Today’s big-ticket item was the Schonbrunn Palace and Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site! (I had no idea at the time, and still don’t really know what that entails.) This is simultaneously a tourist attraction and one of those places that all the little schoolchildren go to every year. In a nod to the season, there was a small Christmas Market set up around the perimeter of the grounds at the main entrance.

We took the tour, which was not guided but rather an audio tour. It was interesting, I’m sure, but I don’t really remember anything about it. I have just read the Wikipedia entry on the Schonbrunn Palace and it didn’t even strike a memory chord.

I do, however, remember the gardens. Since it was winter, they obviously were not in full bloom, but it was a nice day when we were there, so it was still fun to explore. There was a duck pond and fountains and statues all around. The highlight of the garden exploration was the crazy squirrel that kept darting around, like he didn’t want to be near us but couldn’t figure out how to get away. We tried and mostly failed to document this on film. (This was my best squirrel story until this year at Niagara Falls, which I will have to tell you about later, like once I finish this godforsaken travelogue.)

After the Schonbrunn, we walked around some other official buildings in Vienna and toured the opera house. We lunched at the Rosenberger Restaurant. I don’t know how Lisa heard of it, but she did, and so we went. It was cafeteria style and pretty good. There is apparently a whole chain of these that are strategically located along the autobahn.

After lunch, it was time for the other “must-do” on my list: sachertorte! We made our way to the Hotel Sacher, where we had to check our coats before we were seated. We ordered our sachertortes, with which I had a cappuccino and Lisa a hot chocolate. It was … okay. The presentation was first-rate, the cappuccino was good, and the torte ... was a bit on the dry side, if you ask me. It is very difficult to get good chocolate cake in a restaurant, and I guess this proves true even if it is a famous sort of dessert.

We were meeting Catrin and Joseph for dinner, but we still had some time before that, so we went shoe shopping. (Of course we did.) I found a pair of loafers with ridiculously high heels that make my ankles cry out in pain, but they were so cute! And only 10 euros! I had to buy them, as a souvenir if nothing else. Lisa debated for a long time over a pair of boots that was on sale, but I don’t think it was as great a sale as my 10-euro bargain. I am not sure if she ended up buying them or not.

We then headed toward our meeting place, which perhaps was Karlsplatz, as that was the location of the Vienna Christmas Market. On the way, lo and behold: Starbucks! It was the first one we’d seen. Lisa took my picture outside the store, but we didn’t go inside and get anything.

Catrin and Joseph took us to Figlmuller, which bills itself on its napkins (one of which I saved) as “the most famous schnitzel in Vienna.” I’m not sure what I ordered, so let’s just say I had the schnitzel. Afterward, we hit the Christmas Market and had roasted chestnuts (Catrin’s favorite) as we walked.

Then it was back to Eva’s apartment for our last night in Europe. (Sad clown.)

The next day, Joseph took us to the Vienna airport and had a farewell coffee with us, as we had plenty of time before our flight to Amsterdam. From there, it was on to Houston, where Jimmy picked us up and informed us that the cat had been sick. (That’s my lasting memory. We had just returned from Europe with all its exciting sights, and Jimmy told us his cat was sick.) I spent the night at the old apartment in Houston (oh the memories) and then it was back to Memphis the following day. I showed all my pictures to my boss and he said, “Why would you ever want to leave Memphis and go overseas to vacation?”

Posted by Molly at 12:01 AM EST

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We started Day 10 much like Day 9, in Salzburg with breakfast at the Hotel am Dom. After a quick look inside St Peter’s Cathedral and Cemetery (with catacombs!) and a look at the canal system, we set out to find Mozart. Naturally, we got lost. Somehow we ended up in something that I remember being like a farmer’s market, but I’m not really sure why I have that image, as I think it was more like a dead-end alley with lots of foliage scattered around. And iron gates. Eventually, we ended up in the right place, Mozart’s birthplace. It now sits on the same street as a McDonald’s. The street was very busy and touristy and we didn’t tour the house or anything, just peeked in the windows.

We made our way back to the hotel to collect our luggage and then decided, hey! It’ll be fun to lug all our gear on foot to the train station. It’s not far – we can walk! We were sadly mistaken. After crossing a long bridge filled with cars and nearly colliding with a bus, we determined that we (a) could not walk to the train station and (b) should get on a bus. (I think. We might have taken a cab. There was angst, but I’m not sure whether it was over hailing said taxi or trying to figure out the bus fare.)

Eventually we reached the train station, and we were on our way to our final destination: Vienna!

Our hosts in Vienna were Catrin and Joseph, who were the sister and father of Lisa’s former exchange student, Eva. Upon arrival in Vienna, we were famished and ate at Burger King. (Oh, the shame. But the fries were so, so good.) We met Catrin, who wanted to practice her English on us, which made me feel quite stupid, but it is always nice to have someone around who speaks the language. She took us to TGI Friday’s for dinner. It was a bad day for authentic Austrian food.

After dinner, we were escorted to our quarters for the evening: Eva’s apartment. I do not recall where Eva was, she was either studying abroad someplace or visiting her boyfriend or something—in any case, she wasn’t in town. Her apartment was a small studio, and Catrin and Joseph made sure there were plentiful supplies for us, including chocolate and cappuccino mix which I immediately tried. It was pretty good. We spent a quiet night in the apartment watching the Austrian (German?) version of “The Bachelor.” Funny in any language.

Posted by Molly at 12:01 AM EST

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We had left Germany for good (or so we thought) and were on the home stretch now. We had breakfast in the old-world dining room at the hotel and set out to do a little shopping at the stores nearby. We were centrally located, right by the Salzburg cathedral where Mozart was baptized, so we had a look around there. It was Advent, so they had the Advent wreath out. Our big excursion today was to the Salzwelten Salt Mines and Celtic Village.

If Neuschwanstein was Lisa’s, then the salt mines were … mine. (Heh.) It was so campy, how could you not? Again, we had to take the train and then bus to the mines, which were, all total, only about 30 minutes outside of Salzburg. There were very few people on the bus, which took us on a twisty, curvy road, and eventually we realized that one of our traveling companions was a girl named Rachel who was British, I think; in any case, she spoke English. She, too, was headed to the salt mines. Once we got there and bought our tickets, we had to don ugly, dingy white (well they had been white at one point) coveralls, then we waited for this little train to come take us into the mine. I say train, but it was more like a kid’s train – it was like a big long beam of wood on wheels and you straddled it and held on, and then it went like 3 mph. That’s probably like 5 km/hr or something.

Our tour group had four or five different nationalities in it, speaking about four different languages. Rachel, Lisa and I were the only English speakers. Our tour guide, however, knew every language in the group, so she would alternate which she said first and then repeat it three times in different languages. After a quick train ride, we started the tour with a video, then walked around underground for a while, and – what’s this – we crossed the German border back into Bavaria. (So I guess were weren’t done with Germany for good after all.)

Then the fun part: the slides. The quickest way for the miners to descend deeper was to slide down wooden slides. Much like the train, you straddled it. The dingy coveralls had built-in padding in strategic areas so you could just slide right down. There were two such slides that we got to ride. Then we got to taste some salt brine, cross a salt lake, and that was the tour. It let out in the gift shop. (Another resemblance to Disney!) I bought the bulk of my souvenirs there, so I suppose you would have to say their strategy worked.

At the same place as the salt mines was a Celtic Village, which was also kind of campy, but kind of fun. There were animatronic figures, much like Pirates of the Caribbean before they re-did it to make it look like Captain Jack’s version. It was pretty cold outside so we didn’t stay for too long, but we did hit all the buildings in the village.

Then it was back to Salzburg, where I bought some Mozartkugeln. We also found an internet café so Lisa could get in touch with her former exchange student’s family in Vienna, since they were providing accommodation. Our hotel was close to the Hohensalzburg, which had a funicular that I wanted to ride, but by the time we had gotten back into the city, it was getting dark and the funicular, perhaps due to winter hours, was closed. So it was another city, another holiday market, this one the Salzburger Christkindlmarkt. The next day, we would go to Vienna, but first: our search for Mozart.

Posted by Molly at 12:01 AM EST

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Technically, we were in Bavaria when we were in Munich. But it felt more like Bavaria when we could see castles in the Bavarian Alps. What can I say? I’m an idiot American tourist.

So after our angst at the train station and the two-hour train ride to Füssen, we realized that the train station there had nice roomy storage lockers. Luggage problem solved! But with all that and then the bus trip, we actually didn’t have too terrifically much time to spend at the castles. Especially since the tour for each took about an hour, and what with it being nearly December and all, the sun set rather early. You bought the tickets all at once; our tour took us to Hohenschwangou first and we actually ended up with the last scheduled tour for Neuschwanstein.

There are two main things I remember about the castles: 1. There were a lot of steps, especially at Hohenschwangou. There was a group of older tourists ahead of us and one of them had had a knee replacement, and was proceeding accordingly, by which I mean slow, which was fine, but she graciously stepped aside to let us by. 2. You weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the castles. But at the end of the Neuschwanstein tour, there was this little room, kind of like a foyer or something, that was essentially outside, and there was light filtering in so we were in shadow on the wall, so of course we had to make shadow shapes with our hand. We made swans (schwan = swan).

The way the tours worked was that you toured Hohenschwangou first and then you could walk to Neuschwanstein (which they said was about a 45-minute walk) or you could ride one of their buses, or I think if you wanted to pay extra, you could get a carriage to take you. The way that you walked there (or at least one of the ways you walk there) led you over Mary’s Bridge, which has really great castle views, so of course we went that way. We were not stopped by the fact that the path to Mary’s Bridge was closed. It wasn’t technically closed. There was just this big sign blocking the path that said “Danger” in many languages. But it was only dangerous if it was icy and slippery, and there was barely any snow on the ground and it wasn’t that cold, and our trusty Rick Steves guidebook said we could sneak past the barrier, so we did. The path was fine; we passed a few Japanese tourists who had done the same thing, but mostly people stayed away from the danger, I guess. We took lots of pictures on the bridge, so they were doing the last call for our tour by the time we made it to Neuschwanstein. But we made it.

Of the tours themselves, I don’t really remember much. Mad King Ludwig never really got to live in his big castle because he went mad, and he died. There were lots of cool rooms and narrow, winding staircases. I think you could probably google “Neuschwanstein” and find out a lot more than I remember.

After we finished at Neuschwanstein, we walked back down to the town, and then it seems like everyone disappeared. There was a hotel right there, so maybe all the tourists were staying there, or had driven, I don’t know, but suddenly it felt like it was just the two of us wandering around this little town in the Bavarian Alps two hours from Munich. It was less exciting than it sounds, and more unsettling. Eventually we made our way back to the bus stop. There was no one there. We waited, and waited. A couple of other people straggled in and still no bus. Finally, the bus came, and we made it back to the train station, where we collected our luggage and raided the only store still open at that time of night (whatever time of night it was) for high quality European chocolate (Ritter Sport). I think you can get it in some form in the U.S. but I have never again been able to find the Bailey’s Irish Cream-flavored chocolate that I got at that train station. So, so rich. So, so good.

Upon arrival in Salzburg, we checked into our hotel, the Hotel am Dom (lots of stairs and no elevator to our room on one of the upper floors), and had a late dinner of Chinese on a nearby street. I think I’m not making that up.

Posted by Molly at 12:01 AM EST

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We rejoin our intrepid travelers on the train from Interlaken, Switzerland to Munich, Germany. The journey takes a little more than seven hours, so we did not have very much daylight left by the time we got to Munich. The long train ride enabled us to eat in the dining car, where we had a cheese plate and tomato soup. Yes, soup on the train. We are adventurous gals! I also never wanted to be a troublemaker and never asked for ice in my drinks, but Coke really is not that good in a glass without ice.

Once we got to Munich, we trudged around with our luggage trying to find our hotel: the Hotel Deutsches Theater. This should have been easy, except that there are two. I am sure they have slightly different names, or something, that do not translate well to English. I don’t know. Naturally we went to the wrong place first. This, as you might imagine, caused some angst. Disaster was averted as we were directed to the right place, and we checked in and dropped our luggage and admired the proper shower, which, let me tell you, was beautiful after our experiences in Freiburg and then the hostel in Interlaken.

Then it was off to explore Munich, and, since we had limited time, we decided the best way to do this was by bus tour. We saw the Onion Towers. If we’d had more time, I wanted to see Olympic Park, but we didn’t so … next time. After the bus tour, we went to the Christmas Market and then the Hofbräuhaus. This was not the first Hofbräuhaus we had visited, no; the first was the one centrally located in Newport, Kentucky (the first authentic Hofbräuhaus in America!). We went there with a TV guy after the Astros played in Cincinnati in May of that same year, when I had driven up from Memphis to meet Lisa. I recall doing my Redbirds gamenotes from Lisa’s hotel room. Oh, those were the days.

So anyway, we had to go to the real German Hofbräuhaus, and also, my brother had been there, and you know how I am about him one-upping me on things. Continuing our “wandering around Munich” theme, we couldn’t quite find the Hofbräuhaus right away. This was irritating, you know, because my brother had obviously found it. It didn’t take us too long before we, too, were successful. At first we had a table to ourselves to enjoy out frothy beverages. Well, only I enjoyed a frothy beverage – Lisa doesn’t like beer – and it was actually not all that strong, it was like half beer and half Seven-Up (or something generic and similar). I’m not sure, but it was pretty good. Towards the end of our meal, some overzealous Australian backpackers joined the table. We chatted for a moment, but I don’t think we lived up to their adventurous spirit, and they moved on.

Posted by Molly at 12:01 AM EST

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There are two train stations in Interlaken: Ost/East is the main station, and we had arrived at West on the Deutsche Bahn. After breakfast at Balmers (single serve packets of Nutella!), we were headed to Ost to Jungfrau. First we would have to travel to Lauterbrunnen (or Grindelwald, either one gets you where you need to go, and I’m not sure which one we got) (I just translated those and got “loud well” or “standard forest” -- heh) on the Bernese Oberland Railway. Then we could get on the Jungfraubahnen which would take us from the Kleine Scheidegg station to Jungfraujoch. Or something. I am only going into this much detail because I like all the names.

We were going to Jungfrau because it is billed as the top of Europe (4,158 m/13,642 ft), and, as previously mentioned, my brother went there so I had to go also. Sibling rivalry. We made our way from Balmers down to the station, which was not a long walk, but not a short walk, either, especially as I was wearing wellies for the mountain expedition, hoping to see snow since I hadn’t yet. And there is eternal snow on Jungfrau so I was in luck.

We got almost to the train station, stopping to snap photos of a picturesque church, and that was when Lisa realized she had left her Eurail pass at Balmers. This wouldn’t be a big deal, because the Eurail pass didn’t cover the Jungfraubahn, BUT you could get a discount on the first two departures of the day if you presented your Eurail pass. Anyway, we were clearly going to miss the first one if we went back to get the pass, but we thought we could just make the second one, so we turned around (and my feet wept). We practically had to run to make it, but we did.

It takes about two and a half hours to get to the Jungfraujoch station so we made it up around lunchtime. There is not really all that much to do up on top of the mountain. On the train stops leading to the cog railway, there were skiers and snowboarders (making the cars SRO) but once you’re going through the mountain, there’s no skiing. The cars on the cog railway are neat, too, old-fashioned and quaint; we opened a window. There’s dog sledding, on the glacier, maybe; you can see people from the peak, but you can’t do it from the top. I think there’s more to do in the summer.

We wandered around the peak and took the obligatory pictures, ho hum, here we are in the Swiss Alps. It was a sunny day, beautiful and not too cold (though much colder than Interlaken) except on one side of the mountain, where the Swiss flag was flying, the wind was whipping and it was FREEZING. There were very few people on that side of the mountain. We had lunch in the little café at the station, and then hit the ice palace and sent each other postcards stamped with “Top of Europe.” We had hot chocolate and then headed back to the train for the return journey.

Once back in Interlaken, we had dinner at the Chalet Hotel Oberland. We had penne al pesto and truthahn schnitzel, and I bet Lisa had the schnitzel because I don't have any idea what truthahn schnitzel is. Then it was back to Balmers to rest up for the next stop: Munich.

Posted by Molly at 12:01 AM EST

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After a breakfast of pastries from a local bakery near Heimo’s place and a list of suggestions for things to do in Munich, we set out for Switzerland. (Heh. We went to Munich later.) The Deutsche Bahn takes you from Freiburg to Interlaken in about three hours, and you get to go through Basel and Bern.

We arrived at the train station in Interlaken in the early afternoon and struggled with our luggage through the streets to Balmer’s Herberge, which bills itself as the oldest private hostel in Switzerland. Our room was in the main building, and we had paid a little more to ensure that we had a room to ourselves. It was cute, on the second floor with a window overlooking the street. There was a sink in the room, and linens were provided. The shower was just down the hall, and it was gross. There was a condom wrapper in there. (The mere thought of that is just disgusting but anyway, that’s why we had shower shoes.)

After we dropped our stuff in the room, we went to a local deli to get a late lunch. There was almost no one in the deli, since it was probably 2 or 3 in the afternoon by this point, and about midway through our meal, we realized that they didn’t take credit cards and we didn’t have any Swiss francs. So Lisa ran to the ATM, and we calculated that the exchange rate for the franc was much better than that for euros. Not that this saved us any money. After lunch, we walked around Interlaken, which had a nice park. There were a bunch of hotels in the area as well, and we noted that one, the Hotel Schuh, advertised a chocolate-making tour. That was enough to sell us, so we headed inside.

We asked about the tour at a candy counter featuring display cases full of chocolate. The tour was something like 10 swiss francs for the two of us, but then at the end we would get a 10CHF voucher for the hotel dining room. We were told to wait in the lobby and the tour would begin momentarily. I am sure the “tour” was just a way to get people into the hotel to eat, because it was hilarious. A guy in a chef’s apron came out from the back, introduced himself as Luc, and said he would be our tour leader.

Luc led us through the kitchen area, down a well-lit alley and into a room somewhere in the back where the chocolate magic happens. I don’t really remember the specifics, but he showed us how the molds work and how the chocolate is hollow. He demonstrated this by breaking the head off a chocolate cow. Then we made him pose for a picture with us and the broken cow and another, unbroken cow. I'm sure he thought we were weird. It was funny. After the tour, we both got pieces of chocolate cake, and it was absolutely divine. I tried a bite of Lisa’s and it was good, too (but not divine).

Once we finished the tour, we walked around town some more, taking pictures of the full moon rising. We checked out the local grocery store and the European cereal and then headed back to the restaurant/bar/club-type thing at Balmer’s for fondue. It was here that my camera crapped out and I freaked because what the hell was I going to do the next day AT THE TOP OF EUROPE WITH NO CAMERA? But I guess it was just hot or something because it worked the next time I tried it.

Back at Balmer’s, we were talking to the guy who was on host duty that night, Chris, who had graduated from an Ivy League school with a degree in political science. This came up when he mentioned that we were older than most of the kiddos who came through the hostel, and Lisa mentioned that some of them had an age limit, but not Balmer’s. Then we got this great idea to pose for a picture with him, and for some reason I hoisted my leg up on the counter (why? why?!?) and he put his hand on it and acted like he was going to pull up the cuff and I had to smack his hand and clamp my pants down at the ankle because I had not shaved since we got to Europe, and even though, as Lisa pointed out later, European girls are not known for shaving, Chris was American and anyway nobody needs to see that.

Posted by Molly at 12:01 AM EST

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Day Four was Thanksgiving in the U.S. In Europe, it was Thursday. In any case, it marked our first experience with the Deutsche Bahn. Gerhard dropped us at the Frankfurt train station bright and early, and showed us how to proceed. The station was rather nice but unassuming from the outside but is really cool on the inside.

The cold inside the train station was unexpected, though I suppose it shouldn't have been. The trains are outside; they have to get through, etc. But it is weird, because you are inside, and the main areas are warm, and there are restaurants and newspaper stands and everything else, and then you go to wait for your train and this wall of cold air just hits you.

Anyway, we were headed to Freiburg, on the western edge of the southern Black Forest, because Lisa has relatives there, and there is a shop that bears her name. Frankfurt to Freiburg on the Deutsche Bahn is a two hour, nine minute ride.

I spent some time in the Freiburg train station looking for a postcard to send my mom, a quest that was ultimately unsuccessful due to my failure to find stamps. We wandered around town looking for the magical store with Lisa’s name on it. I believe we took several wrong turns and asked some nice German people where to go, but eventually found it. It is a knife store. Not so much with the souvenirs. Lisa went to the counter tell them she shared a last name with the store, but no one spoke English and we don’t know any German. Finally she pulled out her credit card and pointed to the name. The lady caught on quickly and laughed and got the owner (?) and we all smiled and had warm fuzzy feelings.

Eventually we met up with Lisa’s relative Heimo and his son, Rene, and Rene’s pregnant girlfriend, Janna. (They showed us ultrasound pictures.) Actually, I think we met Heimo first and he took us to lunch at an Italian place, which I found somewhat amusing. The rest of the family was at work, maybe, and we met them at dinner. I believe that for my Thanksgiving dinner I had some sort of schnitzel. We checked out the Freiburg Cathedral and the Christmas Market and then went back to Heimo’s house to spend the night. It actually sort of reminded me of my grandparents’ house. The décor was … interesting. The shower set-up also was … interesting. Since we were planning to depart early the next morning, I figured that could wait a day. Hey, when in Germany...

Posted by Molly at 12:01 AM EST

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