Salzburg

Dates: April 6 – April 7








Bavarian Mountains:


Tunnels used by the Nazis:



After getting back in from Nice on Sunday night, we went to Salzburg by train on Monday afternoon. After arriving, we ventured across the river to the old city area, which was filled with shops and vendors. Since we got into Salzburg a little late in the evening we didn’t have too much time for other events.

The following morning, we got up early for a tour of the Bavarian salt mines (in nearby Germany). The countryside was really beautiful. We traveled by a small bus around the area and stopped in a few other small towns. One of our stops took us to the Crow’s Nest and Hitler’s residence for part of the time during World War II. Everything that was left of his house was destroyed at the end and after the war. However, the Crow’s Nest is still there, but is only accessible during specific summer months because of the steep climb.

The Salt mines were something quite spectacular, with underground lakes and tunnels stretching every which way miles underneath the ground. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to bring my big camera into the mines so I have no pictures of it, but I may be going back with friends in a few weeks. Another problem I had was registering for classes took place in the afternoon so I wasn’t able to go on the Sound of Music tour with Nora and Earl; however, this is something I’m hoping to do if I get the chance to go back.

We left on a train late on Tuesday night, only to be waking up the following morning to head back to the airport.


More Salzburg Pictures

Matt Visits Vienna

Date: March 24th - March 29th

I'm posting the dates on the next few posts because they are so old and should have been done a while ago.







Matt and his friend, Ben, came to visit Vienna for almost a week, and quickly realized, as most would, there isn't that much to do in Vienna. After about two days of extensive walking they'd probably seen most of what Vienna had to offer. I was busy with class during the week he was here, but was off once the weekend finally came.

On Friday I took my last class and then we headed up to the hills that surround Vienna. Up there we walked around for a bit, enjoying the panorama of the city. Eventually we headed down and went to a heuriger, which is a restaurant that serves wine it has recently made from its nearby vineyard. Usually the food is from nearby farms as well.

Oh and another funny thing, there's a garbage incinerator by my university here... it's not all that different from Rutland High School, I just traded up from a dump to an incinerator. haha

Innsbruck

View from Bridge Innsbruck was named after


Standing outside an apres-ski lounge


The view from the lounge


Inside the Swarovski Crystal Museum


View from the top of NordPark Mountain (Innsbruck city and surrounding mountains)



Wolves at the Alpine Zoo



This past weekend I traveled to Innsbruck with friends I've met here. Laura, Leah and Brett are all from Edmonton, Canada and we had a great time on our quick weekend trip to Innsbruck. We left Saturday morning at 7 am, arriving in Innsbruck sometime around noon and stayed until Sunday evening. Innsbruck is a small city of about 100,000 people in Western Austria. It's hosted the Winter Olympics twice and is surrounded by the relatively large Alps. These mountains provide great views of the city and surrounding countryside.

The first day we took a tram around the city and ended up seeing the Olympic ski jump and went up to one of the mountains in an attempt to go sledding. However, they were closing soon so we just sat at a cafe and enjoyed the view. We went out to dinner in the old city area connected by pedestrian walkways. We were all pretty tired so we decided to go to bed after we got back to the hotel.

The next day we went to the Swarovski Crystal museum, which was actually filled with cool artwork and had various outdoor activities. Next, we headed up a mountain on the other side of the city on the fenicular (railway up the steep mountainside) and caught a gondola to the top. The view from up here was absolutely amazing, and made me wish I had more time to go skiing. However, there was also the Alpine Zoo lower on the mountain that we actually toward around on our way down to the city. We then walked around and headed towards the bridge that the town actually got its name after and took some pictures of that area.

Almost everything we did, including the museums, fenicular, gondola, zoo, public transportation, etc. were all included in this Innsbruck card that we purchased for 30 euros and definitely saved us a lot of money. It was money well spent on an enjoyable two day journey.

Note: If you click on the pictures you'll see the full sized image if you'd like to download them and save them to your computer.

As always it's taking awhile for the photos to upload so i'll have the link up soon. However, if you click on the prague pictures link you'll see new photos that I was finally able to upload.