Darren: So far on our trip we’d stayed in hotels, apartments, cottages, a room at a seminary, guest room of a place with hide-a-bed, and others I’m sure I’m forgetting. We figured it was about time we added a castle to the list. We’d found this place online that advertised staying in an actual castle so we thought we’d give it a whirl. It’s called Schloss Ernegg and it was stuck out in the middle of the Austrian countryside. It was surrounded by woods and overlooked fields and a golf course below. The story of the place is that it’s over 1000 years old. It changed hands from certain noble men to others through the years and many changes and additions were done to the castle. The Auerspergs family came to live in the castle in 1656. It’s been in their family ever since. Another cool side note is that the original castle had four towers and a moat. Wish we could have seen the moat but even without it now, it was a pretty cool experience. After checking into our room we decided to go exploring. We were told by the woman who was overseeing the place that we should feel free to look around but I’m sure when went in at least 3 or 4 places we shouldn’t have been allowed.

We did some exploring outside too and went for a walk through the woods and down a path leading to a nearby town. We met some sheep along the way and found out that Kim speaks fluent “sheepese.” Never ceases to amaze.

The lady running the place that night was really kind and offered to take us into town to a restaurant she recommended. When we got there she walked us in and they sat us at a table out in the back patio. Really nice place and the food was amazing!! We got some of the famous Austrian soup that has pancake strips in it. We also tried the Kaiserschmarrn for dessert (it looked so good that we didn‘t remember to take a picture until it was already gone). We’d been wanting to try some since Hallstatt so we were excited. It’s a pancake broken into pieces, sprinkled with powdered sugar, and served hot with plum sauce. It was delicious!! The waiter and owner were really kind to us and brought out some “sweet wine” for us to go along with our dessert, “on the house.” So hard to tell them that we were sorry but we don’t drink. Felt bad,…but good for us. :)

Kim: The castle was fun. A little bit of a pain to get to without a car but our very own personal taxi driver didn’t seem to mind transporting us from place to place (due to it being a small town, every time we called for a cab, the same guy showed up. It was funny). We had a lot of fun exploring the old place. Old wooden doors opening to steep, spiral staircases. An attic with old furniture and other furnishings (I’m pretty sure this was one room we probably weren’t allowed to tour. Oops. Our bad. Would we do it again? Absolutely) :)

The Kaiserschmarrn was amazing! Who knew that something so simple could taste so good. I'm definitely going to make this when we get home. Yum!

Darren: Our hotel room in Melk had a balcony and looked out over the street below. Turned out to be good and bad. Nice view and fun to see the town from above but bad when it got late or wee hours early and people were still in those streets, laughing and yelling. We made the best of it, of course, but it got a bit noisy. When we checked in we noticed a man outside barbequing some ribs. Turns out they were serving them at our hotel’s restaurant that night. We ate there that night. Yum!! We walked down by the Danube river that night and got some fresh air. We had to share that air with a few hundred mosquitoes though… yikes.

We went on a river boat ride on the Danube river. It’s a 24-mile stretch between the towns of Melk and Krems. It cuts through the beautiful Wachau Valley and we rode it up and back. We took some pictures of old castles and ruins along the way. One small town along the tour was Durnstein. Richard the Lion-Hearted was said to have been imprisoned here in 1193. You can still see the ruins of the castle where he was held high up on the hill above town.

I remember that we had some pizza that night (we miss Italy) and watched the Germany vs. Netherlands football match that night. It’s been fun getting into the whole World Cup Soccer thing.

Kim:  The Danube River cruise was fun. It gave us a chance to see some beautiful parts of the country in the Wachau Valley. Due to the extreme heat outside, Darren and I decided to buy some drinks onboard the boat. We saw an item listed as "bitter lemon" so thinking it would be lemonade we decided to try one. Bad choice! Lemonade it was not. Bitter lemon-water it was. Not exactly a thirst quencher. Ughh!

Kim: One of my favorite things about Vienna, other than the abundance of concert halls and theatres, is the amazing architecture. The buildings were all so ornate. Even simple apartments buildings had statues on top and intricately carved walls and window frames. The Vienna Opera House, or Staatsoper, was beautiful with its glimmering chandeliers and other tasteful décor. We learned that only one wing survived after the bombing of WWII. So sad. We toured the Hofburg Palace, the first residence of the Hapsburg family (used from the 13th century to 1913). The Imperial Apartments were definitely impressive. We spent part of an afternoon walking through luxurious royal bedrooms, drawing rooms, conference rooms, dining rooms, etc. We also walked through the collection of silver, dinnerware, etc. Crazy how many place settings are needed for dinner in a palace.
One night we attended a concert at the Imperial Winter Palace, Festsaal, (part of the Hofburg Palace). Music from Mozart and Strauss was performed by the Wiener Hofburg Orchestra. We sat by an older friendly Australian couple who talked to us about family history and Australian politics. We got to know them pretty well throughout the concert and by the end of the night we mentioned, “well if you’re ever in Arizona feel free to stop by and say hi.” He responded, “Be careful what you say. The last time a couple said that we ended up flying to Washington for their son’s wedding.” We laughed and said, “Ah. No problem. We’ll let you know when we have a kid and you can come for the blessing.” Ha-ha. J So if at our baby’s blessing someday you see a random Australian couple sitting in the back, go up and say hi. :o)

We saw a few statues in one square that are part of “The Monument Against War and Fascism.” This split white monument, The Gates of Violence, remembers victims of all wars and violence, including the Nazi rule of Austria. On the monument we saw a montage of wartime images: clubs and WWI gas masks, a dying woman birthing a future soldier, and chained slave laborers sitting on a slab of granite cut from the infamous quarry of Mauthausen Concentration Camp. The hunched over figure on the ground symbolizes a Jew forced to scrub anti-Nazi graffiti off the street with a tooth brush. The last one is a monument with the Austrian human rights etched into it. This monument marks the spot where several hundred people were buried alive when the cellar they were hiding in was demolished during a WWII bombing attack. Quite a message.

We walked down the street called Karntner Strasse where we bought some English paperbacks from a bookstore called Frick. We found that a somewhat comical name for a bookstore. This shop-lined street was once the street Crusaders marched down as they headed off for the Holy Land in the 12th century. In the Middle Ages, people figured plagues were punishments from God, so it was common for survivors to bribe or thank God with a monument, thus the plague monument or the Trinity Column. This statue shows Emperor Leopold with Faith below him tossing an old naked woman-symbolizing the plague-into the abyss.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Stephansdom) is a massive Gothic needle in the middle of the city. It was under construction while we were there (but what cathedral wasn’t on our trip) but we could still see the crazy cool gothic architecture exhibited on its inside and outside.

The Belvedere Palace was the residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy, the much appreciated conqueror of the Ottomans, but is now one of Vienna’s art galleries . While we didn’t tour the inside, we enjoyed the sweeping views of the city and the Baroque gardens around the palace.

We didn’t see as much as we wanted to in Vienna due to lack of time and a rainy day, but that just gives us an excuse to go back. :)

Darren: Vienna was great, but way too much to see and do for one trip, it’s true. I really think at this point of our journey we needed a bit of a breather. We stayed in one rainy day and watched some movies on our computer and made burritos.

But once back outside, I was impressed as well with the buildings in Vienna. So majestic! I think my favorite spot in Vienna was The Heroes’ Square. It’s just outside the Hofburg Palace and right where we went to the concert and met our Australian friends. From the square you can see the Palace (obviously) up close, and horse-drawn carriages passing by on cobblestone streets. In the distance you can see the massive gothic City Hall. And in another direction you can see two large museums across the street, both were great examples of the architecture we’ve already raved about. Just a great spot, ya know?

Other things I remember about Vienna was the amazing tour inside of the Opera House and getting to see backstage. We also got some awesome cake one day and ate a piece or two in the square on a bench. More shameful than that was when we decided to buy a Vienna sized hotdog to share. Can’t remember which we got but it was really good. There are little street vendors that sell them and have at least 5 different kinds. We’d read a little about them in advance to avoid anything really nasty.

Kim: Admittedly, the hot dog was pretty good, although I was a little scared to eat it from a street vendor. To try and counteract the effects, I talked Darren into trying some banana milk. He sure did like it :) ha-ha

P.S. Click HERE for a look at our cute apartment (#3). I loved the red walls and sink in the bathroom. The faucet was a round disk that once turned on created a waterfall into the sink. So cool!

Kim: Hallstatt is a small town in the Salzkammergut Lake District area between Salzburg and Vienna. Three thousand years ago it was the salt-mining capital of Europe. Today its a great place to relax and enjoy the scenery, which is exactly what we did. We spent one day hiking and touring giant ice caves in the Dachstein mountains and one day swimming in the freezing, glacier-water lake. The ice caves were really “cool.” The tour was a one hour trek through an icy, eerie, underground world with temperatures just above freezing. It was really cool to see the crazy ice formations underground. Apparently they are continuing to get larger and deeper every year. One formation we saw was more than 29.5 feet tall. Its like Kartchner Caverns but frozen. Crazy! The ice crystals all over the ceiling were really pretty. Especially when the tour guide would shine his flashlight on them. The ice just seemed to glow. I’m really glad we decided to wear pants and bring sweaters along because although it was a hot summer day outside, it was freezing inside.

The next day we had a picnic at a park and went swimming in the lake (again, freezing). But it was really hot outside so it felt pretty good.

Hallstatt was amazing. So incredibly beautiful. A little town right on the edge of a pretty lake. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Darren: I know I probably say this too much, but Hallstatt really was one of my favorite places on the trip. The place we stayed was a short walk up a path that followed a crystal clear creek. Our place sat in a little valley between two huge mountains. We had a great view from our room’s balcony and I spent quite a while out there reading and just listening to the sounds of the rolling creek water, the breeze and a couple of really funny birds that sounded like they were whistling at each other. In addition to that, we ate lakeside every night and enjoyed walking around a small picturesque town every evening.

The ice caves were amazing and much grander than the “ice-cave” we used to take friends to up on Mt. Graham. It was pretty shocking how cold it got the deeper we went down. Once we got back outside we had a picnic along the trail and then walked out to a lookout point. Kim was curious enough to look into a metal container that had a chain hanging out from it part way. Turned out to be a box for a set of binoculars, good find babe! We took a look out across the valley and the lake far below. Nice view!

Jumping into the lake was great. We also considered it our 4th of July celebration. It was hot outside but still took some courage to get into that water. I was proud of Kim for getting in with me. There was a make-shift wooden diving board that someone had constructed off one edge of the lake. It looked like a plank. We jumped off of it together…I think we counted to “three“…I may have pulled her in on “two.” Either way it was fun, right sweetie? J