Notable Times: Switzerland 4: Kids in Austria, and Together in Liechtenstein

Kids in Austria

Jared and his girlfriend Katelyn had planned a trip to Austria that happened to coincide with our trip to Switzerland. They brought our daughter Sienna and our niece Mikayla with them, and while we were in Switzerland for that first week, they were in Austria, visiting Vienna, Salzburg, and Hallstatt.

Here to tell about their week in Austria is guest writer, Jared Wilson:

Our first stop was Vienna, Austria. We flew in at 8:20 a.m. with almost no sleep, and came and crashed in the fun lobby of our little hostel in the middle of Vienna.

We decided we should probably do something that day even though it sounded so nice to sleep, so we took the subway over to Schönbrunn Palace, where the imperial family lived before the 20th century.

Throughout the day, it was common to see one or two of us completely asleep in weird places while waiting for someone in the bathroom, etc, but we were determined to make it to the end of the day to try and reset our sleep schedule.

The palace grounds were beautiful and still well maintained.

Bonus challenge: Try and find Sienna in this picture (hint: she's sleeping)

We finally made it to the end of the day, and went to hang out on the roof of our hostel where we had a great view of Vienna.

The next day, we accidentally slept from 10:30 pm to 12:00 pm the next day, but after feeling refreshed, we went out to explore Vienna. This is the church dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi in Mexico Plaza.

Next up we went to St. Stephen's Cathedral in central Vienna

Just down the street was St. Peter's Parish Church. It was really interesting to see the difference in the different churches and cathedrals' architecture based on the time period it was built.

For lunch, we found a really fun local restaurant and got some Wiener Schnitzel. It was really good, and was one of our first experiences with realizing we had no idea how to speak German.

This church, Votivkirche, is right next to the University of Vienna, and there were tons of students out on the lawn in front studying, and it looked like such a fun spot to be going to school.

It was really fun to figure out the subway systems and begin to get a feel for the city.

We left Vienna that next morning, and headed to Salzburg, a cute, old town to the west of Vienna. On our way there, our train was delayed for what ended up being several hours. We weren't really sure what was going on because most announcements were in German, but finally a kind man told us what was happening. Apparently, an unexploded bomb from World War II was found near the train track and a team was attempting to defuse it! We ended up going back to a previous station and getting on a different train once the bomb was successfully defused. Kinda crazy!

We finally made it to Salzburg, and though it was a little rainy, we went out to explore.

There was so much fun architecture, and a really cool fortress up on the hill that you could see from most places in the city.

We ended up at another small local restaurant that was built into the mountainside.

We didn't really know what to order, but the guy helping us gave us some suggestions, and we ended up with some goulash, bread, and sausages. It was different from anything we'd ever had, but pretty tasty overall.

The next day we got to tour the fortress on the hill, and it was really cool to learn of the history of this town, as well as see the pretty views from on top of the fortress.

Back in town, we found some really tasty pretzels (salted, cinnamon sugar, apple strudel, and cheesy bacon) and ate them in the plaza until it stared to pour.

Once the rain died down a bit, Sienna lead us on a self guided Sound of Music tour. Salzburg is where much of the Sound of Music was filmed/based off, and this tour was such a fun way of seeing all the cool parts of the city. We were able to explore so much of the city while still having some sort of destination along the way. On the way, we stopped and took lots of fun pictures of the cute streets.

We finally ended up in Mirabell Palace, where a lot of the Sound of Music was filmed, and we took some fun pictures.

Had to boop the snoot.

The next day, we traveled to the cute little mountain town of Hallstatt.

We weren't really sure what to expect from this town, and definitely weren't ready for all the huge mountains surrounding the lake with this little town nestled into the mountainside.

We had bought tickets for this funicular train to take us to the top of the mountain where we were going to go on a salt mine tour, but I guess there was some mix up with the dates. So instead, we walked up the mountain.

It was a really pretty hike, and the view at the top was incredible.

At the top we also took some fun pictures with the mountains and cool lighting from the sunset.

The next morning, we woke up at around 5:30 am to see the sunrise on the lake. Our hotel was less than 100 feet from the lake, so it was so fun to just walk outside and see the beautiful sunrise on the misty lake.

Finally, later that morning, we took the ferry back across the lake to the train station.

We ended up on a train that was completely full for the first 4 or so hours, and it was quite the journey, but eventually we made it to the border of Liechtenstein where we met up with my parents. Back to you Dad!

Thanks, Jared!

Meeting up in Austria

On Monday, May 1, 2023, after a lovely visit in Weiach, Switzerland, we continued east to meet up with the kids.

We found them, safe and sound, at the train station.

We were all ready to eat by then, so we found a good, cheap kebap place called "Mr. Kebap."

Their gyros were huge!

Sienna's burger was as big as her head. And they both had a bun!

We were so thankful for Kelly & Maria lending us their car for the whole week. It was just large enough that we could fix all six of us in there with all our luggage.

Liechtenstein

In just a few minutes, we were across the border into the tiny country of Liechtenstein.

It was a rainy day, but the countryside and towns were still pretty.

We drove up the hill to see the Vaduz Castle, which is the official residence of the Prince of Liechtenstein. We found that the entire thing was surrounded in scaffolding, so some renovations must be underway.

The steep hills required some serious switchbacks.

We hiked down a path to an overlook where you could see much of the country.

Liechtenstein is the sixth smallest country in the world, with an area of just 162 square kilometers (62 square miles). This is the same size as Provo and Orem, Utah, put together. It is sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria, and is known for its banking, giving this tiny country the distinction of having one of the highest gross domestic products per person in the world.

We got one more look at the castle from below as we drove back towards Switzerland.

As we crossed over into Switzerland and drove towards Lucerne, we kept seeing towering mountains with big waterfalls.

We passed by a lake called Walensee, and pulled off the highway to take some pictures.

There happened to be a bunch of guys in scuba gear there. Maybe it was military training or something.

The blue-green water was beautiful.

We took a wrong turn and found ourselves on the narrowest of streets, with a fairly sheer drop to one side. At one point, Linette stopped to turn around. I was in the passenger seat and was looking down at the map on my phone to try to figure out where we needed to go, so I hadn't seen the wider spot in the road that everyone else saw. So to me, it looked for all the world like we were about to just drive off a cliff.

I jumped out to convince myself that there really was room to turn around, and to provide guidance (or screams) if needed. After about a 5-point turn, Linette got the car turned around. There was one little moment where the car wasn't actually in reverse and lurched forward for just a second, towards the drop, so that was exciting. But we got going the right way and back onto the highway.