Christmas Day in Salzburg

Well, we think the jet-lag and big Christmas Eve finally caught up to us. We had hoped to wake up sort of early today and typically we wake up early in the morning on our own. Not today. 10:45. Yep. We slept REALLY late. By the time we showered and got ready for the day we thought we had time to catch a quick breakfast before our Lake and Mountain Tour. We couldn’t find anything open serving breakfast and ended up on our tour bus heading out to the country side with a coffee to go. We had always heard great stories about the surrounding lakes and mountains and thought the Panorama Tours Lake and Mountain tour sounded like a good way to spend Christmas since most of the  places are closed in Salzburg. It did not disappoint us. We first went to the tiny village of St. Wolfgangsee and were able to walk around the village and visit it’s great church. The is a small church but the design, carvings and woodwork were some of the most impressive we had ever seen. It had used to be a pilgrimage destination for Catholics but now seems to be more of a destination for tourists. Afterwards, we ended up in the town of St. Gilgen and were able to stop for coffee and cake at the famous Café Dallman. Apparently this is the place to go as the walls were lined with celebrities and the President of China had just been there a few weeks before.

Once back in Salzburg we had reservations for a extremely nice Christmas dinner at the St. Peter Stilfskelter but since we hadn’t eaten all day and it would require us to go back to the apartment and change in to very formal clothing we opted to go back to Pizza Il Sole where we were greeted by the excited owner. We ended up meeting a nice family from Redondo Beach California at the table next to us. Maybe the red wine is too good since we keep meeting people at dinner. Anyway, we said by to all and ended the night with a short walk through the city and were able to call our families and wish them a Merry Christmas.

 

Here is a picture of Kelly with the owner of Pizza Il Sole.

Tonight we hope to get to bed early to get a earlier start on a full day in Salzburg before we are off to Budapest and Vienna.

Christmas Eve in Salzburg

We made it to Salzburg and to our old apartment. It is amazing that the apartment hasn’t changed a bit. Everything we had left from the summer of 2008 like our fan, magazines and books were still in place. We had even left a photograph on our last visit which is still in its place. To thank the owner for accommodating us, we have left him another photograph from our last visit to Salzburg. It sure is good to be here again. It feels like our second home.

After settling in our apartment, we went directly to the Internet café with the hope of updating our blog but as we walked up our friend Nadeem was placing a closed sign on the door. He was leaving for London with his family and won’t be back until we are in Budapest. We were able to take a quick picture before we left. We are sad that we did not get to visit with him but sure are glad we got to see him before he left.

After walking around to see the city once again, we visited one of our favorite places, Afro Café, to have a little lunch and a great  Die Wiesse beer! We may just have to ship some of these home… For lunch, we had a chicken wrap with fries and pineapple ketchup. Last time, it was mango but the pineapple was even better!! 

I guess our lunch went a little long because as we were just a few seconds too late to catch the historic train that runs to Oberndorf to see the Silent Night chapel performance. We were still able to get to the tiny village by the local bahn and look around. We decided to go in the chapel and sit at one of the pews to soak in the atmosphere when suddenly we heard someone speaking German loudly. We didn’t know what he said but it was apparent it meant time to go. Apparently the village had surrounded the chapel, all of the performers were in place on the steps and the show was ready to begin except for the Texans in the chapel. I was able to snap this picture on our way out.

The Silent night performance is pretty amazing. This village and chapel is the place where Silent Night was written and first performed in 1818. This tiny village all comes out to the square to have a fun time socializing before the show with lots of schnapps and gluwein. There is a brass band that plays a few traditional Austrian songs after which the history of the song is described by an announcer. After the history, all of the lights are turned out in the village except for the chapel and approximately 1000 people all sing Stille Nacht (Silent Night) many of which holding candles under the stars.

After the performance we found our way to the train station to find the historic train we had missed on the way in so we decided to ride it back to Salzburg.

Back in Salzburg we had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Pizza Il Sole. It was nice to see the owner who greeted us with a friendly handshake and big smile. He was happy to see us again as he mentioned to Kelly that part of her heart was in Salzburg. Nothing seems to change here in this lovely city! The owner is Italian and has really authentically good Italian food. During a nice long dinner we met a nice couple from Minnesota who told us of a performance that night in one of the old Chapels. We ended up running into the couple after dinner. They were lost so we lead the way to the chapel and decided to stay and watch some of the performance.

Afterwards, we finally made it to the main Cathedral in anticipation of the midnight mass. A huge crowd gathers before they even open the doors and as soon as they open people rushed for the best seats. We are not Catholic and our German is not so good so we weren’t too sure what was being said but it was a nice experience to be sitting in such an incredible cathedral surrounded by local residents. The mass included several songs accompanied by a full choir, symphony and pipe organ. At the end they capped the mass in local style by turning off all of the lights in the cathedral and having a single acoustic guitarist perform Silent night with the choir accompanying.

Christmas Eve ended up being just as big of a day as we had hoped but we finally turned in for the night. We never stay up this late so we are tired!

Salzburg!!!

 

Well, we left our hotel in Munich and are currently on a train on our way to Salzburg. Le Meridien Munchen is such a nice hotel. The sheets and bed were really comfortable. Perhaps we were just extremely tired but we slept like a rock. The bathroom was also really nice as it came equipped with a nice and large bathtub along with a separate shower. The hotel was even nice enough to accommodate our request for a room without a scent as we read online that they place incense in every room. It could not be in a better location as the train station was directly across the street. We definitely recommend this hotel to anyone who plans to travel to Munich.

Today, we have big plans! We are going to our old apartment to get settled in and are then headed to the city center to visit our good friend at the internet café that we always go to. Lunch will be at Afro Café, one of our very favorite restaurants in Salzburg, where we will share chicken wrap with fries and mango ketchup. Later we are going to head to Oberndorf for the big Christmas eve celebration at the chapel where silent night was written and first performed. Oberndorf is a tiny town on the German-Austrian border. Although it is located in Austria, if we cross the river we would be in Germany. After the silent night chapel, we are going back to Salzburg where we have dinner reservations at an Italian restaurant followed by midnight mass in the old Cathedral. Although we are not Catholic, we were told that this should not be missed. It is a good thing the coffee is really good here because we are going to need it in order to stay up so late!!

We will post more later…

We made it!

Well we have seen the sun set twice since we started our travels here but we finally made it without any trouble. It has just been a long time in a plane/train/subway. It is a little strange seeing all of the familiar places exactly a year later. Combined with jet lag it seems like we are in a recurring dream but a good dream! In fact, the perfect dream!!

We were able to make it to the Englischer Garten this year to see the Christmas market there. It was very nice and small but extremely cute and quintessentially German. The Christmas market was filled with very happy people as they had plenty of Gluwein, sausage stands and hot roasted almonds. After a quick loop through we caught the tram to Marienplatz and were able to grab a great sausage dinner with a nice hot Gluwein to wash it down. While eating dinner, we met a nice couple from Texas. They are going to be here five weeks! Lucky them!!

We are really jet lagged so we are turning in for the night to get a good rest. We have a BIG day planned tomorrow.

Christmas 2011 Itinerary

We are off again to the land of Gluwein and snow covered Christmas markets. Below is our itinerary. We will have our computer with us on this trip so check back often if you would like to see our updates throughout the trip.

 

December 22 -23

Fly to Munich with a stop in London. We will arrive on December 23. We will spend this day trying to shake off the jet lag and hope to see a few sites before we crash.

December 24

We will travel by train to Salzburg once again. This day should be a full day as we have planned to travel to Oberndorf to see the annual Silent Night Chapel event and attend midnight mass in the old cathedral at Salzburg

Midnight Mass in Salzburg

December 25-26

Christmas in Salzburg! The only thing we have planned for today is a Mountain and Lakes tour in the surrounding countryside.

December 27-29

Travel to Budapest. This will be our first time to this area and we have no idea how to speak Hungarian.

Budapest is known for their opera and great dollar exchange rate. For a grand total of $12 we have tickets this night for a performance here:

December 29-30

Vienna! We plan on staying here late and traveling back to Salzburg at night to get a good night rest before New Year’s.

December 30-January 1

New Year’s in Salzburg

January 1

Travel to Munich to get ready to come back to Texas

January 2

Return to Texas!

Return trip!
We have forgotten just how tired feet can become and luckily haven't figured out how cold -5 degrees Celsius feels. Below is an itinerary so you can keep track of our schedule. We will try to update as much as possible during our short time in Salzburg. We're not sure if we can upload pictures since we won't have our laptop this time but we will do our best.

Itinerary:
DEC 22-23:
American Airlines
Flight 78 DFW 7:40pm Arrive London Heathrow 10:45am
Flight 6545 LHR 12:25pm Arrive Munich 3:20pm

We plan on spending the rest of the day of the 23rd going to the Christmas markets seen in the picture above. Later that night we will take a train to Salzburg to our old apartment that we rented 2 years ago.

DEC 24
This day we are planning on going to this small chapel we visited last time where the song Silent Night was written and first performed. They apparently have a big Christmas Eve celebration. If you would like to watch it LIVE you can follow this link. It will start at 10am central standard time. Maybe you'll see us! Just click here to get to the website for the live view.






DEC 25
Christmas dinner will be at the St Peter Stiftskeller. It is the oldest continuously run restaurant in Europe and was established when Charlemagne (Charles the Great) first ate here in year 803. Salzburg is known for its connection to Mozart and this dinner will include a concert by a quintet playing the greatest hits. The dinner will include a menu from the time of Mozart.




DEC 26 - 27
Rest maybe? We will be hanging around Salzburg for these days.

DEC 28 - 29
Off to Munich. The 28th we will be going back to Munich to see the sites around town. We will be staying at the InterCity Hotel. Here is a link to their website if you need us for some reason. Click me.

The 29th we will be taking a train 2 hours to the west to see Neuschwantsein castle pictured to the left. We will take a train back through Austria and hopefully have time to stop off in smaller towns on the way back to Salzburg.



DEC 30 - 31
These two days we will be in Salzburg and getting ready for their New Year's Eve celebration.









Jan 1-2
We will be flying to London Jan 1st but we have a layover until Jan 2nd at 10:15 so we hope to take in a day of sightseeing before we leave. Our flight information back is as follows.
Munich to London Heathrow Flight 6544 1:15pm arrive 2:20pm.
London Heathrow to Chicago Ohare Flight 87 10:15am arrive 12:55pm. Chicago to Dallas Flight 2333 2:40 arrive 5:15pm.

One last chance to play tourist.

Westminster Abbey




Look kids, Big Ben



We discovered this interesting crosswalk between two building



Ballerina statue outside the National Opera House



On the way home we flew over Greenland which looked incredible. It was this huge expanse of ice except along the shore where the glaciers were breaking off and floating into the ocean.







Well we've made it home and are both thrilled to be back. It was a great trip and is still taking a while to sink in exactly what all we have seen. We've had fun but it is really good to be home. Hopefully we will be able to see everyone real soon.