A warm day in Austria
We enjoyed the chat with the Mantzs the other day in Venice. It was great to talk for so long for so little. We had hoped to have another chat now but the system is cooperating so the update will have to do for now. Hope more of you can join us later for another attempt at a chat.
We loved the morning in Venice on Sunday but the afternoon was our first encounter with rain, and boy did it rain. The pattern was mist, buckets of rain for 20 minutes and then it would clear up. This happened all day. We enjoyed some more map shopping and mother and fathers day shopping too! We tried to find a suggested restaurant and gelateria but to no avail. It is true that even with a map you get lost in Venice streets. It was late and we just wanted to go back to our quiet pensione and it took almost two hours to walk to find a ferry boat and get back to the room. The ferry workers were most unhelpful, as were the restaurant workers. Ben was so tired of the rudeness that he was itchy to leave the beautiful town of Venice--not because he didnt like Venice but the people soured the experience. We had a nice room in a piazza near the station that was a relief from the hostel experience.
We took a 6 hour train to Salzburg Monday. It was actually 8 hours because it was rumored that a person committed suicide in front of another train that caused us a 2 hour delay. Horrible.
The views on the train ride through Austria were incredible! A recommended spot to any who love the Sierra Mountains and lush lakes and valleys!!!
We took a connecting train 4 minutes north of the downtown to a quiet area that has bed and breakfasts. On our train we saw a young man with a BYU sweatshirt on so we went to talk with him. He and his young wife are from utah and go to the Y, another girl from Kansas was sitting there that was living with her aunt in Austria for a year before starting college at BYU. So the five of us chatted for our 4 minute ride. Then we noticed that the young married couple, Justin and Leslie Myers, were staying two houses away so we invited them to dinner and we enjoyed talking about school, missions and majors, Leslie was also a history major.
We stayed in a nice double bed room in a home that overlooked the Salzburg valley! It was very lovely. We took a morning tour on the popular "Sound of Music" tour. Ben was not so excited about the idea since he is not even sure he has ever seen the movie the whole way through, but we both enjoyed the great tour of the countryside. The lakes region is gorgeous, it is full of jagged stone mountains covered with lush trees and sprinkled with alpine lakes. The little towns are enchanting with their "Midway, Utah--look" to them. We ate at a recommended strutel shop. The region is known for its apple strutel.
We spent the rest of the afternoon searching for the mysterious laundermat! It took hours of bad directions to wind up where we started, a block away. Anyway, we now have clean clothes!
We have another night train tonight at midnight. We are going to Frankfurt so that we can go the LDS temple there. We will stay there one night and then go to Belgium. Along the way Thursday we will stop in Cologne (Köln) to see the cathedral.
We have had a warm day today and the only food so far has been the strudel and an ice cream so we are tired and Ben is grumpy. He sleepy with his head on the table next to me right now.
The only phrase that I can remember from Switzerland years ago is Guten Morgen, which came in handy this morning! (Remember that Mom and Dad and Steve?)
WEll I am going to try and peel this boy off the table and get him some food. We will then go up to the Fortress to see the view and then catch our midnight train. We reserved the top bunks so hopefully this wont be such a bad experience.
More from KimnBensEuropetrip2000 here