Ljubljana, Slovenia to Salzburg, Austria!

You don’t come to Europe for the food. You come for the sights, and today we got what we came for.

Breakfast was a sad buffet of sorry looking sausages, bread, fruit and cereal. We were disappointed after Croatia as the quality of food there was slightly better.

Our first destination was Lake Bled. It is a beautiful lake with an island (Bled Island) in the middle where a church is perched on top. Surrounding the lake are Alps with houses and one had a church on its slopes. A man in a row boat, rowed 7 of us to the island in the middle. It cost €10 a person for the ride to the island. Once off the boat, there was a large staircase before reaching the church on the island. We were told by Jaz, our tour guide, that legend has it that a husband was to carry his bride to the top of the stairs and ring a bell for a happy marriage. So 2 out of the 3 couples did this. Bonus for the boys was that the girl was to be silent, but I think that was the only up side.

Of course Ben didn’t carry me up the staircase! Are you kidding?!

When we reached the top it was a further €3 to enter the Church of Mary the Queen to ring the bell. Not a nice sounding bell, but it satisfied the tourists to ring it.
The island was very green. There were lots of healthy and lush looking trees and shrubs. The water was a distinct green colour but it blended in well with the surrounding Alps and lush forest. Although the weather was overcast it was really nice being on the island and also looking out.

We were accompanied by what seemed like 2 full bus loads of Japanese tourists, so you can imagine that the boat rowers were keen to get rid of us on the way back. So, being dropped a few metres further along the lake we walked back to our bus. We were met by a family of ducks. The ducklings were so cute! It was a complete family, Mummy duck, Daddy duck and 2 ducklings.

Next stop was Austria. However the ride getting into Austria as awesome! Huge mountain ranges with lush greenery and houses spotting the hillside. In the distance we saw some snow capped mountains. This is what I was waiting for. This was the scenery I had expected!

We arrived at Hotel Haunspergerhof at about 1:15pm. Our tour guide had arranged for us to join the Sound of Music tour at 2pm. So after having a quick lunch of an apple scroll and instant noodles we headed for the 4 hour bus tour.

Our tour guide, Beatrice, was a local Austrian who was proud of her country. She had a smile plastered on her face which Ben thought was quite scary. She told us about the real Von Trap family (yeah! I didn’t realize that either!) who ended up in America during the 2nd World War. The places from the movie we saw:

· Where they filmed the driveway to the Von Trap family’s house
· The original Gazebo
· The Baroness’ house and the lake beside it.
· The lake where they went for a bicycle ride.
· The church where the wedding scene was filmed
· Where they filmed the children in the trees when Captain Von Trap arrives home, and
· The area of which the helicopter shot the opening scenes (over one lake to another)

In the middle of the tour, Beatrice’s big surprise was a toboggan area where you could pay €4 to come down this hill. It was cold and we were wondering what relevance this had to the Sound of Music?! People did do it though. Beatrice tried to sell it by saying the original Maria Von Trap has ridden down this ride. Whatever!

We stopped in a town called Mondsee for an hour. Here was the church that their wedding was filmed in. We walked around a little and had an apple strudel which was recommended to us at a shop which had been open since the early 1600’s. It was really nice, perfect amount of sugars and cinnamon and the pastry was slightly crisp but not too much.

We arrived back in town at 6:15pm and took a walk through the main parts of town. It’s a similar town to Lublijana but it has it’s own history and character too. There is a fortress on top of the mountain (we did not have time to visit this) and a convent near it.

Dinner was provided by the tour. We had
· mixed vegetable soup
· Beef (I think) stew with some sort of pasta, and
· Ice-cream.

Not bad, pretty good compared to the last time they included dinner and it was at a restaurant!

All in all I had a good day! We go to Prague tomorrow!