cobblestones and places unknown: austria- vienna and salzburg

what a BEAUTIFUL weekend! I can truly think of no better word to describe Austria other than beautiful. On Thursday afternoon, I left straight from work with my backpack and headed to the airport. This was a different airport than the one that we usually fly out of, so I was a little nervous about being able to navigate my way there. Thankfully, I made it- without getting lost even once! I tell you people, after this trip I better have some sense of direction hammered into me. I met up with everyone at our gate and we boarded the plane on time, all ready to go! It was a group of 7 of us from Furman- Adair, Sey, Anna, Allie, Jillian, and Stephen, our lone boy. Such a fun group! By the time we touched down in Vienna around 10, we were all exhausted so we headed straight to the hostel and to bed. The next morning, we woke up and to our dismay, it was raining pretty hard. This wouldn't have been so bad had it not also been cold, so we knew we could possibly be in for a challenging day. We were all still so excited to be in Austria, though, so we put on our happy faces and headed to our first stop of the day, the Schönbrunn Palace, home of many rulers of the Hapsburg dynasty. It was beautiful and ornate palace, and is known worldwide as only second to Versailles in beauty. We took a nice guided tour and learned a lot about Franz Joseph and his wife, Cissy. After touring the interior, we headed out back to see the famed gardens. They were truly stunning. I think the rain added to the effect, because the greenery was amazing to see. The pictures I took hopefully do it some justice. After the palace we caught the metro and headed downtown. Our first stop was St. Stephen's cathedral. It's the most important religious building in Vienna, and is one of the city's most famous landmarks. After visiting inside the cathedral, we decided to head up to its South tower, which is the highest point in Vienna. The climb up was not fun- very steep, with a narrow winding staircase that was pretty medieval. After about 20 minutes we reached the top, and the view was definitely worth it. We took pictures for a while and just took in the skyline, which was nice. Afterwards we were starving, so we headed down to this cute little restuarant and had a nice lunch. We got to warm up and eat some delicious food, which was great! After lunch, to poor Stephen's dismay, we decided to take a little shopping break. H&M over here is gonna be the death of me (and my budget!). After shopping our group split up and Adair, Anna, Jillian and I headed to the Albertina, an art museum that houses some great works of impressionist art by Monet and Picasso. While I found the museum to be pretty, I must admit that I don't truly have an appreciation for art. I find a lot more pleasure in music and literature, and some of the art there was beautiful but just didn't make much sense to me. After the Albertina, Anna and I were determined to find some Viennese cakes. We stopped by a place called Hotel Sacher, a famous Viennese landmark, and purchased a little Viennese cake. It was absolutely delicious! Truly one of the best desserts I've had since I've been in Europe. It was about time to head to the train station to catch our train to Vienna, so we quickly grabbed our stuff from the hostel and were on our way. I've decided that train travel truly is the way to go. It is a lot less hassle than flying and much more comfortable too! I had so much leg room and barely even felt like I was moving. The view was beautiful as well. Once we arrived in Salzburg, we got a little lost. It took us about 30 minutes to find our hostel (for once this wasn't my fault), but once we finally got there, we settled in and went to sleep. Because there were 7 of us, we'd booked an 8 person room and just hoped that we wouldn't have an extra. We weren't so lucky, however, when we discovered that we'd be having an extra person. This wouldn't have been bad, except when every single one of us woke up at 2 AM to hear the loudest snoring I have truly ever heard in my life. This was worse than my dad and my brother combined. I have never heard someone snore so loudly. The situation was so comical that we had to laugh, and eventually we got back to sleep. The next morning we woke up bright and early for the Sound of Music tour. Most of the scenes from the movie were filmed in Salzburg, and I was SO excited to go on the tour. It definitely didn't disappoint! The views were beautiful. We got to see the Von Trapp house, the 16 going on 17 gazebo, and the church where Maria and Captain Von Trapp were married. We also got to learn a lot more about the real story of Maria. The bus took us up to the mountain and lakes district of Austria, which was just so picturesque. It literally looked like a postcard. We stopped in the town of Mondsee for lunch, where I got to try some Austrian sausage and apple strudel- both were great! The tour ended around 2, so we still had a little time to tour around Salzburg. We saw the Pegasus fountain and the Mirabell gardens, all where more scenes from the Sound of Music were filmed. We also did quick tour through Mozart's birthplace, which was really enlightening. After Mozart, we saw the Salzburg Dom, which is Salzburg's oldest cathedral (and the prettiest one I've seen in Europe yet) and a cool outdoor market. By this time it was raining pretty hard and was about 40 degrees, so Sey and I stopped and grabbed some hot spiced wine that was surprisingly good. We traipsed back in the pouring rain to our hostel where we met up with the rest of the group and headed to the train station for our train back to Vienna. Once we arrived at the station, we were surprised to see a train for Vienna already there and ready to go. We boarded it and it soon got underway...10 minutes early. That was our first clue that something was wrong. Turns out, we'd gotten ON THE WRONG TRAIN. I started to panic, thinking that the train operators were going to throw us off or make us pay a huge fine. Thankfully, we were still headed to Vienna, but we'd accidentally gotten on the more expensive "express train". When the conductor came around to check tickets I was really scared. He was actually really nice though and laughed at our mistake...we didn't have to pay anything extra, and the conductor just cautioned us to know better next time. It ended up being a great mistake because we got back to Vienna 45 minutes earlier! Since Anna, Adair, and I had booked tickets to see a Viennese opera at the Schonbrunn palace, this was great news. We arrived right on time without having to rush. The opera was truly beautiful. The orchestra played pieces from Mozart and Strauss, and there was singing and ballet dancing. It was a beautiful evening. During intermission we grabbed some champagne, and I have to say I felt pretty posh to be drinking champagne and listening to Mozart at an opera in Vienna, Austria! What a surreal experience. After the concert we wanted another slice of that Viennese cake, so we headed downtown to Cafe Sacher again and had some nice hot chocolate and cake to top off a wonderful night! We grabbed a flight back nice and early Sunday morning and were back in Brussels by noon. It was a wonderful weekend and I couldn't have asked for a better trip! I'm only sad that I missed my wonderful cousin Erin's wedding- but I heard it was absolutely beautiful. I'm heading to London on Thursday to see some of my Furman friends who are visiting for fall break in addition to one of my friends from camp, and I can't wait!