Easter Weekend in Austria

After my parents left to head home I had a night or two in Verona. I went to class, did some laundry (because traveling for 12 days makes a lot of dirty clothes), and got some rest.

On Friday, March 29 Kristin and I kicked off our Easter Break in Austria. We’d both been dying to go there, mainly to see the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg!

We took a train to Austria on Friday morning, embracing the Harry Potterness of it all. This train was different than the ones we take throughout Italy. This one had different compartments, where 6 people could sit in each one. We slept for most of the first part of the trip, which was about 4 hours.

We stopped in Innsbruck and had to change trains, and we saw some beautiful mountains while we were there. Even from the train station we could see how great the city was.

When we got back on the train to continue to Salzburg we ended up in a car with a very smelly Austrian woman who had spilled her wine all over the floor and insisted on trying to speak with us even though we could barely understand her. Eventually we switched cars, made some peanut butter and banana sandwiches (because we never go anywhere without peanut butter and bananas…and a loaf of bread).

After about 6 hours of traveling we finally made it to Salzburg on Friday afternoon! We bought a bus ticket for 1 euro (remember the ticket, it’ll be important later) and headed to our hostel.

After checking in we decided to take a bus (with the same ticket) back to the city center and see the Old City, or Salzburg’s main center. That night we saw Mozart’s House, tons of lederhosen and had some great schnitzel. And struddle.

Mozart's House!

We spent the evening just hanging out in the hostel lobby and met some nice Americans and one very interesting Australian. That’s one of the things I’ve loved – meeting other travelers, hearing why they’re here and where they’re going next.

The next morning we woke up bright and early because we tickets for The Sound of Music Tour.  Most outdoor scenes of the movie were filmed in Salzburg and we had the chance to see some of them!

With an excellent tour guide we headed out to see the sights of one of the best musicals of all time.

The back of the Von Trapp house. A completely different house was used to shoot the scenes in the front! 

Liesl's Gazebo

The Unterberg, the mountain Maria ran on at the beginning of the film 

The chapel where the wedding scene was filmed

After the tour, we were dropped off by the gardens where the majority of the Do-Rei-Me song was filmed, and Kristin and I had absolutely no problem reenacting some of those scenes (wait for the video to come up, it’s pretty great).

Running around Salzburg like the Von Trapp was actually one of the most fun things I’ve done this semester – because it felt like we were actually in the movie that I’ve been watching ever since I was little!

Between our hilarious tour guide and mine and Kristin’s ability to sing along with every word of every song we had an amazing time on the tour.

Our great tour guide!

We wondered around Salzburg for a little bit more before heading back to our hostel to pick up our things and take a bus to the train station to head to Vienna. We breathed a sigh of relief when getting to the train station, as we’d made it back and forth on the public bus a dozen times with only our 1 euro ticket. Pretty lucky.

The train ride to Vienna was just under 2 hours long, and we spent the ride relishing in the free wifi on the train (this made us fall in love with Austria even more) and watching The Sound of Music, loving the fact that we had literally walked everywhere Julie Andrews had.

Once we reached Vienna we headed to our hostel, which we found out our friend Tim was coincidentally staying at, as well! We spent our first night there just hanging out in the lobby. The next day was Easter Sunday, and we asked the worker at the hostel to write down direction for us to go to an English-speaking church.

The next morning we woke up and headed out to try and make the 10 am service. We basically spent 45 minutes wandering around Vienna in the snow and cold. By 10:20 we were still lost, and made a decision to just walk into the next church we saw. So what if it was all in German? That’s part of the experience of spending a holiday in a different country!

The church, thank goodness, was Catholic, so I at least had a chance of following along the mass a little bit. During the service they had song lyrics up on an electronic board in front of the church. I couldn’t help but think that the language on the board didn’t quite look like German, but it’s not like I really know that much about German.

When I went up for communion, there were Polish flags on the altar. That’s when I realized I was attending Easter mass entirely in Polish! It seemed like a little bit of fate, and I was actually really excited about the fact that I’d just sat through a Polish mass. I knew the Japczyks would be proud.

After mass we headed to an Easter market, which are traditional in Vienna on Easter weekend! Despite the cold weather, Tim Kristin and I made the best of the day! We had no problem sampling all of the delicious foods and seeing the beautifully hand-painted eggs that were for sale.

Snow covered Easter eggs

What says Easter better than giant pretzels?

After a few more hours of walking around Vienna and eating more schnitzel it was time for Kristin and I to head to the airport and back to Verona!

I’d been wanting to go to Austria the entire semester and am so glad that I finally made it there. I personally liked Salzburg over Vienna. I’ve been finding that I enjoy going to smaller towns over the large cities.