Adventures of Team Williams: 2011

Next stop, Salzburg, Austria.

Wow! I think this had to be the most beautiful place I've ever been.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the low point of the trip was when the battery died on the camera 10 minutes into our "Sound of Music" sightseeing tour, but the memories are etched into my brain.

We visited all the Austrian sites where the movie was filmed, plus sang EVERY song. We re-visited some of the sites later in the day with a working camera so see if you recognize any of these places from the movie. Near Mirabell Gardens we found a playground and of course, we had to stop. We walked all over Old Town, stopped for dinner, saw the house where Mozart was born, and even squeezed in some world famous Hotel Sacher Torte!

We've been traveling all over Europe for the past 13 months and Salzburg is by far my most favorite place I've been. Top of the list of places to go back to!

Mirabell Gardens-Do Re Mi

Mirabell Gardens

Do Re Mi

Playground

Mozart's Birthhouse

Fountain in the Residenzplatz

Salzburg Cathedral

Getreidegasse

http://www.sacher.com/en-history-tart.htm

Sacher Torte

After the Vatican, we grabbed a quick lunch and began our walk around the city. After hitting everything on the list in 1/2 the time we thought it would take, we decided to head back to the train station hoping to get an earlier train. We never imagined we would actually see all that I wanted to see, relax for gelatto, dinner, and have time to spare! The kids did an amazing job-even had a little napper!

We got to the train station and found a train leaving at 5:58 so we bought the tickets and were ready to grab some dinner before boarding. We kept watching the departure boards to find out what lane we would be leaving from, but 15 minutes prior to leaving still no luck. Daniel goes to Customer Service and I to the kiosk- only to find out that there was in fact a train leaving at 5:58, not 17:58! We've been on this military time for 13 months now, how could we possibly make such a stupid mistake?! Guess all the hot Italian air, food and touring affected our thinking?! :) So, we ended up getting an earlier train, but we still had to wait a bit at the terminal.

Waiting wasn't such a bad thing because we walked around and found a non-Italian place to eat. You probably think we are crazy, right? In Rome and not wanting Italian? We had been in Italy for 7 days at this point and well...taking a break from pizza and pasta could be justified if?....Roadhouse Grill! Peanuts and everything! If you know our family at all, you know we love Logan's Roadhouse in Virginia and Texas Roadhouse everywhere else. No doubt, we would never stop at such a place if we were visiting from the States, but we weren't. We have been in Germany for 13 months, Roadhouse-completely justified! Of course, the food wasn't anything like Logan's, but we've learned to have very low expectations when it comes to 'American' food anywhere around here. Usually the yummy burger described is nothing more than a Bubba Burger at best, but it wasn't bad. No sweet tea, but I wouldn't have tried it anyways-let's be real here-sweet tea outside of Southeast USA, Chick-fil-a, and Cracker Barrell is already sketchy muchless in the Rome train station. The peanuts were a highlight for the kids that prompted many questions about 'America', mostly from Carter.