Salzburg, Hallstat and Konigsee....and some places in between

We just returned from a whirlwind 5 day trip to Salzburg, Austria. It was gorgeous! We stopped in a cute town called Burghausen which is home to the largest fortress in Europe. Then off to our hotel which overlooked Salzburg and we had a splendid view of the mountains. We ate an overpriced but delicious dinner and went to bed dreaming of our upcoming adventures. Monday morning we got up and went to Berchtesgaden and to Konigssee Lake. The weather was not on our side as we had some rain in the morning. We then drove over to Hallstat Lake where we walked through the little town and had an early dinner before we headed back to our hotel.

The Bavarian and Polish Coat of Arms at Burghausen

Lunch in Hallstat

On Tuesday it was pouring rain and we were unsure of what we were going to do as that was our day to tour Salzburg. We ended up at a large mall where we had lunch at Ikea and bought a new umbrella so we could at least stay dry while we were outdoors. We parked near the altstadt and began our tour with a Rick Steves book in hand to guide us around. We saw the home where Mozart was born, a couple of places where scenes from The Sound of Music were filmed, looked inside some gorgeous churches and enjoyed the old achitecture in the city. At the end of the day we made our way back to the Jeep and found a grocery store where we picked up some bread, meat and cheese for dinner. It ended up being a nice day and we didn't need the umbrella for too long.

Castle and Mirabell Garden in Salzburg

We woke up to sunny skies on Wednesday and took advantage of the nicer weather. We visited Mirabell park where we got an amazing view of the castle. The scene from The Sound of Music where they are singing the Do Re Mi song was partly filmed in this park as well. They had a little loop that had statues of dwarfs and a small play ground where Aubrey played for a bit. Then we drove to Hellanbrun (James will be mad because I just forgot how to spell it) Schloss and saw the gazebo from The Sound of Music where they song Sixteen going on Seventeen was filmed. There was a large park there that we walked through and found a cool area where they had a small wading pool and a neat misting walk through thing. Aubrey loved this area so much. Once she saw me turn on the mister she was all over it. She was getting very wet so I took her shirt off and let her play a bit longer. We had fun watching her play. For our last part of the day we drove up a mountain that we could see from our hotel room to check out the view from high up. Salzburg is so beautiful!

Finally, on the way home yesterday we took a ferry boat to visit the Royal Palace of Herrenchiemsee. This is another one of King Ludwigs palaces. This is an amazing structure modeled after Versailles. Then we began the drive home which is an adventure of it's own. Traffic is a bear here. You hit it and expect to add at least an hour to your trip.