Salzburg and Vienna

It was a wintry whirlwind of yodelling, Xmas markets, snow, weiner schnitzel and gluewein with the Salty Balls Salzburg/Vienna gang! - so awesome to catch up with AJ, Ross and Frankie.

After a leisurely buffet breakfast, we finally co-ordinated the troops and started off with a wander around the old town of Salzburg, with its fantastic Xmas market full of great decorations, cakes and food.

 

 

 

   

Then it was time for a coffee in a nearby kaffehaus to warm up, where Ross and Bill got into the liqueur hot chocolates which became a theme of the next few days. There was also much yodelling and hilarity as we admired Bill's hat (complete with pin and feather) purchased at the markets .

 

 

Then we walked up the steep path to the HohenSalzburg castle where we enjoyed the views, more markets and stumbled upon an angel who invited the kids to make some Xmas cookies. 

 

 

  

 

 

  

 

On the way back we took in some gorgeous carolling outside the cathedral, which was very poignant as dusk fell

 

Ross very quickly became the favourite grown-up after treating the kids at the Swedish Lolly Shop and established his points system to keep them in line for the rest of the time....

Then it was back across the lock bridge for the group shot:

 

And as we walked back through the gardens of the Schloss Mirabell - cue : snow!! Naturally we broke out into Do Re Mi and there were snowball fights all over the place, absolutely magical...!

   

On the second day - we did the hop on hop off and Sound of Music bus, starting at horse bath!

First stop was the original Sound of Music House (Schloss Leopoldskron), looking amazing in the wintry landscape...

 

 

Then we went to Schloss Hellbrunn where, after much anticipation, we found the gazebo under which Liesl and Rolf sang "I am sixteen going on seventeen". Despite its positioning next to a wall (despite the grand, expansive gardens all around it) being a little underwhelming, our enthusiasm was not dampened - and we felt that the gazebo was still deserving of  some snogging and a group shot, oldest to youngest, Von Trapp style...

 

 

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Then, having struggled to find a cosy bar nearby, we defaulted to our local for a few beers and even managed to sneak in dinner out at the pizzeria around the corner, all while the kids happily watched the Grinch in the hotel room...

 

The next day it was a bit of  ice skating in the old town before we drove to Vienna, with Frankie Ross and AJ taking the train.

 

On our first morning in Vienna, Harv cooked french toast for the whole gang at our apartment. Then Bill's day of admin with the car issues began.....he took off to try to get it sorted and we rugged up and hit the old town, through the snow in the Stadtpark to Stephansplatz, where we took the lift up the cathedral. It was freezing on another level, causing a lot of dysfunction and we were decidedly ineffectual for most of the day - e.g  all piling on to the tram for about a minute before seeing the hop on bus and piling off the tram, only to have missed the bus by the time we got the gang across the road...

  

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Then we walked through the shopping streets past the Hofburg palace to the Rathaus, where we had to re-enact the original Rathaus photo (circa early 2000). 

 

Inside the Rathaus, again some angels amused our kids with more gingerbread and icing while we had some punsch - go the xmas cheer!

   

 

 

The afternoon unravelled with more car admin so after splitting to have some down time at the apartment, we all met up for dinner later on at Lu Gek in the old town, followed by ice-cream at an old coffee house.

 The next day, the car admin again dominated and poor old Bill spent most of the day on the phone to Citroen and the workshop trying to get it sorted out, with the rest of us telling him he was being too polite. We did manage to meet at the stunning Natural History Museum, which the kids loved, then wandered through more Xmas markets to  the Museum Quartier.

Bill on the phone to Citroen....

 

 

 

   

After some sketchy "hop on hop off bus" navigation we finally made it out to Schonbrunn palace where we checked out the kinder museum.,,  and found the dress-up box which was a hit with the kids and adults alike...with everyone rising to the occasion! 

 

After all that effort (and confirmation that a new rental car had been confirmed - whoop whoop Bill)  it was time for a well-earned evening gluewein in the markets outside.

 

Then off to "Said the Butcher to the Cow" for final night dinner and goodbyes.....it was sad saying goodbye to Arja and family as the realisation sets in that they live on the other side of the world! It's always such a fun time catching up. We miss you guys! See you in NZ next summer where we hope it will be a little warmer...!

 

Harvey says: I really enjoyed "Salty Balls Salzburg" - I especially loved all the snowball fights we had. Generally it was me by myself versus everyone else because I was the one starting it. Lots of people did fake truces with me and then threw snowballs at me - cough cough mum cough cough. I still generally won them though. I really enjoyed catching up with Frankie and buying presents for mum and dad at the markets. Vienna was freezing cold but I still really liked it. I found the dressing up very funny and the natural history museum was fascinating.

 

Zoe says: i loved salts burg because we stayed with franki aj and ross it was so fun Ross kept on making silly deals but one of them was actuallly really ccccccoooooolllllll because we got some lollies.

Amelia says: salzburg and vienna  was so fun, it was great to see AJ and ross and funny frankie, it's hard to believe that  AJ was kiwi because she sounds like she's english. My favourite thing was the sound of music tour although we did not get to see much. We had a massive snowball fight and dad AJ mum and me made a snowman. Vienna was a really beautifull city but it was really super duper ccccccccooooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllldddddddddddd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we went to the Schonbrunn museum and the Natural History museum - I liked the Schonbrunn one best because you can dress up. We got a picture of an angel and you had to spot it somewhere in the kids' museum - I spotted mine first out of everybody. We got a prize at the end. The Natural History Museum was really cool because I got to see all the bodies of real animals. There was a whole section of NZ animals like keas, kakapos and much much more. I love Vienna and Salzburg and I loved catching up with AJ Ross and Frankie.