October 26th-30th

Owing to Max's half term break, we were able to spend several days in the area around Salzburg, Austria this past week. If you've ever seen "The Sound of Music" you've seen Salzburg because the movie was filmed there. We have to say that when Julie Andrews sang "The hills are alive" she really understated the Alps. Those aren't hills, they are huge mountains!


Our trip gave us the opportunity to rent a car (a Czech-made Skoda) for the first time since coming to the Czech Republic. The rental agency has a steep discount if you rent a car with advertising on it, and we thought that sounded fine to us. As you can see, it had a bit more advertising than we anticipated! However, it drove well and got us where we wanted to go.


We chose Salzburg because it had a good location and many activities for children and families. We arrived in Salzburg at 6 PM, and much to our surprise EVERYTHING was closed. However, it happened to be Austrian Independence day. We were very happy to find a gas station open where we could buy some food for supper. We stayed at a terrific place, Haus am Moos, whose owner was extremely nice and helfpul. We would recommend them to anyone visiting the area.


There were so many fun and interesting activities. For us the highlights included going up a funicular on the Untersberg Mountain.







We toured a working salt mine where we put on our miner's uniforms and rode a train deep into the mountain and across an underground lake.








We also toured the Wasserspiel garden at Hellbrunn Castle. Here during the Renaissance, the Prince Archbishop held parties and the guests got all wet from the suprise sprinklers. Seems that what was fun then is still fun today, especially for Max!







In the city of Salzburg, there is a fortress that was so forbidding to look at, that no one ever dared to attack it. The views from the ramparts were lovely. We also toured the Mozart Museum. Although Mozart was never happy in Salzburg because it was too small and provincial, it is his birthplace and they are very proud of their native son.



We spent our last day in the Lakes region to the east of Salzburg. The scenery is incredible, absolutely jaw dropping to us flatlanders. We'll leave you with some pictures of this beautiful area.

The Dachstein range.






Halstatt, Austria









The Wolfgangsee, from the town of St. Gilgen