Schnitzel, Mozart and The Hapsburg Legacy

Well, time is getting away from me once again and it seems the only way to keep up to date with this blog is to go the picture route! So here it is, short and sweet: my remaining time in the magical land of Austira!

On Saturday night on my way home after hanging out with
Sameer I came back to Stefanplatz for some good ambiance

Beautiful

On Sunday, I met up with Sameer to say goodbye and he also took me to this
iconic Vienna landmark

After that I found my way to the Belvedere so I could finally see Klimt's masterpieces!
Also this picture was taken by a stranger right before I bus load of Asian tourists descended!

Lots of Sphinx's everywhere!

Beautiful view from the window inside

Gardens- can only imagine what it's like in summer!

Other side of the upper Belvedere. The Klimt paintings were awesome

There is a long pathway between the upper and lower Belvedere

Along the way I saw this gem.
Look closer:

Aren't people just great?

Since I was in Austria, I knew I needed to get some Schnitzel. I wandered around awhile and found this place.
Honestly this schnitzel was pretty cheap and not too good. But at least I got the experience!

I then made my way to the Shonbrunn Palace

Outside the Palace. There was a large garden and people were jogging!

Trying to be artsy with the lighting

Night lighting

Selfie- very tired

This was up a big hill behind the Palace. I walked a long way up to this place! 

There was a little cafe up there or something. It was cold. 

Statue

Isn't it beautiful?

I came back to the other side of the palace and was met with the Christmas market in full swing!

There was an adorable group of men singing acappela German Christmas music!

It was so simple and yet the whole crowd (including me) was just enthralled

And then there were other people just standing around drinking

Typical christmas market facade

I got this DELICIOUS thing advertised as scrambled pancakes.
With chocolate sauce and powdered sugar on it

Magestic

Part of the tour I took of the Palace mentioned that there are mozart concerts every night in the Orangerie
So I went to one!

It was REALLY good

Before it started

The next day I killed time walking around the neighborhood- tihs is the hostel I was in

and watching Dr Who in the lobby

Well that's it. My travels have left me sick and school starts tomorrow so I'm off to bed!

The Hills Are Alive!

On Friday night Sameer and I reached Salzburg! The hostel we stayed at was awesome! They play the Sound of Music in the lobby EVERY night! And when we walked past, there were like 10 people gathered around, avidly watching which I thought was cute. I stayed in a girls only room which was filled with blessedly quiet roommates so no complaints from me.

See! Proof!

In the morning, Sameer and I met up early, rented bikes from the hostel and rode around the city. It was unbelievably beautiful!

Me outside some famous garden

Sunrise over the river

Sameer is much better at directions and cycling than I am.
So, I pretty much just followed him around all day.

And made him stop to take pictures of me every two seconds!

Incroyable

Cool building behind me

Look at the reflections!

 We had heard that the fortress  overlooking the city was a must do of Salzburg. So we cycled on over and explored the shops around the old part of town before going up.

Me with the Mozart statue
#music

winter wonderland

Greetings from Salzburg!
See how I was way too excited? :)

I made Sameer come in to this really cool decoration shop! It was just FILLED
with real eggs that had been drained and painted with beautiful designs.
Sameer was bored. 

It's like going down the rabbit hole in there

Easter Eggs!

Christmas Eggs!

Anytime Eggs!

It was unreal 

Eventually, I realized that Sameer was nowhere to be found in this cave of wonders.
He had gone to find a bank.

After that we took the tram up the steep steep slope to the old fortress (castle). 

Panorama view. So beautiful

Awkward cliff selfie

For some context of the little cable car thing we had to go up

The hills!
They really are hills and not mountains around Salzburg

Castle

I'm in Austria! (see the flag?)

Because it's a German speaking country and it was Christmas, there was of course a Christmas Market
inside the fortress courtyard!

Travel Buddies

Who'd have thought that when I met him at the BYU library in 2010 I'd be traveling Austria with him in 2015?

That view

Just to be clear...that's me in the picture

So quaint

After we came down from the fortress, I got a bite to eat at the old city christmas market (guys, I told you, there were a lot of Christmas Markets on this trip!)

It's better to look up

Ta-da!

Chocolate, raspberry, custard, donut thing

 On our cycling we also ran into these gems:

Old church

Food truck festival outside old church

At this point we went to the station and caught a bus into the mountains. We went to a small little town called Saint Gilgans that had cable cars up to the mountaintop!

We were worried when we got there because there was so much fog
 and it didn't look like we would be getting very good views

But then we emerged over the cloud line into an enchanted mountain range 

Does't that look like the Tardis flying out of the midst below us?

What do cable cars and showers have in common? Turns out they are ideal settings for singing!
I belted my heart out on the way up and down to
Sound of Music tunes and Disney classics. Sameer was nice enough to listen to me.

Pretending to be Maria!

Top of the world

I like throwing snow

Magical

I just thought this was a cool angle

It's another world up there

And I finally saw snow for christmas!

Pensive

At the top of the mountain there was this solitary cross that looked quite magestic

Contemplation

It's like Heidi up here

I just couldn't contain my excitement!

Walk down the mountain

The descent

The cable ride down

After getting back to the bottom  of the mountain we were able to catch a bus pretty much immediately which was lucky since we were sort of in the middle of nowhere. We dropped off our bikes and picked up our stuff from the hostel and took the train back to Vienna and parted ways for the evening. 

Overall an AWESOME day. Maybe the highlight of my time in Austria! When I get back to Utah, I want to go to the mountains more and just generally be more outdoors-y. Traveling to amazing places has helped me to realise that I live in a very picturesque area myself and that I need to take advantage of it!