Lauterbrunnen - Day 33

Wow, what a day we have had today, probably one of the best so far. We got up early because the weather forecast suggested some improvement in the weather. We headed out about 7:45 to catch the train into Interlaken and take a boat ride to Brienz. It was still a little cloudy but you could see the clouds above the low lying stuff were fairly high up. The boat was docked right next to the train station and it is a beauty. It is kind of like the Rottnest Islander except this boat is awesome and not crap. The boat leaves just after 9 and starts to make its way along Lake Brienz. The ride will take about 1hour and 20 minutes to travel the length of the lake (which is about 14km) criss-crossing to various stops along the way. The scenery is mind blowing with mountains either side of the lake. When we get to Brienz our wish was to take a cog wheel train up to the Brienzer Rothorn at an altitude of 7,700ft and has views over the mountains and Lake Brienz. This ride does not fall into our pass so we will need to pay extra. When we get to the ticket counter it is about 200 Swiss Francs to go up ($240 AUD). From where we are standing it’s pretty obvious that the clouds will impede our view so we ask the girl if it is cloudy up there. She says it is but there could be a chance that could change. This is something we really wanted to do but we are concerned about paying $240 and then get up there and see a blanket of white, a bit like yesterday. I have a look at the timetable and the boat is returning back to Interlaken in 10 minutes and if we don't get on it it's a 2 hour wait for the next one so we need to make a decision so we decide to bail. We get back on the boat looking up at the cloud wandering if we made the right decision as well as being a bit pissed off with the clouds. The boat starts its journey back and the ride back is even better than the ride there because all of the low lying cloud has gone and it is now a beautiful day. We decide when the boat returns we will go up to the Schynige Platte which is a cog wheel train that takes us to an altitude similar to Brienz. On the map it looks close to the lake so we hope this will be a good substitute for Brienz and the advantage is, this is covered with our pass. We board the train and this thing is tiny. It's a bit like a novelty train you'd see at Whiteman Park. This thing starts going and it's barely nudging 10 km/h. It chugs its way up the hill and this thing is getting steeper and steeper and before too long we have incredible views over Interlaken and both Lake Brienz and Lake Thun. It's hard to describe how incredible the views are and how close these trains travel to the edges of the mountains. It gets to the top and we can see the Eiger and the Jungfrau and all the way down into the Lauterbrunnen valley. When the train stops we don't get out because there is bugger all to do at the top and we ain't waiting an hour to get the next train down so we stay on and head straight back down. This was a real highlight and we are buzzing after that. When we get to the bottom we decide to try the Schilthorn again and we are hopefully after seeing how clear it was up the mountain that maybe it will be clear on the Schilthorn. We get back to Lauterbrunnen around 3:30 and there is a cable car going up at 4pm. We quickly do some shopping and take it back to the apartment before racing down to get the 4pm car. This is the same trip as the other day, accept this time we are sharing the large cable car with Mr. Sniffy. This Asian man is on board and he's sniffing at about 35 sniffs a minute. Even worse he came over to where I was standing to take photos and his sniffing was driving me bonkers. So, I decide to sniff every time he sniffed to try and give him a subtle hint but clearly he was a pro and I couldn't sniff at the rate he was sniffing so I gave up. In the end I just had to block my ears. After the cable car ride and then the train ride to Murren we decide we had to put a gap between us and Mr Sniffy. The walk from the train station to the Schilthorn cable car is about 10 minutes, so we legged it. Mr Sniffy was off taking photos so we managed to get a pretty good gap on him. We get to the cable car ticket counter to buy our tickets and we get told the cable car is leaving in 10 minutes and it's the last cable car for today so we are pretty stoked we managed to get it. This is another of those really big cable cars and we are just hoping that Mr. sniffy has got caught up with his camera because we can't bear the thought of another second with this guy. We are watching the clock and watching the cable car driver and YES......Mr. Sniffy hasn't made it. We thought we were in the clear until we realised we were sharing the cable car with Mr. Sniffy’s wife........Mrs Coughy! This Asian woman was coughing at about 28 coughs a minute and it was one of those really annoying clearing the phlegm from your throat type coughs and not once did she stick her hand to her mouth! We are now convinced we are going to wake up tomorrow with some disgusting mad cow type disease or something. We reach what we think is the top but we are informed we still have another cable car to go. The next cable car not only went up but also crossed over to the Schilthorn peak. We arrive to sound of the James Bond theme song as this was the mountain that the film On His Majesty’s Secret Service was filmed. We have an amazing view as the only cloud around is way too high to interfere. The kids see some snow and they are extremely excited so they start playing in it. There are a few activities to do inside the building that sits on top of the peak so we have a go at those too before we have to catch the last cable car down at 6 o’clock. We get to the cable car and we are waiting for it to go and it’s starting to fill up with people when all of a sudden......sorry, I have just been informed that this bit is not allowed in the blog..........by strict orders from Kristine. We make our way home and eventually arrive back at the apartment sometime after 7. Tonight we are eating in again and we look forward to tomorrow when we get to see the Jungfraujoch.

The boat to Brienz

Kris and I on the back of the boat

The view across Lake Brienz

 

The train that took us up the Schynige Platte

The view back down over Interlaken and Lake Thun

The kids playing in the snow on top of the Schilthorn

The view from the Schilthorn back down to the first cable car station

 

Lauterbrunnen - Day 32

This morning we get up and it is extremely overcast again. We have decided to leave the big ticket items, the Jungfraujoch (the Eiger mountain area), the Scilthorn (The 007 James Bond Mountain) and the Lake Breinz boat cruise for Wednesday and Thursday because it would be pointless doing them with this amount of cloud around. We are hoping the weather forecasters have got it right when they suggest the next 2 days may be fine. So with this in mind we decide to do a hike to the Trummelbach falls. This involves a walk along the Lauterbrunnen Valley following the river to the falls. The track is stunning and it makes for a fantastic walk. The one thing that Switzerland does well is its signage. They have so many walking trails, most of them in the mountains and in the middle of nowhere, but there will always be a post with half a dozen signs on it telling you exactly where to go and approximately how long it will take to get there in walking time. This is great, but they are not much good if you don’t read them which is exactly what happened to us. Instead of following the track we ended up on the main road through the valley with buses and heavy vehicles passing and the fence line ran about a foot from the road on both sides. Apart from a couple of close calls we made it to the falls in one piece. The Trummelbach Falls are a glacier waterfall inside the mountain and the only waterfall inside a mountain that is accessible in Europe. They basically drain the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau mountains, three of the largest mountains in the Jungfrau area. When we enter you have an option of taking steps up to the falls or taking the tunnel lift. We opted for the tunnel lift. 20,000 litres of water per second flows through the falls and to see it is amazing. There are tunnels all over the joint that allow you access to all different areas of the falls and it was a really amazing experience. Kris and Tyler chose to take the lift down while Mia and I decided to walk the stairs. By the time we got out the rain had set in but with our new rain jackets we were sweet and the walk back was made easier due to the fact we read the signs a little better than on the way in. When we got back we had a quick bite to eat and headed back out to do the same journey as yesterday, up to Mannlichen and over to Grinderwald but this time we wanted to go further and go to First a mountain that stood 7112ft high and accessible by cable car. When we get there it has fined up a bit but there is still clouds low enough that we think will ruin our trip. So off we go again in our 6 seater cable car and ascend into the clouds....again. The clouds are so thick up here all I can see is Kris and the kids! We can’t see the cable car in front of us or behind us and it is quite eerie. The cable car takes about half an hour and continues to rise but when we hit the top the cloud has not budged. It is really disappointing that all we see is....well, whatever is 2 foot in front of us and we have to turn around and go back. When we get back to Grinderwald we have missed the last cable car home so we have to take the same route as yesterday which is via Klein Scheidegg on the cog wheel train. By the time we pull into Lauterbrunnen train station it is 6:25 and the Coop supermarket shuts at 6:30. We make a mad dash and get there just before it closes and by so food for dinner. The kids are putting on another Master Chef for us tonight so we stock up and head back to the apartment.

Hiking to the Trummelbach Falls

 

Some of the scenery along the way

Hiking back from the Trummelbach Falls

Yep.....that sign was pretty clear!

 

The view across to the Mannlichen cable car station

I think my snoring has got out of control and Kristine is making a decision....

The kids having a play up at Mannlichen

The cable car down to Grinderwald

 

The train coming back down the mountain into Wengen

Mmmmm, an M&T special.

 

 

Lauterbrunnen - Day 31

Our first morning in Lauterbrunnen starts with Tyler and I running a reconnaissance mission down to the Coop supermarket, bakery and ATM while Kris and Mia take their time getting ready. By the time we get back it starts to rain and there is a lot of low lying cloud. We head back out and grab some groceries and we also visit the local hiking shop to get Kris and I a decent rain jacket each because we are going to look ridiculous running around the alps with cheap Paris raincoats. We also got some great advise from the hotel owner last night about buying a Jungfraubahnen pass (click to see map - everything in red is covered by the pass) that allows us access to about 80% of the local trains, mountain cog wheel trains and cable cars in the Jungfrau region. It was bloody expensive but doing all the things we want to do and paying every time to do it will end up costing us a lot more. Lauterbrunnen sits in a valley between two sets of huge mountain ranges and we are keen to explore. So with our passes in our hands we walk about 50 meters to the first of the cable car stations that will take us to Murren which is higher up behind Lauterbrunnen. This is a large cable car that fits about 50 people (all though there is only a few of us on it) and takes us to an altitude of 4,885ft before we jump on this little train carriage that takes us along the edge of the mountain for about 5km to Murren and increasing in altitude to 5400ft. From here we can catch another cable car to the Schilthorn which is 9710ft in altitude. Unfortunately today the weather is very cloudy and when we reach Murren there is not a lot to see. Apart from the small town itself, everything is immersed in cloud. We are a bit disappointed so we have a look around and get back on the train and head back to Lauterbrunnen. Once back at Lauterbrunnen we jump on a cog wheel train across the road from the cable car station and head up the other side of the valley. We decide to get off at Wengen which is a town that sits at an altitude of 4180ft and get on another cable car to a spot called Mannlichen at 7300ft. The cable car arrives and it is similar to the one we went on to Murren and it starts to go up and this one is steep. As its going up though it goes straight into cloud and from about the half way point all we could see was white. We get to the top and we literally cannot see more than 10 feet in front of us.  We follow a path to another cable car station and we could not see a thing. It was so cloudy and we had no idea how far away the station was but as it turned out it was only about 100m away. This station had the little 4 person cable cars which we jump on and this takes us for miles, a trip that lasted about 30 minutes to a place called Grindelwald back down to an altitude of 3100ft. From here we jump on another cog wheel train that takes us for another half an hour back up to a station called Klein Scheidegg and back to an altitude of 6770ft. This is the main stop before continuing on to the Jungfraujoch or as its called around here, "The Top of Europe". Due to the poor visibility we Did not go up. Our pass gives us as much access as we want to all the trains but we only get access to the Jungfraujoch once, so we save that for another day. We hang around here for a little while and we get a hot chocolate and apple strudel because it has been cold and damp most of the day. While we are sitting in the restaurant Tyler says he need to go to the toilet. So do I, so we head downstairs and the men's toilet has a sign on it. It's in German so I've got no idea what it says but I'm assuming it may be something to do with cleaning. I check inside on no one is in there so I assume it's ok. I take up a position at the urinal and Tyler heads to the stall (number 2). So I'm standing there taking a leak and someone enters the toilet. I don't look up because I don't really car and then I start hearing this "squirt, squirt" sound like someone is spraying a squirt bottle. I look around and there is this woman cleaning the around me. Now I'm standing there with my snag out half way through my wee and she hasn't battered an eyelid. So I continue on and she continues on and when I've finished she heads over to where I was standing and "squirt, squirt", starts cleaning where I'd been! So I'm washing my hands and Tyler comes out and she heads in there to squirt, squirt where he'd been! So Tyler and me high tailed it out of there quick smart laughing our heads off. We leave the restaurant and get back on another cog wheel train that takes us back to Lauterbrunnen via Wengen. By now its starting to get late so when we get back and head straight for the Coop for some groceries because tonight we are eating in. We dump the groceries at the apartment and go for a wander to the waterfall that sits pretty much behind our apartment. This waterfall is amazing. It drops 290m into Lauterbrunnen from the mountain above down a sheer rock face. There is a track that takes you up the cliff face about 40m and you can stand behind the waterfall, it's incredible! When we get back to the apartment Mia makes up a menu. Tyler and Mia have decided to be our Master Chefs tonight and the dress up and serve our beer and wine and decorate the plates. It was great and Kris and I just sat back and enjoyed the attention. We sit and cha and have a good old laugh and we are hope tomorrow's weather will improve, we doubt it though.

In the cable car on our way to Murren

The kids are rugged up, its cold up here today

 

Our cable car from Mannlichen to Grinderwald

Lauterbrunnen with its famous waterfall

Lauterbrunnen Valley with the waterfall to the right, Murren top right, the Eiger back left and Wengen and Mannlichen to the left.

 

The kids getting dinner ready in their own Master Chef style

The M and T's menu

 

 

Salzburg -Lauterbrunnen - Day 30

Today we leave Salzburg for Lauterbrunnen and with most of the packing done last night it's a fairly low stress morning. We leave our apartment around 8:45 and decide to walk to the train station. The taxi drive from the train station to our apartment when we arrived took 20 minutes and cost us €10. The walk to the train station ends up only taking us 20 minutes so figure that one out! Last night when I checked the tickets and our seat reservation, something wasn't adding up. The seat numbers didn't quite match the seating plan I had printed off and highlighted. We check our tickets and realize that both the tickets and the seating reservations say "First Class". This is weird because this is one of our longest journeys (9 hours) and it is also one of the cheaper fares. In actual fact the kids tickets have €0.00 printed on them so it looks like they were free. We make our way to our platform and the train arrives on time. We jump on the carriage with all the posh people and make our way to our seats and a business type gent is occupying all 4 of our seats. Here we go, I'm thinking and I excuse myself half expecting a debate to start and he says "Am I in your seat"? That's the signal that lets me know I have the correct seats and I can tell him to get out. We sit down but something still doesn't feel right. Along comes the ticket inspector to check our tickets. The tickets have been printed from my home computer so they are just 4 sheets of A4 paper. He starts looking at them quizzically and he says in his little Austrian accent "you are one ticket short, can I please see identification". Kris and I look at each other a bit stressed at this point so I grab the tickets back off him but as it turned out, two of the tickets were just sort of stuck together. I give the, back to him and he says "Agh, thank you, have a nice day" and continues on. I am not sure what I did when I booked these tickets but it seems we got a pretty good deal. The weather is still very overcast and there is a lot of low lying cloud so the stretch from Salzburg to Innsbruck is relatively boring. However, once we leave Innsbruck the clouds are much higher and the train is cutting a path through soaring mountains. The views are insane and the train also runs along a river where we can see a bunch of white water rafters. The train we are on is called the RailJet but I reckon it should be called the RailSnail because its only averaging about 100km/h. Its actually quite nice though because it gives you time to look around and things aren't buzzing by at a rate of knots. The only thing that ruined it was this screaming child that just wouldn't shut up. It pretty much screamed the entire time it was on the train which was about 4 hours, even the kids were getting frustrated and they had their headphones on full blast! The thought of jumping off the train did come to mind but it probably wasn't go fast enough to kill me. The train arrives at Zurich for the first of our three connecting trains for today. We have 12 minutes to change trains which is the most we will get today. We have become experts at changing trains and we know exactly what to do. We make our way to the train doors 10 minutes before arrival. If you don't, you well get caught in the crowd of people trying to get off and waste precious minutes. When the train stops you open the door, jump off and look both ways to see which way is the exit. Once you know which way to go you walk fast or run, depending on how many minutes the change over is. Once you get to the end of the platform you look at the big electronic board and try and work out which train is yours and which platform it's on. Once this has been worked out you look and around for the platform and get there as quick as you can. This changeover is a fairly easy one and we make our connecting train with heaps of time to spare. The next leg was only 1 hour long where we changeover again in Bern. This proves a little more hectic as we only have 6 minutes to change over and the train has arrived 2 minutes late. We jump off the train and run like hell to the board to check the platform number. We spot the platform number and run like hell again. We manage to get on as the doors were beeping to shut. That was close. The next leg is only 1 hour again to Interlaken. This ride from Bern to interlaken is a cracker. It hugs lake Thun all the way to Interlaken and the scenery is incredible. The Interlaken station is a lot smaller and the train arrives a little bit early so we have heaps of time to make the train to Lauterbrunnen. This is also an amazing ride with more incredible scenery. We arrive in Lauterbrunnen around 6pm and we are tired. It's been a long day and we have been moving since 8:45. We have a short work up the hill to the Oberland Hotel where we are met by the owner. She is lovely and shows us to our apartment which is in the next building alongside the hotel. The apartment is huge and has a large balcony overlooking the main street. Being a Sunday night, everything is shut including the local Coop supermarket so we make a reservation in the hotel restaurant. We showered up and headed down to the restaurant for some very cheesy Swiss food. The food was lovely but one of the memories we have of Switzerland is that everything here is expensive and our dinner was no exception. As lovely as it was, we will be having dinner on the balcony tomorrow night!

Waiting for the train to Zurich

The kids watching a movie on the train

 

The amazing views from the train

I remember back in the 1994 Winter Olympics, I skied that mountain....

Not quite Belgium beer but hey, its beer!

 

 

Salzburg – Day 29

It was an early wake up this morning as we set the alarm for 5am to get up and watch the footy, The mighty Hawks were taking on Freo in the GF. We set up the laptop on the coffee table in our apartment and sat back to watch the Hawks get over Freo by 15 points to grab their 11^th premiership. What a win and soon as the siren went we were on the internet to get our official 2013 premiers merchandise. The telecast finished around 10am so we went into the old town to get some groceries. After that we came back to the apartment for lunch and to get ready to go on our tour to the ice caves. We walked directly to the coach this time which took us 10 minutes rather than do the 1 hour round trip. We jump on board and Tyler and Mia secure us seats at the front again and we take the ½ hour bus ride to the Ice Cave car park. It was another hairy ride up the side of a mountain with amazing views. Once off the bus we then have a 15 minute walk to the cable car and the walk is up hill and also on the side of a mountain. We get to the cable car and this is the steepest cable car in Austria. Again we get some amazing views as this thing climbs higher and higher. Once off the cable car we have another 15 minute walk, again up hill and this time we are even closer to the edge of the mountain. We get to the entrance of the cave and a tour guide is waiting. We join a large group of people and we enter the cave. Just before we enter the tour guide gives some people a lantern. Its a little gas type lantern with a flame similar to a candle. I was one of the people given one and this was to light the way for about 10 people. The guide opens the doors to the cave and we enter and we get this howling, freezing cold breeze the hits us but once inside there is no wind. It is very cold though. We start the 700 step climb up the cave and it is amazing. There are natural ice sculptures dropping from the ceiling of the cave and the ice on the floor slopes at about 70 degrees. We make our way through the cave continuing to see some amazing things and then we make the 700 step descent. We exit the cave and make our way back down to the cable car stop where there is a restaurant. We stop for a hot chocolate before our tour guide rounds us up and gets us back on the cable car and back down the hill to the bus. The tour guide was a funny chap, he was a German who wore lederhosen and a funny Austrian style alpine hat. He provided some entertaining dialogue on the bus and it made for a good afternoon. We arrived back in Salzburg just after 6pm and we headed back to the apartment to shower up and back down to the Italian restaurant below our apartment. We had a magnificent last dinner that topped a fantastic day. Tomorrow we leave for Switzerland.

Watching the footy....CARN HAWKERS!!!

You little beauty hawkers

 

Walking to the Ice Cave

Views on the walk up

More views

 

The little gas lamp we used inside the Ice Cave

 

 

Salzburg - Day 28

This morning we look out the window and the weather is disgusting. Normally we have views of the mountains and views over the Old Town to the Castle. This morning though the views and pretty much just of a blanket of fog and it’s also raining. This affects our motivation so we spend most of the morning just ginning around. We eventually get moving just after 10:30 and we head into the Old Town to enquire about posting some crap souvenirs home. We get some good help from the lady in the post office so we turn around and head home to pack a box. After we managed to fill the box with nearly 10kg of crap souvenirs, we head back down the post office to off load it. We then go over the road to the tourist office to book a tour for tomorrow. Yesterday’s tour was so good we are hopeful that a tour to the ice caves in Werfen just out of Salzburg will be equally as good. After that we head around the corner to catch a local bus to Hellbrunn which is about 15 minutes away to see “The Trick Fountains”. It’s basically a palace and gardens that an Archbishop built 400 years ago and the gardens have all these fountains and when he invited guests around they would unexpectedly get squirted with water from the fountains. A guide took everyone around and he would push some leavers and people would get wet.........probably wasn’t one of the best things we’ve ever seen and I could only describe it as cute. Not sure cute is what we’re looking for on this holiday though! The weather is still ordinary and it just won’t stop raining. We decide to bail and head back to the bus stop. When we get back to the city centre we start heading back to the apartment. Being cold and wet we think about stopping in for a coffee somewhere so we walk into this cafe/bar that’s just down the road from our apartment on the river. We always see people sitting outside on the balcony and it looks nice. Because it’s raining, there are only 2 tables under shelter which people are sitting at so we had to go inside. We walk in and there is no one in there and the place stinks like your nanna’s old lounge room. Kris and I look at each other and we turn around and bail. I might have mentioned this before but we really don’t like Salzburg. This place is as boring as bat shit. The only good things we’ve seen since being in Salzburg so far have all been in Germany! Tonight we are going back to the restaurant below our apartment which is something to look forward to. So, tomorrow we will get up early to watch the footy on the iPad before heading off to do our tour, but to be honest, once we have done that we will be glad to pack our bags and get the hell out of this joint.

*Have been experiencing issues with the WiFi and can't upload all posts or photo's at the moment*

Salzburg - Day 27

There are roadworks in progress beneath our apartment window and this morning we were woken at 4:30am by road workers delivering major machinery to the street. The noise was so load that it was vibrating the apartment. It baffles me that 2:30pm does not seem to be an appropriate time for a restaurant or brewery to be open for lunch but 4:30 in the morning is the perfect time to deliver heavy machinery to a residential street! Anyway, we eventually get out of bed at 6:30 because we need to be at a meeting spot on the other side of the old town at 8:15am for our tour and the weather has turned feral. It is very cloudy and raining. We are unsure of how long it will take to walk to the meeting point so we set out at 7:30. We arrive about 20 minutes early and wait. The small 8 seater shuttle bus arrives on time and the driver forgets to put the handbrake on. While we were getting in the bus it starts to roll back down the slope. I alert the driver then have to run behind the bus to try and stop it from rolling back out onto the street. The driver eventually gets the handbrake on and any potential tragedy is averted. We get moving and when we eventually get to the coach at around 8:30 we realize that we have pretty much gone in a circle and we're about 5 minutes walk from our apartment. We have just spent an hour getting to the coach which was 5 minutes away. We jump on the coach and Tyler secures us front row seats so we are pretty stoked. The coach starts moving just before 9am and our tour guide, Walter, is fantastic cracking very dry one liner jokes. The coach starts making its way to Kehlsteinhaus or the Eagles Nest and this was something we wanted to do when we visited Munich 2 years ago but due to circumstances out of our control never got the opportunity. We drive through Salzburg and as soon as we hit the German border, which is about 20 minutes in, the mountains just jump out at you and the scenery becomes amazing. We start the ascent up the Obersalzberg mountain side in the coach until we hit the change over where every needs to get out of the coach and change to smaller buses. These buses then continue the climb up the mountain and the drive is hairy. We drive close to the edge of the mountain with sheer drops off the edge of the road. The views are incredible and the drive up is amazing. When we reach the top we jump off the bus and take the walk through the tunnel to the famous brass elevator that pops us out on top of the mountain inside Kehlsteinhaus. The elevator is in its original condition to how it was when Hitler had it installed. The views on top are unbelievable and we are lucky because the weather has held off long enough for us to get pics. We climb up to where a cross was installed in 1951 and by the time we start the walk back down the weather has closed in and the views are gone. It was freezing up there too. This was truly an amazing experience and if the rest of the tour is crap then it was worth it just to see this. We do it all again in reverse and make our way back down to the coach. The clouds have cleared enough to allow for amazing views on the way down to our coach. We continue on to Berchtesgaden for lunch. Berchtesgaden is a small village at the base of the Obersalzberg Mountain and it is very pretty. We have a bite to eat and a look around before boarding our coach again for the short drive to the Salt Mine tour. When we enter the salt mine everyone has to put on overalls before jumping on this little train that takes us through a very small and long tunnel into the underground mine. It was a fantastic ride and the kids loved it. We jump off the train and then we have to slide down this very long and steep wooden slide. Kris and I and the kids are all linked together as we zoom down this slide to the bottom. We continue on walking through the mine with a German guide and we come to anther wooden slide. At the bottom of the slide was a little boat ride across an underwater lake and as we are crossing they put on this awesome light show. We take a lift back up the mine and back on the little train to take us out. It was a fantastic tour and the kids have had a great time. The coach comes to collect us to take us to Konigssee. Konigssee is a little town on a huge lake with mountains either side. Unfortunately the weather has become worse and the rain is as persistent as ever. We go for a half hour walk along the lake before turning back to get on the coach again. The coach takes us back to Berchtesgaden for afternoon tea before continuing on back to Salzburg. We arrive back a Salzburg around 6 o'clock and it has been an amazing day. It was a real adventure and a whole lot of fun today and we make the 5 minute walk home feeling really good. On the way home we notice that the Italian restaurant/Pizzeria is open so Kris ducks in and makes a reservation. We head upstairs to our apartment to shower and change and then back downstairs again at 7:30 for dinner. The restaurant is tiny and only seats about 15 people but the owner is Italian who doesn't speak much English and his daughter is waiting tables. The food is fantastic and the best pizza we have had on the holiday so far. We spend a while there before booking a reservation for tomorrow night and heading back upstairs to call it a night.

*Have been experiencing issues with the WiFi and can't upload all posts or photo's at the moment*

 

Entering the tunnel to the lift to take us up to the Eagles Nest

The view on top of the mountain at the Eagles Nest

At the cross

Kehlsteinhaus or The Eagles Nest

Exiting the lift and back out the tunnel

 

Thunder Birds are GO!!! Actually, we are going down the salt mine

 

***FREAKAZOID***

This freak was stealing money from the fountain while his freakazoid Mum or sister or girlfriend (maybe all three) looked on (bottom right)

Salzburg –Day 26

It is a beautiful day today, clear skies and a maximum of 23 degrees is forecast. Our first full day in Salzburg starts with us getting organized and heading into the old town to visit the tourist office for advice. After wandering around yesterday afternoon it was clear to us that Salzburg City itself had very little to offer in the way of things to do (unless you like wandering through museum after museum) so we want to go further out to see some sights. We enter the tourist office and there are two "delightful" ladies there ready to assist us. In fact, they are so delightful I suspect they may be French! We get zero help from these two moles and we are pretty much given brochures and told to read them. We head outside trying to work out what we want to do for the next four days and try and get something from these brochures. We decide we want to do the Bavarian mountains, the salt mines and Eagle's Nest tour which all can be done on one day together as a "super saver" tour. We also want to ask about doing the Sound of Music tour which can be done on another day. We can’t quite work out the pricing but we go back into the tourist centre to book the tour and we get slugged €300 ($430 AUD) for the "super saver" tour! I'm starting to think the lady thought I had said I wanted to buy land in the Bavarian mountains and not just look at them. We hold off on the Sound of music tour for the time being because we don't want to fork out another mortgage payment only to find the first tour was rubbish. We leave the tourist centre feeling like we have just been rogered up the back passage and make our way to the funicular that will take us up to the Salzburg Fortress. The lovely gentleman that we purchase our tickets from (I think he was French too) gives us similar advice to the tourist centre (none) and leaves us to our own devices to find out why we forked out more money in Salzburg. We make our way into the funicular carriage for the ride to the Fortress. The tourists here are wonderful too (also French) as they push and shove their way into you without a sorry or an excuse me. We get to the top and the signage is non-existent so we fumble our way around the castle not sure if there is anything on offer to do. The view up here is amazing though and Salzburg looks stunning from this angle with it being surrounded by mountains. The Fortress tour was a bit of a dud though and we bail deciding not to take the funicular back down the hill but instead walk through the gardens that sit high above Salzburg city which will take us back to the apartment via the Augustiner Brewery. The walk through the gardens takes about 45 minutes and when we get to the brewery its 2:30 and we are starving. We get to the door and.......it's shut! The brewery doesn't open until 3pm. Bloody hell!!! We decide to go to a little pizzeria just next to our apartment about 50m away and.......its shut!!! It closes at 2:30 and doesn't open again until 5:30. Ok, we know there's a little café around the corner so we head there.........they don't sell food........FFFFFFAR OUT! We go back to the apartment where the kids snack a little while we wait for 3pm to come around. When it hits 3pm we make our way up the street to the Augustiner Brewery for something to eat and a drink. The brewery is huge with a massive beer garden, an upstairs food stall type set up and a beer hall. Everyone seems to be in the garden so we go upstairs to get some food before coming back down to find a table in the beer garden. I get myself a beer but they don't sell wine so Kris and the kids have a soft drink. The food was disgusting, served on paper plates with throw away wooden knives and forks (which broke after first use). We are looking around not sure why this place has been given good reviews on Trip advisor because all we can see is a crap beer garden with no views and about 200 fat old Austrians occupying it. To be honest, Salzburg is not really doing it for us. To put it plainly, Salzburg is........ummm..........a SHITHOLE! We find the people here to be rude, the old town is ugly, the food is shite and the only thing it has going for it is the views surrounding the city. Supermarkets resemble 7/11s (and we’ve only found two of them) and are only open until 7:30. Fruit and veggie shops do not exist and the place closes on weekends from 2pm on Saturday (so the owners of our apartment told us). We are really disappointed with Salzburg and it was a place we were so looking forward to. We head back to the apartment which thankfully is awesome and we take a bit of a break. Tomorrow will be a long day, we need to be at the bus pick up point at 8:15 and we won't return until 6pm. We need to get to the supermarket so we can buy some food to take with us on the tour so we head back out. As we pass the pizzeria downstairs we thought we'd stop in and make a reservation for tonight. Kris opens the door and no one is in there except a lady so Kris asks "are you open?" "No we are shut today" she says. Of course, silly us, its Wednesday in a major tourist city, why in the hell would they be open! We keep walking gob smacked by this joint so we take the scenic detour through the Mirabell Gardens (major tourist attraction in Salzburg) and we see a lovely big fountain obviously used as a wishing well type fountain. The reason it was obvious was because there was this bum wading around in his jocks collecting up all the coins, alrighty then. We continue walking and the place is dead, nothing is happening. A lot of restaurants are either shut or virtually empty. At this point Salzburg is making Perth look super exciting! We head home and decide to eat in all the while hoping that tomorrow’s tour will be a good one.

Views from the Fortress

Views from the Fortress

Mia working the pupped in the fortress

Tyler working the pupped in the fortress

Kris and I competing for the biggest nerd award.....I think I won!

Washing down the delicious meal from Augustiner Brewery

Wurzburg-Salzburg - Day 25

It's a stunning morning in Wurzburg, not a cloud in the sky as we head downstairs to have breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The available food looks more like lunch than breakfast with an assortment of meats, cheeses, pickles etc. We opt for the crunchy chocolate cereal and the fruit and yogurt. The restaurant is very upper class with nice classy coffee cups, fancy table cloths and some soft Mozartsy type music in the background. That is until Tyler breaks the soft tunes by letting one rip! I look at Tyler trying to be all serious and say "TYLER, WHAT'S THAT YOU???" But I couldn't hold it in after looking at Kris who was already in stitches and we spent the next five minutes rolling around in laughter like school kids. It’s now 9am and we don’t have to catch our train until 11am so we leave breakfast and decide to wander around Wurzburg a bit before we check out. Wurzburg is an awesome place and we wish we had another day here to look around a bit more. We grab some fruit for the train ride, head back to the hotel to grab our bags and walk to the train station. We get to the platform and the board says in German something with the number 15 after it. We assume this to be the train is running 15 minutes late. This is not good because we only have 14 minutes between connecting trains in Munich. As it turns out the train ended up being 20 minutes late so we figure we're in strife. We get on board and sign up for the Wi-Fi so we can check the train times and email the bloke at our accommodation in Salzburg. The information on the net confirms we will arrive 20 minutes late so we find a ticket conductor and let her know our situation. She gets on her hand held device and start writing stuff on the back of our ticket. She tells us to board the next train which is only 15 minutes after our original train but we don't have reservations. This means we will have to try and find non reserved seats or we stand. At this point there is not much we can do except hope the train makes up some time. We start pulling in to Munich so we grab our bags (and when we grab our bags we take up some room, 3 suitcases, 2 backpacks and a fully loaded computer case) and head for the door so we can be first out. When the train arrives its 13:25 and our connecting train departs at 13:27. Problem is, we are on platform 23 which is about 200m long, so once we have run that we have to then get to platform 12. We burst out of the gates like Black Caviar and just start running towards the end of the platform. There is no way we are going to make this train. This kids are up front, Mia's only got a plastic bag with grapes in it so she's gone. Tyler's only got the small suitcase so he's not far behind Mia. I've got 1 of the big suitcases; a backpack and the computer bag while Kris is bring up the rear with the other suitcase and a backpack. I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack as we get to the end of the platform and turn in the direction of platform 12. When we get there the train is still there. We jump through the first door which at one point I thought may have been the door to the locomotive, and we make it. We do the mad look around to make sure all the info tells us the train is going to Salzburg. We are all puffing like crazy when we get to our seats. Lucky for us they were only in the next carriage. When we get there, a couple is in our seats but as seasoned travellers we are wise to the "get out of our seats" mode you need to be in. The train ride from Munich to Salzburg is a cracker with views of the mountains. We arrive in Salzburg and jump in a cab to our apartment. When we get there the owner and his wife are there to meet us (normally its someone else that does this but she is unwell). They are both really nice people and they make us feel at home straight away. The apartment is stunning and it is huge. Again there is two bedrooms, one with a king bed and one with a queen bed. The queen bed has the views over Salzburg so we go for that and the kids score the king bed again. We dump our stuff and head straight out to check out the Old Town of Salzburg. We are within walking distance and it is straight along the river. The Old Town of Salzburg is a bit strange, a bit like a rabbit warren. The is a festival on as well that reminds me a bit of the Oktoberfest with a huge beer tent, rides and food stalls and heaps of lederhosen. We want around for a while snacking at the festival before getting some groceries and heading back to the apartment. We decide not go out for dinner as the two days of train travel have worn us out. Salzburg officially welcomes us at around 7 o'clock as they start firing the cannons from the fortress high on the hill which we have an amazing view of from our windows. Then at 8 o'clock the Scroop welcome continues with fireworks just below the fortress.

Mia at brekky

Now this is a fancy pants restaurant...

Me and the kids on the Wurzburg Bridge

A coffee house on the corner of the bridge

Waiting for the train to Munich

300km/h, but if we are going to make our connecting train to Salzburg it better pick up the pace

A view from the train window from Munich to Salzburg

A view from our apartment in Salzburg

 

And a welcome fit for the Scroops.