Travel Journal: Day #7 (Austria)

under the waterfall

Friday, July 4, 2014

This morning we left the farm at 9am with Martin, drove 12-13 kilometers to Obertauern where he keeps his thirty-eight cows. It was pretty much a ghost town because tourists really only come here in the winter to ski. The cows were cool but they kinda scared me because they could swing their heads around so quickly and they had horns. One smaller cow plowing right by me and her horn hit me right on the funny bone. All I could think of was how embarrassing it would be to get a cracked elbow from a cow.

After that, Martin drove us a little ways down the road where we parked on the side to look at one of the Roman mile markers. This one was for the ruler Septimus Severus around 172 AD. Then we crossed the road and walked down steep steps (sometimes rock steps) to reach the waterfall below. Here we could stand under the waterfall while little water droplets fell above us. Martin said this is a good place to make a wish (there are so many ways to make wishes or have good luck in Europe :)

My wish was that I could make it back up all the rock steps… and that wish barely came true as we were all huffing and puffing on the way up.

We made it to the tail end of the market in Radstadt. I bought raspberries, a chocolate donut (so good! They never really had good donuts in Italy), and soap from a cute soap shop. Oh and hazelnut ice cream too, of course.

Back at the farm I took a nap, sat in the hammock chair, and read my “Speak Italian” book. We had pizza for dinner, Emily and I fed carrots to the horses and then gave cat treats to the cats. 

Travel Journal: Day #6 (Austria)

view of Salzburg from the fortress

I know, I know - you're wondering why Michael looks so excited

posing with chocolate (recommended by Amy)

Thursday, July 3, 2014

On Thursday morning, we woke up and left by 9:45am for Salzburg. Dad had a bit of trouble once we got into the city – he almost drove down a bike path. We parked the three cars and walked to the base of the fortress. We took a funicular up to the top, where you could see all of Salzburg. We then went on a thirty minute tour through the castle (also the audio guides were pretty faulty). After a brief stop in the gift shops, Mom, Emily, and I stopped in a little art gallery. The rest of the group continued on without us though, so we had a few minutes of scrambling around to figure out where they might’ve gone. 

After rejoining the group, we took the funicular down into the main square area. Everyone wanted to stop for hotdogs but I was on a mission to find a chocolate pretzel (my friend Amy studied in Salzburg last summer and she gave me a whole list of things to do and eat while in the city). Right near the cathedral was the booth with soooo many fresh pretzels: chocolate, chocolate and marzipan, cheese, cheese and bacon, apple, mixed nut, poppyseed, etc. The chocolate pretzel was pretty much a donut in the shape of a pretzel. SO GOOD though. We then went into the cathedral and I was instantly going back to everything I’ve learned in Renaissance Narrative. Even though that class was about Italy, not Austria… but still. There was a choir group from Canada and their voices combined with the incense… I forgot how much I loved being in the old churches and cathedrals. We were always in and out of these beautiful cathedrals in Italy, and they eventually lost just a little bit of their special-ness. This cathedral was a reminder of that.

We went in a few more shops, took a few more pictures with a Mozart statue (they love him here), etc. Then right as we were about to cross a bridge, I saw a little booth/hut that said “We <3 Chai” and I looked up at the bridge to see a sign that said “Mozartzteg” which was exactly where Amy told me to get the “best chai ever!!!!!” But since we were in a large group of sixteen people traveling around, I never thought I would be able to find it out of all the bridges in Salzburg. Anyways, it was the best iced chai I’ve ever had! And I’m not even just saying that.

We went back to the farm for a few minutes to freshen up, then we went back to the restaurant down the road that we went to earlier this week. This time, I got a turkey salad. It was really good but I’m still counting down the days until I’m reunited with Italian pizza and pasta!

Travel Journal: Day #5 (Austria)

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Emily and I kept waking up last night because we had these two annoying flies landing on us. They were so aggressive! Once again, I didn’t set an alarm and woke up to the sound of the sheep and rooster outside. After breakfast and coffee (I actually miss coffee at home), I went for a run. It was beautiful and the weather was nice—just a little bit cloudy—but it was so hard to breathe! I mean I’m probably out of shape so I can’t totally blame it on the altitude but it really was difficult to breathe. But I did feel refreshed after a forty minute run/walk by myself.

In the afternoon, we walked two miles to the next town over with the petting zoo / mating donkeys / ice cream / etc. You could pay to fish there so we rented four fishing poles and caught eight fish! I caught one but immediately felt bad when we had to bash it’s head with a club. We then had ice cream and saw the pig/hog with her 8-9 piglets. They looked like little spotted dalmatians – they were sooooo cute!

For dinner we had the fish and it was really good but I was scared of the fish bones. We fed the scraps to the barn cats (they have like 5-6 barn cats here).