Do you ever make plans and then later wish you wouldn't have? Us, too. As we prepared for bed on Friday night we looked up the train schedule for the next morning's trip to Prague and saw it was a 6 hour ride. When planning this trip from home 6 hours must not have seemed too daunting. It was, though. We decided (after flipping a coin) to forgo our night in Prague (6 hour train there, 4 hour train to our next destination the very next afternoon) and instead head back to Salzburg to the hotel we loved and hit Berchtesgaden. The ride from Munich to Salzburg was only 1.5 hours and the bus from Salzburg to Berchtesgaden was only 45 minutes. Score! It was decided and we went to bed excited about the next day's adventure.
Then, around 4 a.m. the loudest alarm you've ever heard went off in our room. Jackson woke up, yelled something unintelligible (making me think there was an intruder in the room) and freaked out. I rolled over, turned on the lights and stared at him. He was already half dressed and headed for the door. I was still recovering from being awakened from a dead sleep thinking there was an intruder. (This is all hilarious to me now!) It was, of course, a fire alarm. After about 7 minutes of it going off we decided that maybe it wasn't fake and we shouldn't just hang in the room. I dressed and we took the stairs from the 5th floor (with a bum knee that was SCREAMING from these efforts) to get outside. It turns out we were the only guests not already outside. Whoops. :)
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| 4 a.m. fire alarm fun! |
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| German fire trucks look a little different |
It was, of course, a false alarm. The whole ordeal took about an hour and was more annoying than anything else. We went back to sleep for a bit longer than we'd planned and then got on the train for Salzburg.
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| QUIT BEING SO HANDSOME! |
We were able to get to the hotel, drop off luggage and get on the bus in about 20 minutes. You'll never understand quite what an accomplishment that is until you've backpacked in Europe. Trust me, it was amazing.
We decided to have a little picnic once we got to Berchtesgaden (which, by the way, is just a lovely German national park tucked along the Austria border which has mountains, rivers, lakes, ice caves, ski runs, you name it) so we stopped at the neighborhood Lidl grocery store (thank goodness Jackson's cousin works for them so we knew what it was!) to get food.
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| Our visit to Lidl! |
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| The view from our picnic |
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| Mid-bite |
We scored buns, ham, cheese, chips and waters for under €6! That's an incredibly inexpensive lunch in these parts! The view was amazing and our food picks hit the spot! Lovely!
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| Any dam questions?! :) Get it?! |
We then grabbed a final bus into the area of the national park where Lake Königssee was. It was a gorgeous area!
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| Town. |
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| Cute companion |
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| Jackson exploring |
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| I just love trees. |
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| I cannot deal with all the pretty in this photo. |
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| Petefish. |
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| Lake Königssee |
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| JACKSON CHEATING ON MACKENZIE! |
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He is freezing, rocks are cutting his feet and
our backpack just fell in the lake...
SMILE! |
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Recovering from the previous photo
HA!!! |
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| Lovely. |
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| This view did not get old! |
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| Naturally, Jackson wished to continue hiking. |
As you can see, we spent the afternoon hiking around the lake. It was the most beautiful day and the most beautiful place. We would have stayed there forever.
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| Bus stop beauty |
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| hand-crafted sign from a German dude |
Part of the fun was the bus ride to and from Berchtesgaden. The bus drivers here are such characters and the scenery is just amazing. We thoroughly enjoyed the ride back (sitting in the front seat, of course) to Salzburg. We got to the hotel we loved so much to find we'd been again upgraded to a suite and had chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne awaiting us. Guys, I could get used to this treatment! Ha! :) They'd even placed our luggage in our room already. If you're ever in Salzburg do stay at the Pitter Crowne Plaza. We loved it there!
We got cleaned up from hiking and headed to town for dinner. The hotel recommended a different area to explore so we headed that way. They knew what they were talking about yet again. It was a lovely area of shops and restaurants we'd not seen before and really enjoyed.
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| Salzburg's restaurant district |
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| Restaurant district again |
I was tired of German food (sausage, schnitzel) so we opted for Italian! It was a great choice. We dined outside and it was lovely minus the couple smoking next to us.
Note: the Europeans have not gotten the memo that smoking is disgusting. I bet 80% of the people here still smoke. They smoke everywhere, too. Only the trains and hotel rooms we've booked are non-smoking. Everything else is seemingly fair game. I swear it has made it nearly impossible for my lungs to heal from this monster Euro cold I caught.
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| "pizza bread" |
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| TEA!!! ICE!!! |
My iced tea came out with ice and tea and lemons in it. This doesn't seem amazing, but it is. Our entire meal was very good and quite authentic. Jackson's pasta dish was the best tasting pasta I've ever had. The sausage he managed to add didn't impress me, though. ;)
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People kept thinking the trip to Austria was our
trip to Australia so this shirt was funny to us! |
After dinner we walked through old town again to burn off some of the carbs we'd just consumed. It was cooling off so the streets weren't as crowded. It was lovely. We finally decided to stroll back to the Pitter for the evening. Since it had cooled down a trip to the sauna sounded nice so we went to the 6th floor sauna overlooking the alps and enjoyed 15 minutes of heat. It was the perfect way to end an absolutely wonderful day.
As we snuggled into bed Jackson caught the big soccer match everyone here had been excited about and we got to watched the very end. That part was actually worth watching (penalty kicks to win the equivalent of the Super Bowl)!
Once that was over we were officially exhausted and slept like rocks until about 9 a.m. local time (a really big deal for Jackson who never sleeps in)!
This morning we have a quick 2.5 hour trip to Vienna (I'm blogging from the train with wifi- hooray!) and then we are there until our flight Tuesday morning! Jackson's elation at finding a McDonald's at our train station this morning was hilarious to me. It was our first visit to the Golden Arches this trip and while it was pricey (around €20), it was good!
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| Happy meal! |
We hope to do some exploring of the city today and possibly go to the mountains outside the city again tomorrow. It kind of depends on the Euro cold. I'm currently that person on a train coughing her lungs up with people looking terrified of catching what she's got! I hate it, but I will not let a nagging cough ruin my European exploring opportunities!!
