just outside of the law school at Humboldt. The memorial is very interesting, it's in the ground & covered by a transparent piece of glass, it's very deep & is basically an empty book shelf. This is supposed to symbolize the thousands of books that were burned that day & all the knowledge that was lost, pretty powerful stuff! We then trekked over to an area closer to Checkpoint Charlie where we had our lunch break. We found a place for lunch, I was able to get in my social media fix & even text a few of my besties via "WhatsApp" & was ready for the rest of our tour.
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| In front of part of the Berlin Wall, after visiting Checkpoint Charlie |
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| Let's Disco Berlin! |
Day 4: I can only take so much museum time....
Our last day in Berlin was spent seeing as much as we could of the city. We were leaving the next day to Vienna so we wanted to take full advantage. We were up early to catch our train out to see Charolttenburg Palace which was about a 15 minute train ride. The palace was home to Sophie Charlotte who was in power at some point in Germany (Prussia). I'm assuming the castle used to be on the out skirts of Berlin, but now it's pretty much in the middle of the city. The palace was pretty, no Versailles, but pretty nonetheless. We took an audio tour & really wanted to see the gardens but as we were leaving it started to rain & it was super cold so we decided to make our way back to the train instead & grab some lunch. We then went over to Museum Island to go to the Pergamon Museum, which let's be real....all museums pretty much house what that country has successfully taken from other countries when they occupy said countries. The stuff was cool & big, but I was sleepy......Lake loved it though, so that was nice. That evening we found a really good Asian/dim sum place in our hotel area and enjoyed a nice laid back meal. We took one last tour of the holiday market outside of our hotel & had one last crepe and called it a night. We packed up & went to bed early for our flight out to Vienna the next morning.
Day 5: Vienna - How bout we lose our new iPad!
We boarded our very early flight out of Berlin to Vienna on this morning. I think we left around 8:30am & landed in Vienna at about 10:00am. The flight was pretty pain free, just a quick hop south & east. The airport in Vienna was really nice & guess what....FREE WiFi, SCORE! When we landed though, we were very surprised to find out that you don't have to get your passport stamped when flying from Germany to Austria. Apparently there's a block of countries in the EU that have made it easier on travelers to travel between their countries, so Germany & Austria are two of those countries, hence no passport stamp needed, my passport was soooooo sad!
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| Let's Go Vienna! |
After getting back to the hotel we immediately told our concierge what happened, called the tour company & they promised we'd have our backpack at the hotel the next afternoon, whether the iPad would be in there or not was left to be seen, but we'd safely gotten back to our hotel & we didn't lose anything too terribly crazy, yes, that would have sucked, but Lake locked it remotely, so we couldn't do much more. It was also a good exercise in getting to know Vienna's subway system. Which, like Berlin, only required you to buy a ticket & get it validated to get on the train, no gates to go through to assure you had a ticket. They're very trusting, but they're also incredibly safe cities, I never really saw anything shady going on anywhere. Every once in a while a "subway cop" will go into a car & ask to see your validated ticket, if you don't have one you're fined a hefty chunk of change, so I guess that deters people from sneaking on??
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| mmmmm, a Cosmo in Vienna, delish! |
Day 6 - Buda Pest - Two Different Cities - No Really, They're TWO SEPARATE Cities!
The next morning we were up bright & early to catch our bus to Budapest, Hungary. It was an early morning & I wasn't happy to hop out of bed that morning. We left our bus station at 7:00am & had a three hr bus ride to deal with. I was asleep the entire time, it was glorious! We arrived in the "Pest" side of Budapest at around 10am. So, Budapest is actually two separate cities that are divided by the Danube River. At some point they decided to build a bridge to make it easier to connect with each other. Buda is much more older, historic & residential. Pest is the "business" side of the city, much more metropolitan.
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| on the Buda side of Budapest |
When we got back to Vienna we went out to grab dinner & found this AMAZING restaurant called Medusa, everything we had was so good, I'm glad we stumbled upon it! After dinner we went to a rooftop bar & I had a yummy sparkling wine cocktail. Bless the Germans & Austrians for truly understanding my love of bubbly! I had some of the best cocktails while visiting!
Day 7 - Vienna WOWS and Depresses
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| waiting in line for the Sisi Museum |
Now that I've depressed you thoroughly, let's move on to the rest of our last day in Vienna. We walked around the city & found the most beautiful architecture ever! We loved it! Lake keeps saying how much he wants to go back there. For lunch that day we dined at Cafe Landtmann, which is a cafe that Sigmund Freud would frequent. It was here that we had our first apple strudel, which Austria is famous for! This one was served cold with whipped cream, it wasn't until we enjoyed another one at a small cafe in Salzburg that I understand how truly wonderful a strudel can truly be! The afternoon was filled with church site seeing and just taking in as much of the city as we could. We had dinner that night at another cozy Italian restaurant and went to bed early to catch, yet another incredibly early flight to embark on the last leg of our trip to Munich.
Day 8 - Munich - BEWARE of Live Fireworks!
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| New Year's Eve 2012 |
We arrived in Munich, Germany on New Year's Eve. We took a walking tour of the "inner city" as soon as we got the our hotel. We stayed at Le Meridian which was right by the main train station in Munich. The hotel was pretty & a good location being right next to a subway station. The walking tour started right in the heart of Marienplatz, which is like their town square area. We toured the whole area & learned a lot about Munich & it's incredible history. From Bavaria to the role it played in the years leading up to World War II. The city itself is pretty & historic, but after spending 2 days in the city, I'm just kinda like, whatever with it. After the walking tour we headed back to the hotel to nap & figure out what we were going to do for dinner that night & also just for New Year's Eve in general. We hadn't planned anything in advance, so we were up for anything, we figured there had to be something going on. We had dinner at our hotel & it was quite possibly the best meal we had the entire trip. After dinner we wandered around the town square trying to dodged stray fireworks & drunk Germans walking around with full bottles of Moet in their hands. I just wasn't feeling it, call me a party pooper, but I like semi-order & there was none. It wasn't even that things were totally out of control or that chaos was all around it was just that, the whole city seemed so unorganized....that's what we get for not planning ahead! We ended the night at our hotel bar & luckily I had asked Lake to buy a bottle of bubbly in case something like this happened, so we popped the bottle open & celebrated the beginning of 2013 in our hotel room. Right at midnight we opened the window & there, outside of our hotel was our very own, incredibly sporadic & disorganized fireworks display. New Year's Eve is the only day of the year that Germans are allowed to purchase fireworks, so they enjoy themselves fully on this evening. After midnight, I stayed up & watched the year turnover in London because we had friends who were celebrating there. Hands down....London Won! ;)
Day 9 - The Sights, Sounds & Beers of Munich
Our first day of 2013 was spent just kind of wandering around the city of Munich. We rode on the subway & just went here & there. Nothing was really planned out, which was nice. The thing I found hilarious as we were going through the day was all the bottles of Moet just lying around, like NBD. It was crazy. The aftermath of New Year's Eve was evident all over the city. The bottles & also the "popped" fireworks were everywhere, it was insanity!!
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| not impressed with the mess |
Day 10 - "The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music" and the Taste of Strudel!
On the second to last day of our trip we had a day trip planned to Salzburg, Austria. The train station was right across the street from our hotel so we didn't have to wake up too terribly early to catch it. It was a pretty painless ride and we got to see some snow on our way over there. Unfortunately, no snow in Salzburg (city proper), but we did get to see some later in the day (more on that later).
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| Salzburg Fortress |
We stayed up at the fortress and made our way around, then headed back down because it was time to find some food!! We came across the most adorable cafe where we decided it would be a good place to have lunch. The food was great & of course, the dessert was even better!! I had a raspberry/chocolate tart thing & Lake had a warm piece of apple strudel with vanilla cream sauce on it. OMG they were both so good. I washed my dessert down with a "Mozart Hot Chocolate" which is basically just hot chocolate with a shot or two of "Mozart" liqueur. DELISH!! After lunch we did a little shopping at "Christmas in Salzburg" which was this cute little ornament shop that had thousands of eggs that were made into ornaments, they were everywhere! I ended up buying a few for me & a few for some folks that I <3 :="" class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: yellow;">nbsp
Side Note: The gazeebo is locked because a few years ago an older woman was trying to reenact the musical scene & fell & broke her hip....no more jumping from bench to bench for anyone else! Thanks lady!
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| MONDSEE! |
The tour ended & we had about 2 1/2 hrs to kill before we had to catch our train. Our tour guide had recommended a hotel rooftop bar for a great view of the city. The hotel was, Hotel Stein which was located right on the river. We had a drink & some apps there & then went to the Cafe Sacher for one last dessert & coffee in Salzburg. The cafe was so cute, I loved it!! Their coffee & food weren't too shabby either! ;)
After one last dessert we caught a cab back down to the main train station & sat around & waited for our train back to Munich. We sat on the platform freezing our butts off, but not wanting to miss our train, we endured the cold. We hopped back on our train & zipped right back to Munich. We were back in our room before 11:00pm & ready for our final full day of vaction.
Day 11 - Fairytales Really Can Come True!
So, our final day of vacation was truly magical! No really, we saw castles on our last full day, it was amazing!! We left Munich around 8:30am & we off to the mountains just outside of Munich (about 1 hr-ish). There had been no snow in any of the major cities we'd visited, but while traveling up to Mondsee, Austria the day before we saw "old" snow on the ground, but we hadn't seen any actual snow fall. Our first stop was Linderhof Castle which was one of the homes of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Ludwig was quite a recluse and was painfully shy. He was also a chubby guy. He sought refuge in this palace and even though it was much smaller than Versailles, he fashioned the palace after the famous French palace just outside of Paris. He was also obsessed with the "Sun King."
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| my favorite pic from the whole trip |
Getting to the small city that sits at the base of the giant hill the castle is on, you wonder, huh, how do you get all the way up there?? Well, two options:
1. You can take a horse drawn carriage. I know what you're thinking, oh wow, that's so romantic! Let me tell you now, it wasn't all that cute & romantic. The "carriage" looked more like a golf cart and the line to catch one of the carriages was at least at hour long wait!
2. Our next option was a steep mile long hike up the hill. Though this didn't make me happy, I figured it was our best option.
We had lunch in the little city before we made our way up & we only had 2 hrs to spare after that. We had a guided tour scheduled as well, so we started the hike....as we started getting closer to the top it was definitely getting colder & rain/snow had been in the forecast. At first, I didn't want to believe it, but the moment that we turned our last corner & we could see the castle, it started snowing. Pretty, white, light, perfect snow! I was ecstatic!! Not only was I at a real life castle, and not just any castle, but THE castle, it was snowing & it was the snow I'd wished for the entire trip, it was perfect! :) We had about 20 minutes to spare before our tour started so we took lots & lots of pictures. The snow didn't really show up in them so I guess I just have to remember it, oh well!
We toured the castle, which was never actually completed, but it was still really pretty inside. Once we got back outside the snow had turned to rain and we made our way back down, slippery road.....we hopped back on our tour bus & drove back into Munich. The bus ride was about 90 minutes so Lake & I both took a quick nap.
Our day trip was over & we had our last meal in Munich at the restaurant of Munich's "Gordan Ramsey", the meal was TDF, I can't remember now what I had, but I just remember that it was good!! We were both exhausted at this point so we headed back to our hotel & packed up to get ready for our early morning trip back home!
Day 12 - LONGEST DAY EVER!
Our day started off with a trip to the airport & all that it entails, pretty standard stuff. We got there early, ate some breakfast, mooched off some free wifi & we were off to London. Oh how I wish our layover would have been significant, but alas, it was just a short stay & we were back on the plane to Washington DC. I didn't want my sleep to be messed up, so I was able to fight off sleep for the majority of the flight. I watched, Pitch Perfect, Marie Antoinette, some episodes of Mad Men & some eps of New Girl. All in all, I was entertained most of the flight! :)
We landed at Dulles or is it now Reagan? a little late & headed over to customs, the next two hours of my life I'd like to refer to as "Hell at the Airport".....which it was! It took us almost an hour to get through customs to get our passports stamped, then we still had to wait in what seemed like the longest line to go through security again. It's amazing what "Mob Mentality" does to folks....while we were in line through security a family of 5 tried to cut through the line & they got stopped by security, the lady in the family raised her voice to the security guard & said, "I'm sorry, but we have a connecting flight!" to which the security guard said, "yeah, so do ALL of these of other people, you can go to the back of the line"......everyone clapped, haha!
We finally made it through security & had to run from Terminal C to Terminal A. We had to catch a tram to get there, we, along with about 5 other folks from our flight were "those people" sprinting through crowds of people trying to get to our flight. We finally get to Terminal A & of course Lake & I have to run to the end of the terminal to our gate. I ran ahead & geot there just as they were last calling everyone.....wait for Lake only to discover we're on the tiniest plane known to man, for an almost 4 hr flight, freakin' great! At this point, my patience was gone & I just laughed and said...."of course this is our plane".....we walked onto the plane, sweaty messes & were greeted by what almost seemed like a sauna on the plane. They said it had to be that warm in order to be comfortable at the high altitude, that's funny, I've never experienced that...EVER! We made our way to our seats, by the restroom no less & settled in. It was miserably HOT & I felt nauseous. The seats in front of us were empty to so I asked the flight attendant if one of us could move up & I think she saw the desperation & could probably smell us, so she let us take the two empty seats in front as well. Once we took off the flight was pretty painless. I'd been saving "Notting Hill" on my iPad so after an hour I started the movie & the next thing I know, we're flying over Texas & almost HOME! We landed & my brother & Miss Maryn were there to greet us. Trip over? NOPE, one more thing, just for good measure. With all the hurry & scurry, Lake's bag never made it on the flight from DC, so oh well, it would be flown in the next morning on the first flight from DC to SA.
All in all, our last day of travel was by far one of the worst I've ever had to deal with, but eh, after 11days gallivanting across Europe, who am I to complain! :) Lake & I have traveled the world together & there's no other person I'd rather do any of these things with.
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