My apologies for the huge void in posts. I suppose you can blame it on the world cup b/c every night when I should be writing I get sucked in to watching the 8:30 match. Today we took trains from Frankfurt to Bordeaux which means I had no excuse to get caught up. I'll post a few times over the next couple days to keep from posting one long novel right now.

So....

I left off at our departure from Vienna. After a week in big cities we were more than ready to set out for the country. Yes I appreciate the irony of living in one of the largest cities in the world but far preferring to travel in the small towns and villages of a country. My mom agrees and we just say that we're not church or museum people! Really we just agree that it's easier to get a taste of a country and its culture with the country folk.

Between Vienna and Salzburg are two beautiful regions of Austria. First is the Wachau valley which runs along much of the river between the two cities. Outside of Salzburg and south of the river is the Lake Region. We spent two days enjoying both by car, stopping when we got the urge to do so. West out of Vienna we stopped in Durnstein, one of the most picturesque little towns along the river. The shores along the Wachau are covered with Apricot trees and this little town sold every apricot product known to man. We decided to head for a city called Steyr for the night. Unfortunately it wasn't quite what we had envisioned (too big) so we back peddled a few kilometers to a town that we both had noticed out on a high hill in the distance. It had a gorgeous white church and just seemed to call our name. We headed down one country road thinking we were in the right direction but we just couldn't quite sort out how to get “over there.” We pulled into a “Gasthaus” along the road, resigned to stay there for the night. A couple were walking out to their car so we asked the if it was a nice place and if they had rooms. They looked at us with puzzled faces and said “no” there are no rooms here. Why would there be? Turns out Gasthaus does not mean Guesthouse but rather an informal restaurant sort-of. “Gast” as is gastronomy I suppose. Whoops. So we managed with their english skills to ask for another recommendation of where to find a room or “zimmer” as they are called. Their first idea was with a farmer in some remote location. We didn't quite like the sound of that but then they offered to have us follow them in their car to another place they could think of. 5km later there we were in the center of that gorgeous hilltop town at a Gastehaus which, it turns out, means Guesthouse. I guess two dots over an “a” and that extra e has a drasticaly different meaning! They thought our confusion was pretty endearing. We bought the couple a drink and had dinner from the kitchen at the Gastehaus. That's when we learned from our guesthouse owner that the couple we had met were great cooks and that they had a restaurant in the next town over. I might not be doing a great job of conveying it but this couple was so kind to us and so helpful that we said we would definitely come out for lunch the next day. I know they didn't believe us b/c we had to be in Salzburg that night (a bit of a drive) but we did, we drove waaaay out into the sticks for what was a great local experience and the best meal of our trip so far. This couple were Karl and Erna. Turns out Karl is the cook and he made an amazing grilled fish and this highly regional dish that was two enormous dumplings (the size of softballs) filled with a deliciously flavored combo of pork and veal. We tried our best to finish it but the homemade brown bread and sheep's milk from a neighboring farm as our starter didn't help the cause. I'm sure you've seen the pics by now but the view from their restaurant was as wonderful as the food. Their entire family's hospitality (her daughter and grandson also came to our table for a visit) was incredible. THIS is the kind of experience we had been excited for and finally felt like the heart of our vaca had begun.

Fat and happy from Karl's lunch we headed for a picturesque town called Hallstatt. It sits at a remote end of a lake and we were happy to have the opportunity to explore it after all of the tourists had gone home. The pictures really say it all about this town.

That night we eventually rolled into Salzburg where we would spend two full days.
As a city, Salzburg is actually pretty sophisticated. Like a mini Vienna I guess.
On our first day we enjoyed a Sound of Music bus tour where we got to visit a number of the locations where the film was taped. In the evening we took in a violin/piano duet performance at the Mirabell Palace. We couldn't leave Salzburg without a little Mozart! On our second day we visited the homes where Mozart lived and toured the Mozart museum. We both really enjoyed this as we admittedly knew very little about him. On our second night we took in a performance of SOM (can't get enough!) at the Marionette Theater. This may sound corny but it was SO cool. The puppeteers were incredible and after a while you almost forgot you were watching wood figures. It's a must-do for all ages.