Week 4: Salzburg, Austria

Snow-Capped Mountains

The Hills were definitely alive when our group of 6 went to visit Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg is the filming location of the movie Sound of Music, the birthplace of Mozart, and a breathtaking city. As soon as we stepped off of our plane we could see the snow capped peaks surrounding us. I have never seen anything like it in my life. Seeing pictures of mountains just doesn't even compare to what they're like in real life. The mountains are so big and beautiful and they completely surround you when you're in the city. It makes you feel so small. After arriving at the airport, we walked 3 miles through the city to our hostel. While we walked through the city, we found lots of cute shops and a couple awesome landmarks. We also found a love lock bridge! Couples from around the world wrote their

Love Lock Bridge

names on a padlock and threw the key in the river below to symbolize their love. It made me wonder what the bottom of the river looks like... We stayed at the Yoho International Youth Hostel in Salzburg and it was perfect!! The rooms and bathrooms were nice and clean, the staff was friendly and helpful, and it was located perfectly in the city centre. They also played The Sound of Music in the lobby every night at 8pm, so I was able to watch the movie before going to see all the sights. After arriving on Friday, we took a nap and then went to get amazing Italian food. After dinner, Molly took us to a brew house to get some beer. I'm not a fan of beer, but the experience was pretty cool!! On Saturday we decided to go to the little village of Werfen to see the picnic field in The Sound of Music. It was a 45 minute train ride and we were in the cutest little village. Unfortunately, it was snowing pretty hard when we got there, and in order to get to the field you had to hike up a mountain. We decided that the weather wasn't quite good enough to hike all the way up there, but we did get to go into a castle

Werfen Castle

that we found on the way! After coming back from Werfen we walked through the city of Salzburg and explored the Salzburg museum. We also got to go to the Salzburg Castle that was up on top of a mountain. We had to take a tram to get there!! The view from the castle was gorgeous. We could see the whole city. We started throwing snowballs off the edge of the castle walls to see how far they would go. Hopefully we didn't hit any locals in the process. After exploring the whole city and walking through the gorgeous Salzburg cathedral, we decided to go to an authentic Austrian restaurant called Die Wiesse for dinner. They had amazing beer and even the sauerkraut was good! Overall it was an amazing trip and I was so sad to leave Austria. I honestly did not think I would end up liking Austria as much as I did, but the experience was amazing and the beauty was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I definitely plan to come back in the summer months when it's a little warmer.

Auf Wiedersehen!! (It means goodbye in German, the language of origin in Austria)