Trips, Pics, and Tales

Today Alex and I leave Salzburg for Budapest! Our river cruise will be departing from there, so that's our next stop! We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and our driver, Michael, was right on time. He picked us up at 9 am, and we had about a 5 hour drive to go. We thought about taking a train, but decided that by the time we took taxis from the hotel to the train station, took the train, and then another taxi from the train station to our hotel in Budapest, that door to door service of a driver would work out much better. Especially since we had luggage with us!  It was a cloudy and somewhat rainy morning, so spending it in the car was just as well! Our driver was great. He talked just enough. He told us some great history and interesting stories about his life growing up in Czechoslovakia before it split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He told us about life under communist rule and how times were different when you couldn't just drive from one country to the other. Cross

Today was our last day in Salzburg before we moved on to our next destination...we were getting closer to boarding our river cruise, but still had some sightseeing to do here!  We started the day by heading back into the Old Town, crossing over the Locks Bridge... Our next stop was another one that we could use from our Salzburg Card, Mozart's Birthplace! Another museum where other than in the entrance, no photos were allowed, so here is the kitchen.... And a view from one of the hallways And that's about all you get to see!  But this was a pretty interesting museum. This one had much more about Mozart's life and his original compositions and letters as well as his instruments.  It was really very fascinating!  Afterward we walked through town a bit and did some souvenir shopping Then we made our way back over to the other side of the bridge for our afternoon tour! This afternoon we were going on a tour to Hallstatt, in the Lakes and Moun

After finishing up at the Hellbrunn Palace, we continued on to the Salzburg Zoo.  This was at the same stop we got off of our Hop on Hop off Bus, and also one of the admissions we could use with our Salzburg Card!  By looking at the map at the entrance, the zoo didn't seem to be very large, but once we started walking through, it just kept on going! It was a big, full blown zoo!  It was very nice and many of the animals exhibits were built into the side of a mountain giving them quite a large, natural area to roam around in. Below are just some of the many, many pictures of some of the animals that were there! There were some animals you wouldn't necessarily expect to see at a zoo, including a cute little mouse, in his mouse house!   There were some field mice too in there little field grass exhibit And a very cool insect exhibit too! I'm not sure I've ever seen guinea pigs at a zoo, but these guys seemed pretty happy to

Continuing on the Hop on Hop off Bus tour, the next stop we had on our list to visit was the Hellbrunn Palace. We weren't really sure what this would be all about, but I kept reading descriptions of trick fountains and who doesn't want to see trick fountains right?  We arrived, and purchased our tickets and on the outside, everything looked like pretty much your everyday Palace...as far as palaces go! We had a bit of time before our tour began so we walked around the park area a bit. We came across yet another Sound of Music bit of history! Look familiar?  After walking around the park a bit, it was time for our tour...we walked back up the drive to the Palace towards the entrance. We went into the courtyard area with our group and walked back into the grounds of the Palace.  We realized then, that the tour would be of the outside areas of the palace. I think the Hellbrunn Palace website explains it best, Hellbrunn Palace is  " The passion of Mark