The Sound of Music tour

It was a sing-along bus tour. It was 4 hours long and it was offered by Panaroma Tours who also offer several other tours in the area. It is held twice per day and they pick you up at your hotel- then take you to the main meeting area and you board this bus.

They take you to many of the sights, some you can get out and view and others you just drive by.

She just 6 going on 7

In the movie The Sound of Music this is the glass gazebo that was used during the song and dance when Lisl and Rolf sang "I'm just sixteen going on seventeen" and dancing around on the benches on the inside. They don't let you go inside because too many people had gotten injured from trying to play Lisl and Rolf.

More pics on the way

Hi all! Just a quick note about my blog- I'll be updating again soon with a lot more pictures from our Salzburg trip. For some reason the blogspot server has not been working right when it comes to uploading my pics to the sight. I will try again tonight.

While on the Sound Of Music Tour

This is the church that the Van Trapp's got married in. Outside..and below only one small pic of the beauty within.

So much more than this to see....

Salzburg camera shots...

We found a small flea market. Only found one thing reasonably priced- a gift for someone...hint for a child of mine - a female child who wasn't with me!!!!!! Check out the awesome mountain straight above the building.

Ann-Marie near the crazy tree in Miribili gardens. This tree helped us find out way back to the hotel when it was freezing rain and after dark.... (so did ann-marie...she pointed it out as we were walking!)

Me in my ultra cool cap

Mozart's birth home....above...notice the yellow....the yellow paint (we found out) was only reserved for the Hapsburgs (at one point) but apparently they have allowed it to be used since then in public interest places and those places which used to be under Hapsburg ownership.

The November sky and Salzburg view

Driving conditions

As we were stuck in a Stau for about 45 minutes.

Above and below as we stopped in between Garmisch and Salzburg at a WC.

Ok, so maybe you don't think these are very interesting moments to capture on film....but it was interesting to be here, rest assured. With just myself, a 6 year old child and a road map (anyone who has tried to read a road map of Europe knows it is not as easy as you'd think...lol), and driving through the Alps....hmmm. Put it this way....I had muscular soreness the days following the drives due to my relentless grip on the steering wheel and 'nerved up' back and neck - not from hiking!

We had snow and ice on the way through the Alps as we went TO Garmisch Germany....then we had snow and ice on the way to Salzburg, Austria from Garmisch and then we had bunches of snow on the way back home as we traveled from Salzburg to Vicenza. I wish I had you all with me as I took this drive (in particular from ...I swear it was the most beautiful drive I have ever been on. But I was too busy gawking (and trying to drive) to take any photos. We had one stau (traffic hold up) for about 45 minutes (pictured above) and had a one hour stau (traffic hold up) while at the very tops (we had wondered if we would be there for the night.....the weather was bad....but we turned off the car to save heat/gas and had a blanket and food and water)

It was so surprising....there were huge piles of snow falling as we got to the highest peaks in Austria and that was so pretty with those gorgeous snow covered Alpine homes (no homes on the highest parts at least where we drove) and then as we started decending...things dried out and it got so gorgeous (the surprising part)....I wanted to pull over but there is really no where to pull over. I have a new outlook on Italy. NOW THIS is Beautiful!!!!!

Now I must say that we went through some amazing tunnels on our way through on the drive home both in Austria and Italy. At times the tunnels were a reprieve from the snow and ice...you could at least get your windshield really clean. An interesting point...which I don't understand is that while going through the tunnels in Austria (one was 6500 meters- close to 6K- or about 4 miles long!) the radio STILL WORKED THE WHOLE TIME! Not so in Italy on the shorter tunnels...who knows?

Ok, one more thing about the drive. I didn't expect all the beauty along the way and even through at first I was nervous and tense while driving...they somehow keep the roads fairly dry (except when it is so heavily snowing that you can't even keep your windsheild snow free). We did see many cars stuck along side the road after sliding off and we saw one truck jack knifed going the opposite direction than what he should be....it was still a wonderful experience for me and I feel like I really accomplished something interesting.

My lasting thought....the Alps are BIG. Didn't realize how so.

Autumn Harvest Princess

She looks sweet and innocent, doesn't she? Mmwhhaaa haaa haaa haaaa!

Random hiking sights

While in Garmisch, we drove to Farchant (very close village) to try out a nice biking and hiking trail (we brought Ann-Marie's bike). We were on the trail for about 3 and a half hours, we walked to Oberau and back. I don't know what it is about this region of the world but it is so refreshing and relaxing and (would be) romantic given the right circumstances. The weather was rather cold and it spit little bits of rain/snow stuff at us at various points in our walk. The highlight was all the sheep crossing right in front of us on the path! It took a lot of will power not to go an try to pet them (for both of us!)

Basically, while on this hike I have chosen the spot of land to build my very own Alpine home...it is right behind me.

Halloween fun

I just love that picture that Stephanie sent me of her dressed as a German girl for Halloween. She looks too cute. Stephanie had a halloween party at her house the weekend before Halloween and so she sent me that pic of her.

We went to the Army family housing area to participate in the Halloween fun on Halloween night. From about 3 to 6pm there was a small 'carnival' which was basically a few halloween type games. No haunted houses or anything, unfortunately.

You can see who Ann-Marie dressed up as this year (again). This will be her last year as Spiderman (we now have 2 spiderman costumes and the one she is wearing is in it's second year of use). And as you can see there were other spidermans at the festivities this year....probably was the most popular costume- must have been 30 of those crawly guys walking around. We don't know the kid who is in the pic above with her but I just thought they ought to have a pic together and the parents didn't mind.

At 6pm trick or treating started...which is really weird because it is in such a limited area (the housing area) and most of the people who live there have kids who want to go trick or treating too. Not very many houses participated. We had given bags and bags of candy (on the last day it was 60% off) to one of the people who live on the housing area so that we could stop by her house and give Ann-Marie the opportunity to pass out candy as well as go around and take it. So you can see Ann-Marie with that scary devilish costumed guy who was the neighbor of the girl I had the candy passing arrangment with. It took only a few minutes and she wasn't scared of that thing anymore. (Actually at first she was sure it was Brandon under there).