The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music

Arriving by car in Salzburg was a bit different.  Usually when arriving by train it's just a short walk to our hotel.  In this case we stopped shortly before the city to buy a city map and ask for some directions to our hotel.  The attendant tried to help but her poor English made it hard.  Looking at the map though, Sam and thought we had it figured out, but I asked a guy sitting outside and he confirmed the directions to our hotel.  It turned out our hotel was in the old part of town which has restrictions on autos.  I didn't realize this until after driving down the street. Luckily, we were able to get turned around and find a legal place to park.  

While the novelty of it has worn off a bit, having a walking district part of town is quite nice.  Like other cities we've been to, salzburg's walking streets are very cute with many historic buildings and lots of shopping.  There were also some magnificent churches, statues, and fountains.  

We got up early the next day to get to our "Sound of Music" bike tour.  We rushed through what was the best hotel breakfast we've had yet only to look outside to see a downpour.  We decided to postpone the tour till later.  At first we weren't sure we could reschedule for the same day and thought we might have to extend our stay in Salzburg.  After all, this tour was what prompted us to make the stop in Salzburg.  Luckily, we were able to get it scheduled for later in the afternoon.

The rain subsided so the girls went to check out the shops and Sam and went exploring.  Sam and I turned up a little alley that headed up a hill.  And up and up.  Lining the path every 100 yards or so were these religious alters.  And part way up the hill, was a church and also a great view of the city.  We continued on into an urban forest. The path continued to climb, but it was very pleasant and the map said there was lookout and historic building in a kilometer and a half.  The view was quite something even if it was starting to cloud over a bit.  With those clouds came a few drops of rain so we headed back and took a slight shortcut.  The slight drizzle quickly turned into a downpour.  The tree cover protected us at first, but then the rain broke through and we quickly got drenched.  We did some trail-running on the way back and got showered off and into some dry clothes.  We met the girls for lunch at "BioBurgerMeister", an organic style burger place.  The fried chips were pressed and fried fresh.  I had a veggie burger and everyone else had regular burgers and they were all delicious.  

By this time the weather had cleared up again and it looked we'd have nice conditions for the tour.  But conditions change quickly in Salzburg and on our way to the meetup spot it started raining again.  And by the time we got there it was dumping cats and dogs (and probably some chickens and cows). But we had all said we wanted to do it, rain or shine.  So, after getting setup on our bikes we headed off with one other family (a mom and daughter) on our Sound of Music tour.  Our enthusiastic guide was from Ecuador but seemed to know the city well.  This was his summer job while he goes to university.  The tour focused on sites from the movie but was an excellent way to see some other attractions and the city and surrounding area.  We stayed on nice bike paths and there was only one short hill of note, that we all walked up. It was interesting to hear bits of trivia from the movie.  The rain let up briefly until I made a comment on it and then it started raining again for the rest of the tour.  We stopped by a lake midway through.  After noting how wam it was and how wet we already were, Sam decided to jump in.   The mom/daughter were from LA.  It was nice to talk with some native English speakers again.  They had come from Prague, Vienna, and Budapest and we got some good tips for our Prague stay coming next. One tip was to watch the price of bottled water at restaurants.  Many of them charge the equivalent of $10-12 per bottle.  They said they $70 of water on their bill.  Otherwise they really enjoyed it and recommended the Segway scooter tour.  Sam and the daughter hit it off and chatted for much of the tour.  She just graduated HS and will be heading off to Washington university and will be playing soccer there.  I think it was nice for Sam to have someone else besides his family to chat with.  Despite the rain we all really enjoyed the tour.  I would definitely recommend it even if you're not a big fan of the movie.

The next day it was up early again (for vacation that is) to get a quick hotel breakfast and catch the long train trip to Prague.

Trying to Spot Our Train

It's always a little sad when it's time to leave one of our tour destinations. It seems that just as we're getting comfortable, it's time to go.  We'd enjoyed our stay in Rome but we were also excited to see Florence and taking the high speed train would be fun as well.  Of course we had to get to the train first.  With all our gear, we decided to take to take the city bus to the main train station.  After a short ride, we arrived at the main station well before our train.  We went inside, and like we usually do, looked on the departure screen for our train to figure out which platform it would depart from.  We were quite perplexed to not see our train, or any train to Florence, listed.  We got in the line. For the info counter.  The line was moving slowly and we were getting nervous.  I saw a guy in an official looking vest walk buy so I asked him where to catch our train.  His English was not so good but I think he said to stay in line.  After another couple minutes in line, something didn't seem right. I saw a lady in the official looking vest answering questions for someone and decided to check with her.  Uh oh!!  We were at the wrong station!  She told we could take regional train to the correct station and could still make it on time.  So, we rushed down to regional train platform.  Luckily, regional trains around Rome, like much of Europe, run frequently and one arrived in five minutes.  It was a nerve-wracking ride, not knowing how long exactly it would take but knowing our train to Florence would not wait.  We got to the station with about ten minutes to spare.  However, we still had to get to the right platform, which in a big station can be quite trek.  As it turns out, we there with five minutes to spare and we could finally breath a sigh of relief.  We were pleased that the rest of our journey to Florence went smoothly.

I'm not sure if we could've taken the next train to Florence if we had missed our scheduled one.  That's probably something to look into for future reference. 

Overall, it was great to see Rome and some of its amazing sites.  There is so much more to see there and in some of neighboring regions.  As the shuttle driver who took us from the airport to our apartment said, "I've lived here my whole life and I'm still discovering new places."  That said, it's not the most relaxing city.  The traffic is a bit annoying.  The narrow alley-ways seem like they should be auto restricted like many other European cities do.   We did have some good pizza and the bread wasn't half-bad either (though I preferred the bred in France).  I don't recall seeing a lot of diversity in the cuisine - I saw lots of pizza and pasta and Italian food.  And some good wine!  

 

Visiting the Vatican

Besides the ancient ruins, the other grand site to see while in Rome is the Vatican.  So we walked the kilometer or two across the river and got our place in the long line to go inside St. Peter's Bascilica.  Luckily it moved fairly quickly and after only 30 minutes we made it into the largest church on earth.  The church itself was very impressive as was the artwork  including works by Michaelangelo and other famous Italian greats.  Wanting to respect the dress code we all wore more clothing.  with much protest, sam even wore pants.  as it turned out we didn't really have to.  It appeared it was just short shorts that were off limits.  On a hot day like it was that would've been good to know.   After seeing the inside, we went to the top of the dome.   You can take the stairs the whole way or take lift part way.  Being so hot, we opted for the lift.  The lift takes you to a level where you can go inside the dome on a walkway lining the base of the actual dome and looking down into the church.  It's a cool view but at first I thought that was it and was a bit disappointed.  But as we were walking through a hallway back out we turned and headed up the stairs inside the dome wall towards the top lookout.  It was quite a climb and as the walls started to slope more it became more awkward to walk.  Our Rome guidebook says the view is overrated but I  thought was quite impressive.  The crowds made it somewhat awkward to get around but I thought it was an impressive 360 degree view.  With no admissions and only a modest lift fee, this was a real deal for seeing such a site.  It takes a bit of patience with the heat and crowds though.

The Colosseum at Night

Picking up from my last blog post, after getting to our destination restaurant and finding it closed, we decided to go a different route by Ancient Rome and find a place to eat there.  Walking in a city like Rome that has such history is full of interesting surprises.  Like the building whose ground floor was way down below sidewalk level.  Looking down we could see a big party of some kind.  We later learned that the lower the buildings were, the older it was likely to be.  Most of Rome has been built up over the centuries making it seem flatter than it actually is/was.  We ended up eating at a place near the colosseum.  It was a cute little place with decent tho not spectacular food. I had a nice glass of red wine to go with my overpriced Lasagna.  

     After dinner we headed over to the Colosseum which was all lit up and quite spectacular.  We continued past the forum with all the ruins and then past other impressive buildings.  At the end of our long walk, we capped it off with some of Rome's best gelato, home-made in a little shop near our apartment.  Yum-yum!

Making our own Walking Tour

On our first full day in Rome we decided to head out on our own walking tour.  We picked out the Pantheon and Trevi fountain as destinations and headed out.  The back alley streets are the way to get around by foot, much more pleasant than the main thorough-fares.  There's still some auto traffic but the cars usually go slower.  Rome's mass transit is not as good as other European cities we've been in.  In any case we wanted to walk and experience the city.  The alleys have lots of cute little shops especially clothing stores.  There are some tacky tourist stores as well.  On our way we encountered Piaza Novano, a big open plaza with tons of artists hawking their work to tourists.  There are some impressive fountains and significant building there as well.  Several blocks later we arrived at the Pantheon.  What an impressive building and so well preserved!  That it's free really makes this a must see destination.  From there, it was only a few blocks to Trevi fountain.  The fountain was quite gorgeous but also packed with tourists.  After hitting these sites, we decided to get some dinner at a well rated pizza place a bit further out of the city center.  The crowds quickly diminished as we walked making us wonder if it was a good area.  Not that it ever really felt unsafe but some blocks were just so empty.  Then we would come upon a busy block seemingly out of nowhere with busy restaurants and nightlife.  We finally found the restaurant only to find out it was closed for dinner!  Still feeling energetic we decided to take a different way back to try a restaurant near the colosseum.  I'll write about this part later.  Time to get some food for breakfast.

Arriving in Rome

We finally made it Rome.  It sure is a long day of traveling to get here.  We were a little nervous about the transfer in Frankfurt.  We had almost and hour to get to the departure terminal but Frankfurt is a huge airport and we had to get out of the plane and through customs.  Thankfully, we made it with about 5 minutes to spare.  The flight to Rome was uneventful - just as I like my flights to be.  We had decided to check 3 of our bags because they were over the weight limit.  It was nice not to have to carry these on, but it meant we had to pick up our suitcases.  And, unfortunately, only 2 of the 3 came through.  My suitcase is still in transit.  Luckily, I had pulled out all my valuables.  It was mainly my clothes I'd be missing.  They will deliver the bag if it comes in time; otherwise, they'll send it back to Seattle.  This will definitely make me think  twice about checking luggage.  

After putting in my lost luggage claim, we hopped on our shuttle to our apartment that we will call home for the next 4 nights.  Our drive took us on some scenic roads and stopped at a cool lookout point (insert picture).  Once to our apt, we all enjoyed the cool confines for a late afternoon nap.  We then took a half mile stroll to a great little pizza restaurant.  Looking forward to a good night's sleep and then seeing more of the "eternal city"

Ready for Take-off?

after all the work getting ready, we woke up excited to start our second trip to Europe.  the trip to the airport was smooth as our house-sitter chauffered us and we arrived 2 hours ahead of time.  it's a good thing we did too as it nearly took that long to check in and get through security.  the flight left about twenty minutes late which I belive was largely due to how slow their checkin line was and no electronic kiosk to checkin.  the delays didn't leave us much time to look for inflight reading material.  we had hoped to buy our favorite travel mini-guides at teh airport bookstore but sadly didnt find them.  i'm now writing after 6-7 hours of flying.  flight has been smooth.  condor is a german airline and the crew is german.  they all speak english but one flight attendant didn't understand when I asked for a deck of cards.  i think the girls are finally sleeping.  neither sam or i have been able to.  <insert pics of us in flight>

we saw another magnolia family on the flight - Delany Kirchmire (sp?). I think they're heading to germany and paris.  looks like they're bringing breakfast now.  talk to you later