This week brought some interesting and exciting events! It all started when I received a phone call from the school. Getting a call from the school during the day is never a good sign. Of course, as I (and anyone who knows him) would guess, it was concerning Deagan. Apparently, there was a horrible smell wafting in the classroom. The teacher could not figure it out. Finally, after much sniffing, it was discovered that the smell was coming from a certain backpack. The teacher located it and cautiously had a look inside. She found yogurt had exploded in the backpack (possibly a week before) and was molding everywhere. There were also the remains of what she thinks was a sandwich in a baggie, but it was hard to tell, as it had liquified. What's more, the whole thing was crawling with ants! She was not calling me to tell me that I am a horrible mother, but to ask permission to throw the backpack away, as it was beyond cleaning--way beyond. Obviously, I was embarrassed and the only thing I could do was to laugh and apologize profusely. The teacher kept telling me it was okay, that things like this happen (although I have a feeling that this experience went down in her journal as a first). My embarrassment was only worsened when my mind remembered back to an afternoon when Deagan had told me about a yogurt exploding in his backpack, but I was in the middle of fixing dinner and completely forgot about it. Dan suggested blaming the whole thing on the teacher, saying that if she would assign homework every night, then there might be a possibility that I would look in the backpack more regularly. It made me mad that it proved the Austrians right: I really do have more children than I can keep track of.
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| Salzburg and the Salzach River |
Things got much better that day. At the store, I found a new chocolate candy: Daim. You can find it at the IKEA, but I'm not sure what other stores carry it, if any. These are like Skor bars in little, bite-size pieces. The only problem is, you want more than a bite or two.
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| St. Wolfgangsee |
Monday evening, we were out enjoying the beautiful weather. We had some friends over and we were having a BBQ. We found some fondue chocolate to melt on the grill (at the Hofer, which is Aldi, in Indiana), and I would recommend roasted marshmallows, dipped in white chocolate, and strawberries dipped in milk chocolate. We sat relaxing on the patio, visiting, when we heard music floating into the yard. There is a couple that plays accordian and sings at the Heurigen next door. (Since the weather is nice, the dining has moved to the patio for them as well.) We sat listening to "Edelweiss" and thought we couldn't possibly get a more authentic Austrian experience.
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| St. Wolfgang |
Since the kids had Thursday and Friday off, we decided to go over to Salzburg and check out that part of the country. We got a later start than we had planned, and there was a little tension over the fact that I was relying on Dan, GPS and road signs to get us where we wanted to go, but without addresses or maps, it proved to be stressful. We eventually found the right road, and we were in beautiful mountains with lakes and quaint Austrian villages, chalets, and cabins. After a few hours of driving, we stopped at a village called St. Wolfgang on the Wolfgangsee. It was a beautiful village, so we stopped for lunch. We bought food from the Wurstel stand and we ate our lunch by the lake. Dane accidentally dropped some bread, so we had some fun feeding the swans the dirty bread. And yes, you can count them, there were seven swans a swimming. We took that as a sign that someone's true love lived here.
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| The view from our room |
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| The kids enjoyed the chess |
Next we drove through more mountains and got to our hotel. We absolutely loved our hotel and our room. We had enough space and beds for all of us. Breakfast was included every morning and we could find fruit, yogurt, breads, cold cuts, cheese, eggs, cereal, and hot chocolate. We were staying about 10 minutes outside of Salzburg and we were glad that we did. It was a beautiful location with a view of a field, church, and mountains from our room. That night we took it easy and went to dinner at a local Gasthaus and had traditional Austrian food. Dan and I shared a platter that had just about everything on it: schnitzel, pork chop, pork filet, beef medalion, hot dog, veggies, and fries. It of course, was preceded by a salat and German potato salad. It was good. The weather was nice, we ate outside, and the kids had a playground that they could play on while we finished up our rather large meal. Dan also tried the garlic soup. It is a cream based soup that was very tastey--I was worried that his breath might ruin our anniversary kisses the next day, but I ended up just eating some of it too. We found the people in Salzburg to be very pleasant and kid friendly. They seemed to be more patient with tourists and were generally very nice--different from what we have come to expect from the Viennese.
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| The Dom in Salzburg |
The next morning was rainy. We decided to do the area from top to bottom, literally. We drove to the largest ice cave in the world. We had to drive up the mountain 5 km. Then we bought tickets for the tour, and had another twenty minute hike up the mountain. We got to the air tram. We got on, and quite frankly, were a little nervous. We went straight up the mountain over sheer rock cliffs. There were several of us in the little car and it swayed when it got to the middle. I have to say that I am not one who is usually afraid of heights, but that ride kind of got to all of us. Some people in the car refused to open their eyes the entire ride.
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| Looking up the trail |
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| Looking over the edge |
At the top, we discovered that we were not at the top. We had another 20 minute hike of switch backs further up the mountain to get to the cave opening. The trail was straight up on one side and straight down on the other. The only thing keeping the children from falling to their deaths was a little 2 bar railing that they could have easily slipped under if they fell on the shale. Once we got to the cave, we waited just a few minutes to catch the English speaking tour. I was handed an oil lamp with a real open flame and was told not to catch anyone on fire. About every 4th person had a lamp. This was our means of seeing in the cave as there was no electricity inside.
Our journey through the cave was cool--in all respects of the word. We climbed 1,400 stairs through ice formations. The guide would light magnesium at the big structures so that we could see the formations. No pictures were allowed in the cave (I think to avoid blinding people with flashes). Then we had another 1,400 stairs to get back out of the cave. Dan was carrying Danyon and I was grateful. Some of the stairs had iced over and some of the railings had 3 or more inches of ice on them. The tour lasted for about an hour, and that was all that we could handle in the cold. It was really neat and the highlight of the trip for Dan and Dyllan.
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| Werfen |
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| The valley of Werfen |
After being on top of the world, we headed down, down, down and into a salt mine. Salzburg gets its name from the "white gold" and they still mine tons of salt in the area. We headed to a salt mine in Berchtesgaden, Germany. It is Austrian law not to permit children under the age of 4 in any salt mine, but in Germany they don't have that law. It was okay, we didn't mind driving through the Bavarian mountains to get there. We picniced in the car on the way there because it was still raining.
At the salt mine, we suited up (after Dane helped to translate what the lady at the counter was saying to us) in mining clothes. We boarded a small train. It was more of a bench that you straddled, that was set on a track. We went into the mountain about 650 m through a passage way that was no more than 36" wide and 60" tall. Definitely not a half mile for the claustrophobic. We learned all about how they mine for salt. They use water and dissolve the salt over a period of time. Then they pump out the brine and dehydrate it to get the salt. They have all kinds of salt in the gift shop; Different flavors, different bath salts, and all kinds of salt lamps--good for healing. We got to go on a boat ride across one of the caverns that they had mined. We got to taste some of the brine that they were pumping out. It was knock your socks off salty. But, the highlight of the salt mines was the slide that we got to use. The miners slide down the mine on wooden slides. Dyllan was a little nervous at first because it was a steep and long way down. When no one would join her going down the stairs, she conceded to go down the slide with us. Deagan loved every minute of it and wanted to go several times. He didn't care about the salt, "just give me more slides". By the second slide, everyone was excited to go.
We hurried back to Salzburg and got there just in time for the evening performance of the Sound of Music at the marrionette theater. It was a shortened performance, only lasting 2 hours with the intermission. The kids really liked it. I thought it was really cool to see what they could do with a marrionette. I don't know what Pinocchio was complaining about. The theater was very neat. The stage up front looked like a real stage complete with intricate sets. There were two live people in the performance: Mother Superior and a pair of legs that walked by at the end during the search for the Von Trapp family, representing the Nazi army. Both looked huge compared to the marionettes and Dyllan asked, "Where did they find the giants to play those two parts?" It was really nicely done and it was really cool to see the Sound of Music, right where it originated. Luckily, it was in English (as all plays and operas done at the marionette theater are done in their original languages.)
We returned to our hotel that night completely worn out and ready to fall into bed. We didn't even have time to eat dinner and by the time the play ended, most things were closed for the evening. We finally got to our hotel room, and I felt like I was "Sixteen going on Seventeen", as I found flowers from Dan for our 16th anniversary. We hadn't had any time to even think about it all day, but he still remembered. The kids snacked on our leftovers from the night before, and were all out before 10 minutes had passed.
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| Back of house |
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| Front of house |
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| Do-Re-Mi was filmed here in Mirabell Gardens |
You can never have too much of "My Favorite Things", so Saturday we got up early and went on a guided "Sound of Music" Tour. The really fun part about this tour is that it is on bicycles. Everyone picked out a bike. Deagan got a tandem to ride with Dan, and I got stuck carrying a trailer and it had chubby Danyon in it, to boot. It was still raining, so things were still very damp, but by the time we started our ride, most of the sprinkling had stopped. We rode all around Salzburg, stopping at any site that they used in the movie. The major ones were the vonTrapp houses (they used 2 in the movie--one for the front and one for the back), the gazebo, the abbey, and several fountains, archways, and different architectural buildings, gardens, and paths. Amazingly, they only spent 2 weeks in Salzburg filming. The rest they had reconstructed on sets in the US and overall, it took a year to film it. During the ride, we had one very large hill to climb. I think they plan it that way as we were motivated by the song, "Climb Every Mountain", Dan was one of 2 in the group to actually make it all the way up the hill without getting off to push the bike. Of course, I could have done it too, were it not for the extra 50 lbs. pulling me back down the hill.
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| I have Confidence |
We loved the ride and we got to see so much more of Salzburg then you ever would on a bus tour, or even on your own with a car. It was wonderful. It was only about 3/4 of the way through the tour that we discovered that none of our children had actually seen the movie. They had been singing along to all the songs and having just as much fun as everyone else, but they had no idea what they were actually looking at.
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| Where's Maria? |
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| The Abbey |
There was one part of the tour where 2 girls in our group got lost. We ended up waiting for them and losing a good 30 minutes. Because of this, our tour guide sped through the pathways trying to make up for lost time. This was fine, for a second or two, when I realized that going through mud is much harder than going on pavement. My legs were burning trying to pull my bike and the trailer through the sludge of mud. Dan's little helper wasn't too bothered by it. He was singing "Do-re-mi-fa-so bleh (spit) cough". Dan turned around to see what was the matter. He discovered that his bike didn't have a mud guard on it and poor Deagan behind was getting absolutely pelted with mud. He was pretty covered, but he was a good sport about it. Danyon's bike trailer could have been used as camouflage as well, it was so covered with mud. In fact, some drunk Czech's on a tour met us at a corner and just howled at how funny it was that the trailer was so covered in mud. Danyon was still happily inside, although he did start to complain slightly when he couldn't see out the windows anymore.
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| The cemetary |
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| We are under the red umbrellas |
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| Christmas Shop |
We were really proud of all the children as they all made it on the ride (we figure it was 8-10 miles of riding). Dane and Dyllan especially loved it and would like to do bike tours in other cities as well. But after that trip, we needed to head back to the hotel to clean up and dry off. That afternoon, we just waltzed around the city. We did some window shopping in a Christmas store, we found the ghost of Mozart, we ate a famous Furst Mozart Chocolate Ball, we tasted the famous Salzburger Knockle, and we found a brass festival in the downtown. It was still raining, so not many people were listening to the bands, but it was neat to see them all dressed in their traditional Austrian attire. Dan has decided that he does want to own a pair of Lederhosen (although I don't know if he's going to get it. The ones he liked were 600 Euros, just for the pants.) He might have to settle for a shorter pair of pants and longer socks. That night we ate dinner at our hotel. I have to brag a little bit, because usually when Dan and I order, he picks better than I do, and I am usually slightly disappointed in my meal because his is so much better. Well, this time, I really blew him out of the water. I had a white asparagus in a hollandaise sauce drenched in bacon, with potatoes cut in half and deep fried. The mixture of all the flavors was so perfect. Dan actually turned a shade of green with envy for my meal. Oh yes, it was that good. Had he not needed to be back at work on Monday, he would have stayed an extra night, just to order that same dinner.
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| Salzberger Knockle |
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| I'll just help myself |
The next day, we took it a little slower. We drove to the Stille Nacht Platz. It is in a little town outside of Salzburg, where "Silent Night" was composed and performed for the first time. The actual church is no longer standing, but they have a memorial Kapelle there to commemerate the most well known Christmas carol. We got to listen to the recording of "Silent Night" in German, the way it was done the first time it was performed. It was very cool. After that, we went back to Salzburg to Schloss Hellbrun and walked around the trick fountains and gardens there. (These were also used in the Sound of Music, by the way). It is amazing how much extra money these archbishops had to use. The entire site was only built as a summer vacation place, but there are no bedrooms in the building. It was only built to entertain dinner guests and to get out of the hot sun for a couple of hours in the afternoon. The grounds are amazing and they even had their own private zoo, filled with all sorts of exotic and unusual animals. While we were leaving the water gardens, it started to pour rain again, so we packed up and headed for home.
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| Roman Theater in Trick Fountains |
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| We managed to get through it pretty dry |
We took the long road home as we wanted to stop at Hallstatt. It is considered to be one of the prettiest villages in the mountain and lake district. By the time we got there, the rain had really settled in and we didn't get a chance to do the things we would have liked to have done. The view was good, but not quite as spectacular as it could have been, without the rain clouds covering the mountains. It was still beautiful, don't get me wrong, it was just a long drive to not get to get out of the car and spend some time there. We did stop at a Wurstel stand and we tried a local favorite, the Bosna. It was a bratworst on a toasted baguette with onions, ketchup, mustard, and curry seasoning. We ate in the car and continued our journey home. By the time we got there, it was almost bed time for the kids. We were totally exhausted by our wonderful trip. We sent the kids to bed as they sang, "So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye".
Since the kids had Thursday and Friday off, we decided to go over to Salzburg and check out that part of the country. We got a later start than we had planned, and there was a little tension over the fact that I was relying on Dan, GPS and road signs to get us where we wanted to go, but without addresses or maps, it proved to be stressful. We eventually found the right road, and we were in beautiful mountains with lakes and quaint Austrian villages, chalets, and cabins. After a few hours of driving, we stopped at a village called St. Wolfgang on the Wolfgangsee. It was a beautiful village, so we stopped for lunch. We bought food from the Wurstel stand and we ate our lunch by the lake. Dane accidentally dropped some bread, so we had some fun feeding the swans the dirty bread. And yes, you can count them, there were seven swans a swimming. We took that as a sign that someone's true love lived here.
Next we drove through more mountains and got to our hotel. We absolutely loved our hotel and our room. We had enough space and beds for all of us. Breakfast was included every morning and we could find fruit, yogurt, breads, cold cuts, cheese, eggs, cereal, and hot chocolate. We were staying about 10 minutes outside of Salzburg and we were glad that we did. It was a beautiful location with a view of a field, church, and mountains from our room. That night we took it easy and went to dinner at a local Gasthaus and had traditional Austrian food. Dan and I shared a platter that had just about everything on it: schnitzel, pork chop, pork filet, beef medalion, hot dog, veggies, and fries. It of course, was preceded by a salat and German potato salad. It was good. The weather was nice, we ate outside, and the kids had a playground that they could play on while we finished up our rather large meal. Dan also tried the garlic soup. It is a cream based soup that was very tastey--I was worried that his breath might ruin our anniversary kisses the next day, but I ended up just eating some of it too. We found the people in Salzburg to be very pleasant and kid friendly. They seemed to be more patient with tourists and were generally very nice--different from what we have come to expect from the Viennese.
Our journey through the cave was cool--in all respects of the word. We climbed 1,400 stairs through ice formations. The guide would light magnesium at the big structures so that we could see the formations. No pictures were allowed in the cave (I think to avoid blinding people with flashes). Then we had another 1,400 stairs to get back out of the cave. Dan was carrying Danyon and I was grateful. Some of the stairs had iced over and some of the railings had 3 or more inches of ice on them. The tour lasted for about an hour, and that was all that we could handle in the cold. It was really neat and the highlight of the trip for Dan and Dyllan. 
At the salt mine, we suited up (after Dane helped to translate what the lady at the counter was saying to us) in mining clothes. We boarded a small train. It was more of a bench that you straddled, that was set on a track. We went into the mountain about 650 m through a passage way that was no more than 36" wide and 60" tall. Definitely not a half mile for the claustrophobic. We learned all about how they mine for salt. They use water and dissolve the salt over a period of time. Then they pump out the brine and dehydrate it to get the salt. They have all kinds of salt in the gift shop; Different flavors, different bath salts, and all kinds of salt lamps--good for healing. We got to go on a boat ride across one of the caverns that they had mined. We got to taste some of the brine that they were pumping out. It was knock your socks off salty. But, the highlight of the salt mines was the slide that we got to use. The miners slide down the mine on wooden slides. Dyllan was a little nervous at first because it was a steep and long way down. When no one would join her going down the stairs, she conceded to go down the slide with us. Deagan loved every minute of it and wanted to go several times. He didn't care about the salt, "just give me more slides". By the second slide, everyone was excited to go.
We hurried back to Salzburg and got there just in time for the evening performance of the Sound of Music at the marrionette theater. It was a shortened performance, only lasting 2 hours with the intermission. The kids really liked it. I thought it was really cool to see what they could do with a marrionette. I don't know what Pinocchio was complaining about. The theater was very neat. The stage up front looked like a real stage complete with intricate sets. There were two live people in the performance: Mother Superior and a pair of legs that walked by at the end during the search for the Von Trapp family, representing the Nazi army. Both looked huge compared to the marionettes and Dyllan asked, "Where did they find the giants to play those two parts?" It was really nicely done and it was really cool to see the Sound of Music, right where it originated. Luckily, it was in English (as all plays and operas done at the marionette theater are done in their original languages.)
We returned to our hotel that night completely worn out and ready to fall into bed. We didn't even have time to eat dinner and by the time the play ended, most things were closed for the evening. We finally got to our hotel room, and I felt like I was "Sixteen going on Seventeen", as I found flowers from Dan for our 16th anniversary. We hadn't had any time to even think about it all day, but he still remembered. The kids snacked on our leftovers from the night before, and were all out before 10 minutes had passed.
You can never have too much of "My Favorite Things", so Saturday we got up early and went on a guided "Sound of Music" Tour. The really fun part about this tour is that it is on bicycles. Everyone picked out a bike. Deagan got a tandem to ride with Dan, and I got stuck carrying a trailer and it had chubby Danyon in it, to boot. It was still raining, so things were still very damp, but by the time we started our ride, most of the sprinkling had stopped. We rode all around Salzburg, stopping at any site that they used in the movie. The major ones were the vonTrapp houses (they used 2 in the movie--one for the front and one for the back), the gazebo, the abbey, and several fountains, archways, and different architectural buildings, gardens, and paths. Amazingly, they only spent 2 weeks in Salzburg filming. The rest they had reconstructed on sets in the US and overall, it took a year to film it. During the ride, we had one very large hill to climb. I think they plan it that way as we were motivated by the song, "Climb Every Mountain", Dan was one of 2 in the group to actually make it all the way up the hill without getting off to push the bike. Of course, I could have done it too, were it not for the extra 50 lbs. pulling me back down the hill. 
We loved the ride and we got to see so much more of Salzburg then you ever would on a bus tour, or even on your own with a car. It was wonderful. It was only about 3/4 of the way through the tour that we discovered that none of our children had actually seen the movie. They had been singing along to all the songs and having just as much fun as everyone else, but they had no idea what they were actually looking at. 
There was one part of the tour where 2 girls in our group got lost. We ended up waiting for them and losing a good 30 minutes. Because of this, our tour guide sped through the pathways trying to make up for lost time. This was fine, for a second or two, when I realized that going through mud is much harder than going on pavement. My legs were burning trying to pull my bike and the trailer through the sludge of mud. Dan's little helper wasn't too bothered by it. He was singing "Do-re-mi-fa-so bleh (spit) cough". Dan turned around to see what was the matter. He discovered that his bike didn't have a mud guard on it and poor Deagan behind was getting absolutely pelted with mud. He was pretty covered, but he was a good sport about it. Danyon's bike trailer could have been used as camouflage as well, it was so covered with mud. In fact, some drunk Czech's on a tour met us at a corner and just howled at how funny it was that the trailer was so covered in mud. Danyon was still happily inside, although he did start to complain slightly when he couldn't see out the windows anymore. 
We were really proud of all the children as they all made it on the ride (we figure it was 8-10 miles of riding). Dane and Dyllan especially loved it and would like to do bike tours in other cities as well. But after that trip, we needed to head back to the hotel to clean up and dry off. That afternoon, we just waltzed around the city. We did some window shopping in a Christmas store, we found the ghost of Mozart, we ate a famous Furst Mozart Chocolate Ball, we tasted the famous Salzburger Knockle, and we found a brass festival in the downtown. It was still raining, so not many people were listening to the bands, but it was neat to see them all dressed in their traditional Austrian attire. Dan has decided that he does want to own a pair of Lederhosen (although I don't know if he's going to get it. The ones he liked were 600 Euros, just for the pants.) He might have to settle for a shorter pair of pants and longer socks. That night we ate dinner at our hotel. I have to brag a little bit, because usually when Dan and I order, he picks better than I do, and I am usually slightly disappointed in my meal because his is so much better. Well, this time, I really blew him out of the water. I had a white asparagus in a hollandaise sauce drenched in bacon, with potatoes cut in half and deep fried. The mixture of all the flavors was so perfect. Dan actually turned a shade of green with envy for my meal. Oh yes, it was that good. Had he not needed to be back at work on Monday, he would have stayed an extra night, just to order that same dinner.
The next day, we took it a little slower. We drove to the Stille Nacht Platz. It is in a little town outside of Salzburg, where "Silent Night" was composed and performed for the first time. The actual church is no longer standing, but they have a memorial Kapelle there to commemerate the most well known Christmas carol. We got to listen to the recording of "Silent Night" in German, the way it was done the first time it was performed. It was very cool. After that, we went back to Salzburg to Schloss Hellbrun and walked around the trick fountains and gardens there. (These were also used in the Sound of Music, by the way). It is amazing how much extra money these archbishops had to use. The entire site was only built as a summer vacation place, but there are no bedrooms in the building. It was only built to entertain dinner guests and to get out of the hot sun for a couple of hours in the afternoon. The grounds are amazing and they even had their own private zoo, filled with all sorts of exotic and unusual animals. While we were leaving the water gardens, it started to pour rain again, so we packed up and headed for home.
We took the long road home as we wanted to stop at Hallstatt. It is considered to be one of the prettiest villages in the mountain and lake district. By the time we got there, the rain had really settled in and we didn't get a chance to do the things we would have liked to have done. The view was good, but not quite as spectacular as it could have been, without the rain clouds covering the mountains. It was still beautiful, don't get me wrong, it was just a long drive to not get to get out of the car and spend some time there. We did stop at a Wurstel stand and we tried a local favorite, the Bosna. It was a bratworst on a toasted baguette with onions, ketchup, mustard, and curry seasoning. We ate in the car and continued our journey home. By the time we got there, it was almost bed time for the kids. We were totally exhausted by our wonderful trip. We sent the kids to bed as they sang, "So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye".
Fantastic blog Allynn!! I really enjoyed reading it. You did so well articulating the funny and challenging aspects of family life in such a historic and beautiful place. So glad you are sharing with your family and friends.
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