Switzerland: the Germany and Austria Days

I know that Germany and Austria are not part of Switzerland. I also know that Munich and Salzburg aren't too terribly far from Zurich, so we squoze squeezed in a bit of Germany and Austria our first couple of days whilst in Europe. (I know "squoze" isn't a word, but darn, I wish it was.)

After traveling for what felt like 1,000 hours, Jen, Jeanna and I hit the ground running. (Honestly, when we made these crazy "first day" plans back in May and June, we were nervous. While living through the crazy first days in Europe, we discovered we were right; we were so tired it was ridiculous. But we survived, and we even had a good time, so...win/win.)

We rented a mini car there at the Zurich airport, and they gave us a free upgrade (which was a total blessing because I don't know how we'd have fit all three of us plus our luggage in a small European car, eesh). Jen and I are ignorant in the fact that we can't drive standard transmission, so Jeanna had to drive. The entire time. On very little sleep. In a foreign land, with unfamiliar foreign road signs. Etc. Do you understand the stress that Jeanna felt? Bless her heart...

Nice wheels, hey? Hertz told us it's worth 30,000 Swiss Francs.
This did not make Jeanna nervous at all.

We rented a GPS, too, which was super helpful. I feel quite certain that we'd never have found Neuschwanstein Castle without it. Seriously, we went off main roads onto little roads (that seemed narrow enough to  be one-way, but totally weren't one-way. At all.)

Gosh, I'm wordy. I'll try to be more concise (but I make no promises).

Mr. Swiss GPS got us to Neuschwanstein with only minor confusion. (We didn't even know when we crossed the border from Switzerland to Germany.) But check out the pictures!

On the drive from Zurich to...whatever town Neuschwanstein is.

I couldn't even tell you if this is in Switzerland or Germany.

I think this was in Germany, not far from Neuschwanstein

Neuschwanstein, baby! Walt Disney's inspiration for Cinderella's palace.

Close-up

Proof that we were there!

After Neuschwanstein, we headed to Garmisch to eat some wiener schnitzel (yum!). Check out how pretty Garmisch is:

I loved it there.

Aaaand then we made our way to Munich. We got there later than planned, and the hotel was creepy, in a super sketchy part of town. Seriously. Jeanna went to check in and told me and Jen to stay in the car together, Jen said, "If my mom knew where we were staying tonight, she would freak out." Or something to that effect. Once Jeans had checked in, she drove around the block to the underground parking, and (long story short) we got trapped in the garage for a good 10 minutes. At least. We were all very tired and sweaty and cranky, and we didn't deal with the stress all too well. (One of us said, "To hell with it!" and it wasn't me!)

We finally made it to our hotel room and were sorely disappointed with it.

Do you see the disappointment on their faces? It's hilarious now, but not so much in the moment...

Although the hotel was a gigantic disappointment, we were happy to have a private bathroom, and showering our 2-days worth of travel yuck off of us helped cheer us up before we crashed finally fell asleep. 

The next morning, we sprinted out of Hotel Amba as quickly as we could, bought some breakfast and lunch at a grocery store, and headed to the Dachau concentration camp. There was a glitch or two that prevented us from getting to Dachau as early as we had hoped (namely, our GPS stopped working), so we didn't get to spend as much time there as we'd have liked...

(Abby: if you're reading this blog post, just go ahead and skip this part because it'll make you sad. I'll even highlight the next part for you so you'll know when this part it over.)

panoramic view of part of the camp

Jen and I thought all these rows might've been where the Jews worked,
but then we read a sign that told us these were the infirmaries, which was more depressing.

There were lots of sad stories inside this building. I cried almost the entire time we were at Dachau.

Somehow, I don't think the beds they had were quite this nice...

The gates

Another view.

We walked around and read the stories they had hanging on the walls.
After a while, I had to stop reading them because they were just too sad.

****(Abby, you can start reading again!)****

After Dachau, we got back to the car and realized that our dead GPS wasn't going to revive because the outlet was missing a connector. It was a blow, I tell you, because we were forced to do things the old school way and follow the signs on the motorway. With all the words written in German. (I'm not saying the signs should be written in English; I'm saying we paid for a GPS that went kaput on us, and we were not thrilled about it.)

Hello, dead GPS!

Fortunately the drive from Dachau to Salzburg was mostly a straight shot, so we didn't get super lost. #tendermercy

There were a number of exits to Salzburg, and we kind of followed our hearts and took one that seemed like it might get us to the center of town. (Although we had an address, we had no map, no internet, and no working cell phones, so we had no clue how to get to where we were going).

Where we were going was the Sound of Music Tour that started near St. Andrew's. Since we had no idea where St. Andrews was located, we stopped at a gas station and asked for directions. (Bless the hearts of all the English-speaking folks in Swiztzerland, Germany and Austria!) We followed the directions we were given...right into the worst traffic I've ever been part of. I'm certain we could've gotten there quicker on an alternate route, but we didn't know of an alternate route, so we sat in traffic and watched the time tick on by. 

By the way, we made it into Salzburg about 45 minutes before our tour started. Because of traffic, we made it to our tour 5 or 10 minutes after it started, and we. were. devastated. The entire reason we even went to Salzburg was for the SoM tour, and we missed it by ten minutes!

We found our tour kiosk and talked to the gentlemen there. We asked if we could catch up with our tour bus along the way, but our seats had been sold when we didn't show up. We were told to come to a tour the next morning, since we had already paid for our tickets, but we were only there for the evening. Things were looking bleak.

I'm not sure if it was the crestfallen looks on our faces or what, but those dear sweet Austrian gents worked it out so we got a private tour. For the price of our previously-paid gigantic bus-sized tour. I was so thankful I very nearly cried!

Here are our pictures (in no particular order):

I'm 96% sure that the yellow house is where Mozart lived.
(Or maybe he was born there? One or the other.)

Me and mah ladies in front of the gazebo

This is where Julie Andrews sang "I have confidence in me"

We couldn't get very close, but this was the house they used for the front of Captain Von Trapp's house.

This is the Salzburg fortress. Not really in the movie, but cool anyway.
Plus, look at that sky!

The Abbey

Aaaand here we have the back of the Von Trapp movie house.
Can't you just see Julie Andrews falling out of the boat in your mind's eye?

See the peak up there? That's where they did a lot of the "Do Re Mi" song.

This is a gorgeous lake village just below the Do Re Mi mountaintop.

Where Maria and Captain Von Trapp got married (in the movie, not in real life)

Eating apple strudel with warm vanilla sauce. Yum!

Our tour guide discovered we'd never tried Red Bull (an Austrian beverage)
so he made us each buy one and drink it. It was not delicious. Liquid smarties, anyone?

Mozartkugeln is another Austrian culinary creation. It means Mozartballs.
They were okay, but not delicious. I'd rather have crisp apple strudel...
(doorbells and sleighbells and) schnitzel with noodles! (Sing it with me, now!)

Here we are with our tour guide. His name is Carlos, he's from Portugal, and he's a stellar guide.

The Sound of Music tour was so wonderful, and we were so grateful that they worked with us instead of taking our money and running. Seriously, I learned to love the people of Austria real quick like. 

After the amazing (AMAZING!) tour, we headed to the Hertz car rental place at the Salzburg airport to switch out our GPS. This was completely necessary, because we had to drive back to Switzerland that night, to a village called Langwiesen, and without a working GPS I feel quite certain we'd have never made it, even if there had been any semblance of daylight left (which there wasn't).

So. I'll leave you there for now. Next installment: Langwiesen, Schaffhausen, and swimming in the Rhein!