The hills are alive...

We’re in Salzburg, where this morning, I was awakened by every church bell in the city chiming at 7 a.m. It was beautiful, but ten minutes straight is a bit much when you want to sleep in and are a bit exhausted.

Yesterday was beautiful… it included a funicular railway ride and then gondola ride to the very top of the Alps above Innsbruck, to the site of two different Olympic games. The view from the top was amazing. We were so high up, and my lack of mathematical ability keeps me from describing exactly how high we were, because metric and English units don’t get along in my head. There was still snow at the top, and being crazy, we all had on Chaco’s or flip flops, and had fun walking in the snow in them.

Then we drove to Salzburg, and spent the afternoon appreciating a city made famous by my favorite movie of all time I think, “The Sound of Music.” There is still more to see this morning, but yesterday we saw the Mirabell Gardens, the Mozart Bridge that the kids run across singing “Do a Deer”, the cemetery that the movie used as a basis for the scene where Rolf and the Nazi’s are chasing the family and they are hiding behind tombstones. We may or may not have had a cheesy picture reenacting that moment, actually…the Dom in Salzburg is beautiful, well, there are a lot of beautiful churches, but the Cathedral was just breathtaking. It's baroque, which is different than any other cathedral I've been in. Mozart was the church organist there for two years and claims the acoustics there are better than anywhere else he played during his lifetime.

We had dinner at a biergarten recommended by Rick Steves, and I’m sad to report it was kind of disappointing. Well, the beer was good… I had a Maibach that was outstanding, but the food and service were kind of lacking? I’m kind of already wanting something other than German/Austrian cuisine, and the American looking pizza places are looking more appealing by the minute!