Day 1: Hallstatt & Salzburg, Austria

The American-Hungarian Couple Go To Austria & Germany 

The night before our trip we were just so overwhelmed with everything that we considered putting it off for another week or two. I had almost constantly done homework for the past week, especially the last two days, trying to get things done so I wouldn’t have as much to do over the trip. I’m expected to do 40-45 hours a week for my classes. And Jeff works hard and late almost every day. We started off tired…

Day 1

            Our first day we drove through Slovenia and into Austria. Our main stop was Lake Hallstatt in Austria. If you want to learn more about the town itself, you can click on the link in the line above.  Crazy how old some of these places really are. We still find it entertaining to drive around Hungary; it’s so much prettier than Idaho, in its own way. No tall mountains, but grass and trees and blossoms everywhere. Every single house is fenced and has it’s own little garden. The fields are huge and don’t have sprinkler pipes everywhere. It’s nice and warm—the weather doesn’t tease—and quiet. Jeff says he won’t mind driving, because he won’t be staring out at countless miles of sagebrush and weeds. I tried to do my reading for college, but I get carsick when I do that. Heck, I get carsick unless I’m asleep or eating. Dumb. I made a list of things to do while we were driving, and I'm actually going to show you that list:

-       Listen to PTI (Pardon the Interruption--some sports information thingie)

-       Skype family when we’re someplace cool!

-       Read Little Women

-       Listen to conference talks

-       Read How Do You Measure Your Life OR Leadership and Self-Deception to Jeff

-       Research towns we’ll be visiting

-       Whistle

-       Load pictures of previous day and label them
- Hold hands

-       Write stories

-       Read school books/articles

-       Write school papers

-       “Questions”

I I don’t think we did any of those…except the whistling. I got Jeff to whistle through the tunnels! Oh—we also held hands and I read Little Women.

Jeff's phone wouldn’t load for awhile, and we started getting texts from T-Mobile; but of course it was Hungarian, so we didn’t know what it was all about. Finally we figured we didn’t get internet service outside of Hungary, and the guessing games began. Road signs and Jeff’s instinct were all we had. (I’ve learned not to ever follow my directional instincts). We passed Croatia, and were in Slovenia for a little bit.

Then we finally saw mountains! It’s been 3 or 4 months since we’ve seen real ones. But they were never anything like these. They were completely covered with black-green and light green trees. The mix was gorgeous. The sturdy, gingerbread-house-like Austrian homes were adorable. We’ve never seen anything so gorgeous—and we thought Hungary was pretty in the spring!

I’d never seen anything like it. It’s exactly what I’d imagined in fairy tales—makes sense that a lot of them were created in this part of the world! I was constantly taking pictures out the window. I don’t know why I kept doing it, it was always disappointing when I looked at what I had captured. They were nothing like the original sight. Ah well. I kept taking them, thanks to Jeff’s constant encouragement. I’m glad he was so optimistic. I wouldn’t have been as willing to drive that far. He certainly seemed to be enjoying himself. He got excited about every tunnel we went through, and couldn’t believe how long they were! We’d pop out of a tunnel every now and then, catch a glimpse of mountainous paradise, then be swallowed up again for another few miles. One of the mountain tunnels was over 6 miles long.

Every few hours we saw an ancient, abandoned, crumbling fortress at the very tip top of a mountain, overlooking everything. It’s incredible what people used to be able to do without machines or technology. It was nice seeing old things on their own, without seeing the new take over. Amazing mountain drives; until the road got incredibly curvy. Then I slept.

We could tell that there was some kind of valley on the other side of the trees, so we stopped at a look-out spot and saw Hallstatt. It’s a little town completely surrounded by mountains (it’s basically built on the side of the mountain), and situated just above a huge lake. Incredible sight. We wound our way down there, to the other side of the lake.

           

We went to the edge of the lake at first, but a group was singing along with a guitar and that bugged Jeff haha. There were also giant flies and tattooed old men with their shirts off. The town was definitely nicer.

We went through some more tunnels to Jeff’s delight, and saw some little waterfalls. Once I found a free bathroom, I agreed to walk around the town. (It was really hazy that day, sorry some of the pictures are kind of "bleh". But just imagine all the green being 5 times as bright!)

This waterfall goes underneath of where we are standing and then flows through the little town's narrow streets and eventually into Lake Hallstatt

First we descended old steps then walked through churches and their graveyards. There was a beautiful view of the lake over the rooftops and the churches—awesome sight.

The graves in the city actually are a part of what make Hallstatt famous. All of the graves here are within the last 100 years or so because the city simply runs out of room, unearths the old graves, keeps the skulls, and displays them in the church to the left. They decorate and date the skull and for 3 EURO you can look at the hundreds of skulls. We spent our trip budget on other things....

HALLSTATT

The city center was cute and fun. I love the building with a red flag on it. They plant a tree right next to the wall, and it just grows up, right against the walls! So cute. We saw it a lot in Austria.

Instead of relying solely on his directional instincts, Jeff bought a large map of Austria. We unfolded it all the way a few times, and it covered both of us as well as the whole dashboard. We definitely looked lost every once in awhile. After Jeff drove for a bit—and I slept—I felt the car stop, and he told me to come outside. We exited the car, got out our cameras and documented the picture-perfect bright green fields and mountains. The temperature was perfect, and no sound of cars whatsoever. The pleasant silence almost seemed abnormal, but it was so refreshing. I could have been happy there the whole trip.

We finally arrived in Salzburg that evening, after lots of circling, wrong roads, and U-turns. Then we went ALL over, searching for our hotel! (Hence the lack of pictures. It was pretty stressful).

Lederhosen--it was a national holiday that day, so lots of people were dressed up

We finally found it--the Snooze Hotel--and were extremely disappointed. I wouldn’t take off my shoes. Jeff said he’d get a disease if he sat down on the chair. Were we just being picky? No.

We didn't look around Salzburg that night, but did get to see a lot of the town trying to find a place to eat. It was a rainy night and we ended up eating at a nice Chinese restaurant. We then headed back to the hotel and I did homework while Jeff researched where to go the next day, booked a hotel, and loaded pictures onto the computer. Next stop, Germany.