Austria...the hills are most definitely alive with the sound of music!

Wow, I can’t believe that I have been part of the steemit community for almost a month now! I am enjoying it so much. I love how everyone pulls together and helps each other out so that posts get as much exposure as possible!

I have been working on this Austria post for a few weeks, now. After I spent some time their, back in July/August I am finally feel like I have found the I right words to express my love for that place. I am finally ready to rave to the steemit world about it!.......

I want to start out by saying, if you are planning a trip to Austria, I would highly recommend watching the sound of music BEFORE visiting Austria! Yes, I am ashamed to say that it has taken me 28 years to experience the joys of the sound of music! I’m not overly into musicals, but come on, the leading lady is Julie Andrews! She absolutely owns the screen! Plus, it has such a memorable soundtrack! The songs are still stuck in my head two months on! I shall try not to make too may sound of music references, but I can’t promise anything! After all, there is so much more to Austria then that movie, but it sure does play a big part in the country’s top sights!

Its all too easy to overpay and book onto a sound of music highlight tour, which is offered by many different tour operators and if that is your style of traveling, then go for it! But, It is so easy and much cheaper, to organise yourself. Google maps, TripAdvisor and travel blogs, makes traveling so easy nowadays. You can be your own tour guide!

Our first city in Austria, was the almighty Vienna! (Ohhhhh Vienna, see, nothing sound of music about that song).
Vienna is soaked in history, art and music. There are monuments to be admired, on every corner. Mozart and Beethoven, to name a couple of famous people who have resided here over the years. Oh and who could forget that Arnold Schwarzenegger lived their too! And I am certain, that he 'will be back.’ Many tourists flock to Vienna to experience it’s world class theatre, opera and ballets.
I wasn’t sure that we would fit in, in our oversized backpacks, shorts and t-shirts, so we skipped that side of Austria! But we are such big fans of symphony orchestra's that I am sure we will return one day to experience one of those! We fall asleep to movie scores most nights, Jurassic park, star wars, E.T. etc. We are such geeks!

Schonbrunn Palace, otherwise known as Vienna Palace, is a former imperial summer residence which is now a major tourist attraction because of its exquisite gardens. We didn’t venture inside the palace itself. But we did spend hours strolling alongside the colourful flower displays, grand water features and historical monuments, that Schonbrunn Palace has to offer.
It was a particularly hot day when we visited so we were pleased to find many free water foundations dotted around. This is a very nice touch that we found throughout Austria! The palace is definitely worth seeing, but try to get their early to avoid the heavy crowds which flock their daily!

Our accommodation was just opposite the fun filled, Prater theme park! Which is a great way to spend many fun filled hours! It has lots of great rides to offer, ghost trains, roller coasters and thrill rides. Suitable for all ages and thrill seekers. There is so much choice, you will struggle to choose which ones to go on! Each ride is priced between €3-5. It is free to enter. It’s cool even just to walk around at night when all the lights are on, it has that, old school fairground atmosphere.

The sounds of kids screaming with delight, the smell of candyfloss and popcorn and that excited feeling of being out at night when you were a kid. Being a big kid myself, I can personally recommended any of the ghost trains, the 3d ice train and also the water ride!
The food is pretty good in the park too! Some of the restaurants sell traditional Austrian food, schnitzel ("with noodles#) to be precise! One of Vienna’s highest rating schnitzel restaurants, Gasthaus Reinthaler, is situated towards the rear of the park. But any restaurant that sells schnitzel in Prater is worth checking out! The prices are very reasonable too!

A very unique, off the beaten track place we visited whilst in Salzburg, was the Lanzier Tiergarten. Not heard of by many tourists, but well worth a visit! It is acres and acres of forest, but we mostly just stuck to the main pathways! As it is filled with wild pigs, that once famously attacked a famous emperor, back in the day! But don’t worry, they hide in the depths of the forest, avoiding humans! Highlights at this park were, hand feeding the deer! (A deer, a female deer)....and the Hermes Villa, which has interesting royal history connected to it. It wasn’t hard to see why a Walt Disney movie was once filmed their! It was such a quiet place and it only appeared to be where locals were hanging out. Perfect, for some chill time out of the city!

Salzburg.......
After watching the sound of music, of course we had to visit Salzburg! We visited many of the filming locations used in the actual movie! We had fun recreating some scenes on video! This was the Mirabell palace and gardens, which was where the 'do-re-mi' scenes were filmed.

There is a funicular near the main bridge which straddles the Salzburg river. (You’ll know which one is the main bridge, it’s the one with all the tourists on it, taking photos) The funicular takes you up to a great lookout spot, where you can take in great views of Salzburg.

One “of my favourite things” that we did, was watch a puppet show at the Salzburg Marionette Theatre. This theatre made the puppets that the Von Trapp children use in the 'yoaddle' scene in the movie. And of course, the show we watched was the sound of music! My daughter loved it and so did we! It was outstanding! Such a rare and wonderful experience! I almost forgot that I was watching puppets on the stage, the puppeteers were so talented. The way in which they moved them, brought them to life. The shows tickets sell out fast, especially the ones in English. So if you would like to go when you are visiting Salzburg for a few days, I suggest buying them as soon as you get into the city!

Hallstatt.........
No trip to Austria would be complete without a trip to Hallstatt. It is easily accessible by train from Salzburg train station. It takes around 1 hour 30 minutes to get their. Again, I recommend leaving as early as you can, especially if you want to take good photos! We left Hallstatt early afternoon and the crowds were built up, even by then! But that’s not surprising! It’s such a postcard perfect location!

The walk up to the viewpoint on top of the hill, is extremely steep, so taking the cable car up and then walking back down would probably be your best option! The pathway to get back to the village, is where I took most of my best photos. On the walk back down their is many information plaques which explains the history of the mines at Hallstatt, which was very informative!

There is also a waterfall which you would otherwise miss, if you were to take the cable car back down. If you are on a travel budget like us, I would say take your own packed lunch, as their are limited restaurants and as they are mostly used by tourists, it could blow your budget to eat their! You can stay at Hallstatt if you wish too, there is a good choice of bed and breakfasts, especially if you book in advance. But again, this was too expensive for us! So we opted to just take the train from Hallstatt and make a long day of it! The train ride itself was just as beautiful as Hallstatt. We whizzed past lakes, mountains and quaint villages. If Hallstatt isn’t on your bucket list, I suggest that you get it onto it right now!

With our next stop, I am cheating a little bit here! The sound of music mountain used in the opening scene, is not actually in Austria! Mehlweg meadow, is actually in Germany! But whilst this post is mostly based on the sound of music, the location of the meadow/mountain is only 12 miles from Salzburg and we visited here when we were staying in Austria, I hope for those reasons, I am forgiven for adding it to my Austria post! (Post on Germany is coming soon).

We were joined that day, on the Mehlweg meadow by lots of grazing cows! The views were awe-inspiring, even seeing it in person, it’s hard to believe that it is real! If you travel to Mehlweg to see the meadow, you should also visit Hohenwerfen castle, which is a 17th century castle. There is stunning views from this castle which is also rich in Nazi history. We watched a bird of prey show which was truly spectacular! Watching those gigantic birds, circling the skies around the mountains, was impressive! This castle has been used in many movies, because of its hill top location with picturesque mountain backdrops. It was most recently used in 'The man in the high castle’ series, which I am a huge fan of!

Austria can be expensive, it’s not renowned for its cheap prices! But if you do enough research and play it right then you can do it on a budget, as we did! Even if we did only eat cheese sandwiches for a week! The scenery was well worth the sacrifice!

“so long, farewell, auf weidersehen, goodbye”

Peace out.

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