Category: Europe

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Albania Europe

South to Gjirokastër

On my last full day in Albania, before taking a flight that left at 6:55 am, I took a day trip from Tirana to Gjirokastër, a cool three hours away by car. Who needs rest, anyway? That’s not what my vacation days are for.

We started by driving west toward Durrës. Incidentally, if I hadn’t been there in March, I would have likely tried for a day trip there to go to the beach, since the Albanian Riviera is one of the next big destinations of Europe and looks spectacular. But, more importantly, a highlight of that drive is getting to pass the Amadeus Palace. This article is going to say it more eloquently than I can, but basically Albania got excited about tourism in 2011, whipped up some foreign investment, and built an insanely fancy hotel in the very outskirts of Tirana that never actually opened. It was a series of bizarre decisions and, if you’ve read this blog for any period of time, you will understand that I was beyond thrilled that we drove past it and I got to see it.

To find that linked article, by the way, I fully Googled “weird giant Albania hotel” and that was the first result, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

From there, we visited the Ardenica Monastery, which was a nice stop on the way to Gjirokastër. It was beautiful, with a good views of the landscape, which had vibes that were more similar to Tuscany than the mountainous ones I’d seen the two days prior. We got a quick coffee and hit the road again, continuing south.

We started out by walking around Old Town and grabbing lunch at a place that had a nice view over the city. Similar to Berat, Gjirokastër has distinct architecture and the overall effect of all the buildings is quite striking. Also like Berat, it is a UNESCO site.

From there, we headed up to the castle! It was a much more extensive grounds and museum than I expected. There was a whole section where you could see the jail cells, and ancient art, and all kinds of weaponry from all different eras in Albanian history. Some of it might have taken more if I had known more about Albanian history to begin with, but it was still interesting to learn as much as I could as we went through the exhibits.

Also, there were great views from the top! After that, we headed to one more museum, which was more of a historical house that was maintained with how the wealthy would have lived in Albania before the communist era, in a more traditional way. That was super cool, although they limited what we could take photos of so I don’t have much from there. With our last bit of time in Gjirokastër, I got ice cream with a few of the other people on my tour and watched the sun set over the city.

This particular day trip might not be for everyone, because it is a long day, and a lot of time in the car. Ideally, if your timeframe in Albania allows, it would be nicer to spend at least a night or two in Gjirokastër, because I’m sure there’s more to see in southern Albania. That said, I felt like between this, Berat, and my hiking trip, I got to see a lot of Albania in a fairly short amount of time! I thought all three day trips were excellent and would recommend this same set if someone was going for a similar number of days as I did.

I had a great time in Albania, but it was time to head back home! Overall, between Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yemen, and Albania, it was a really great set of countries that I got to explore on this particular trip.

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Albania Europe

Exploring Albania

For the rest of my time in Albania, I based myself in Tirana and took a series of day trips outside of the city. Part of this is just based on how much time I had, and part of it comes down to the time of year – if it hadn’t been March, I might have tried to go north and do more hiking, but it wasn’t a guarantee that the weather would be good enough for that, so I stuck more to the cultural sites. I did do a shorter hike on one of the days though!

Day 1: Berat

Of the day trip options, this is probably one of the most common – it’s a UNESCO site and it’s not too far from Tirana, at only about an hour and a half drive away. We started with a short stop for coffee at Belshi Lake, and then headed to Berat!

One thing to know about the driving in Albania – it was wild. Some of the most aggressive and crazy driving I’ve ever seen. One of my guides for the day trips was telling me that essentially, no one ever formally learned to drive. Cars were not as common during the communist era, and then suddenly, when everyone could afford one, they all took to the streets and taught themselves, so it can be fairly chaotic on the roads there.

We spent the morning exploring the castle and the surrounding area, including a beautiful old church and the fortress walls. One of the best parts of visiting the castle is how high up on the hill it is, and there were some really amazing views of the area around Berat!

Once we had finished at the castle, we headed down into the town of Berat! We had some free time to explore and get lunch. I found a place that overlooked the historic old town and ordered myself some pasta and a glass of wine, which was so good.

Berat is known as the Town of a Thousand Windows due to its unique architecture. If I’d had more time or wasn’t flying of Tirana a few days later, and was doing more of a itinerary that goes through the Balkans in this case, I would have loved to spend a night or more time in Berat. It had really nice vibes. But, as always, time is precious and the world is vast, so I got back in the car and my tour dropped me back off in Tirana for the night!

Day 2: Hiking

Again, this one felt a bit risky because I was worried it could be too cold in March (which, based on my experience in Serbia, was a valid worry) but I also didn’t want to go to Albania without at least trying for a hike! And as it happened, I got incredibly lucky with the weather, which was perfect for the entire time I was there. So I got picked up in the morning and we headed to Lake Bovilla for a hike up Gamti Mountain.

I had seen the photos, but I still couldn’t be prepared for spectacularly turquoise Lake Bovilla is. The drive there was pretty as well, as we started in the countryside and ended up winding through a canyon as we got closer and closer to the lake.

The hike itself was fairly short. The most stressful part was coming down the relatively steep hill at the beginning – otherwise, the majority was a series of stairs. If you have a fear of heights, you might struggle on these, as they are that metal kind that can look a bit rickety. A few of the other tourists there definitely were a little freaked out as they started making their way back down. The viewpoint was really pretty, though, and then I got lunch and a beer at the nearby restaurant.

All in all, it was a great day! It was great to get out into nature and see a little more of what Albania is known for.

My third day trip was all the way south to Gjirokastër, which I think deserves its own post – not least because it was a 3 hour drive each way. Stay tuned for that one!

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Albania Europe

The Museums of Tirana

Before I started planning for this trip, I’ll admit I didn’t know that much about Albania. I would have guessed that it was part of Yugoslavia, which it was not, and the only thing I did know was that it is the homeland of Mother Theresa (although interestingly, not her birthplace, which was Skopje, North Macedonia). As it turns out, Albania actually has a very interesting and unique history!

It was once part of the Ottoman empire, but declared independence in 1912. During WW1 and WW2, the primary focus was on maintaining their independence, which was made more difficult by Italian and then German occupation. In 1944, Albania managed to free themselves from German occupation under Enver Hoxha, ushering in the next chapter of history in Albania: communism.

Hoxha led Albania from 1944 to 1985, leading an intensely authoritarian and isolationist regime. Albania toyed with the idea of allying themselves with Yugoslavia, the USSR, and China at various points in its history, but none of those lasted, as Albania tended to view the relationships as a threat to Albanian independence. Hoxha consistently told Albanians how every other country was out to get them, and wanted to invade them, and used that messaging to keep their citizens isolated and afraid. Albania built over 750,000 bunkers from the 1960s through the 1980s, which means there are still 14.7 bunkers per square mile in Albania.

Between Hoxha’s death in 1985 and the fall of communism across Europe in 1989, including but not limited to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Albania transitioned toward democracy in the early 90s. It was pretty rocky, though, as they weren’t financially stable, and it led to a brief civil war in the late 90s before they were able to stabilize. They’re now a NATO member and they have official candidate status with the EU.

An isolated culture and the lasting impacts of a dictatorship are both things that definitely check the boxes for me as a traveler, so I was really looking forward to the museums of Tirana to get a better perspective on Albania! Which is good, because I was there in March, when it would be a little too cold the main tourist activities of hiking and going to the beach.

I flew from Aden to Cairo to Athens to Tirana, in a flight path that my friends called “totally unprecedented” and “very weird.” I based myself in Tirana for about a week and did a few day trips outside of the city as well to explore more of Albania.

Tirana has an interesting vibe. There’s a lot of modern architecture and street art, which makes it fun to walk around and explore. It’s not a huge city. It was pretty easy to walk from my hotel to all of the major tourist sites and museums.

My first stop was the Pyramid of Tirana! I love a weird landmark, obviously. This one was opened up as a monument to and museum for Enver Hoxha in 1988, and was the most expensive individual structure ever built in Albania at the time. When communism collapsed very shortly thereafter, it stopped being a museum and has been kind of a multi-functional community center every since, with a lot of iterations of what people use it for. They’ve even talked about demolishing it. But for now, it exists, and you can climb to the top of it for some pretty decent views of Tirana.

I also went to the House of Leaves, which I couldn’t take pictures in, but this one was about the surveillance systems that the Albanian government used on its citizens for decades. The secret police were very busy monitoring and arresting and torturing Albanians for all sorts of crimes, real and imagined. This, in conjunction with Bunk Art 2, gave me a very good overview of the communist era.

Bunk Art 2 is a museum located in a bunker in the middle of Tirana! There is also a Bunk Art 1, but that’s located a bit outside of the city and I had other priorities for my day trips outside of Tirana, so I missed that one. It was really interesting, and went more into the interrogations and torture that were done by the secret police, as well as the overall impact of the communist era.

Overall, I liked Tirana a lot, and it made for a great base as I explored the rest of Albania. I went to Berat, Lake Bovilla, and Gjirokaster from Tirana, the last of which was a very long day, but I think it gave me a good sense of Albania and what it offers. Tourism is definitely starting to take off in Albania, especially along the coast – from what I’m seeing in tourism trends, it is on its way to becoming the next Croatia in coastal beach tourism during the summers, but I felt as though I was still seeing some of its cultural sites in a more nascent stage of tourism. More on the day trips out of the city in my next post, but I definitely enjoyed Albania and would recommend it for any itinerary in the Balkans!

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Bosnia and Herzegovina Europe Serbia

Stuck in the Snow in Serbia

While looking for good day trips outside of Sarajevo that weren’t Mostar, I found one that I was really excited about that went to East Srpska and Western Serbia. Bosnia and Herzegovina is very interesting, politically – even from the name, it’s easy to tell that it defines itself as multiple different segments, under one umbrella. Geographically, Herzegovina is the southern part, which includes Mostar, and then the north and east are considered Bosnia. There are also two political entities. One is the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the other is Republika Srpska. Srpska often identifies more heavily with Serbia, both in their flag and their traditions. It made for a very interesting day trip, because we got to see very different parts of BiH and we had a guide for this portion, so we could ask lots of questions.

The landscape felt a lot like Colorado as we headed out of Sarajevo and headed to our first stop, Visegrad. The bridge was originally built during the Ottoman empire and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. After walking across it and admiring the town from the bridge, we boarded a boat to get a better view!

Once we had taken it all in, we headed into town. Part of Visegrad had been built as a film set, called Andricgrad. It had very strange vibes – kind of Truman Show, with the appearance of an “old town” but clearly brand new.

One of the other interesting things we saw in Srpska was this billboard, with their leader, Milorad Dodik. We had asked if there were going to be any celebrations for the 30th anniversary of the peace treaty, and our guide shook his head and told us that things were still tense. In my understanding, Dodik had attempted to enact new laws that were challenged by the courts, and the courts in the Federation also responded by sentencing him to prison. He responded that he would not recognize their decision and was attempting to rile up the population in Srpska to support him against the Federation. Things seem to be settling down again now – the news articles aren’t more recent than March, when I was there.

Our next stop was the Dobrun Monastery, which Wikipedia informs me was built in 1343. Its location along the banks of the river was very scenic.

After that stop, we crossed into Serbia! We ended up getting lunch at another film set town. Is it odd they have so many film sets in this tiny part of the Balkans? This was designed to look like a traditional Serbian village for the film Life Is a Miracle. I found it to be more charming than Andricgrad, personally.

Once we’d had lunch, we headed into Tara National Park to go to a viewpoint. Unfortunately, the farther we got on the road, the icier it got, until we went down a hill and then weren’t able to get up the next one. Which was fine, we would just turn around…. except, we couldn’t get up the hill we had just come down, either. Our guide told us to get out of the car (me, Grace, and a Polish woman who was on the tour with us) and he tried to get it up the hill. And then tried, and tried, and tried. All told, it took about two hours where we were stuck on the side of the road, waiting for our car. A huge thank you to all the lovely Serbians who stopped to try to help us and wait with us!

Luckily, the car did get unstuck, and we got down the mountain again and back to Sarajevo! It was certainly an adventure. I will want to go back to Serbia, as I’d like to see Belgrade and Nish and a few other places, but I will never forget my first time.

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Bosnia and Herzegovina Europe

Sarajevo Weekend

I first visited Bosnia and Herzegovina on a day trip from Dubrovnik, when I went to Mostar. I loved it immediately – it was one of the highlights of a whole month of travel, and I was eager to go back to experience more of the country! As it turns out, I ended up getting to come back sooner than I expected, in a long weekend with a friend of a friend who I only met when she showed up at the Airbnb. Alan, our mutual friend, ended up having to pull out of the trip at the last minute due to a skiing injury. While it was a bummer not to get to experience the trip with him, I still had an amazing time!

I had most of the first day by myself, since I landed at 11 am (after an extremely tight layover) and then Grace didn’t arrive until dinner time. I started by wandering around the city center. The airport is a bit of a haul from the city. I wanted to take the bus, but it was infrequent and I would have had to wait for a long time, so I ended up sharing a taxi van to the city center with a few other travelers. Once you get there, though, almost everything is walkable, with one historical site as an exception.

Walking around the Old Town is very cool. The architecture is beautiful and I loved looking at all the shop displays, with the Bosnian tea sets and carpets and handicrafts. Grace and I didn’t do much the first night beyond figuring out dinner and getting settled in, but we got up early the next morning to see as much as we could!

We started with the Latin Bridge, which is one of the most important historical sites of the 20th century. This is where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, which kicked off WW1 and led to millions of deaths. It’s such an unassuming place. It was very strange to stand there and think about how consequential it once was.

From there, we headed up to the Yellow Fortress, which had great views of the city! Luckily, the weather wasn’t too hot, because it did take a few steep hills to get there.

Sarajevo has a very dark recent history, and the museum options are plentiful but depressing. We ended up going with the Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide, which was a very good overview of the conflict and resulting genocide in the 90s. I knew a little about it, but not that much, and Grace and I ended up staying there for a long time reading through all the details and watching the videos of what life was like during the Siege.

It was so recent. This November will mark the 30th anniversary of the peace treaty between Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia, which means that pretty much any adult that we spoke with lived through the war and the genocide and the siege. As I’ve said before on this blog, I love to see when a place is resilient and manages to thrive after such horrible circumstances, and Sarajevo is an incredible example of it. The marks that were made on the city are still evident, from a few collapsed buildings that have never been rebuilt to evidence of mortar shellings, like the “Sarajevo roses” in the sidewalks where the holes were filled with a red material.

I spy at least three mortar shell scars on this building

After lunch, we continued with the historical tour, which did require a taxi. We wanted to go to the Sarajevo Tunnel, which is also known as the Tunnel of Salvation or Tunnel of Hope. It’s located back near the airport, pretty far out from the city center. It was worth the journey, though – very interesting to see how they got food and supplies into the city despite the blockades. I can’t imagine how harrowing it must have been in the dark under the threat of sniper fire and bombings.

With that, we called it a day, and had a really nice meal and drinks at a local restaurant. We had scheduled a tour for the next day, which deserves its own post (stay tuned), but it meant an early morning to make sure we had time to experience the full itinerary.

For our final day, Grace had more time than I did, so she managed to swing a day trip out to Mostar! I was heading out at 3 pm, so I had another quick walk around the city, trying to see some of the areas that we had been driven by but hadn’t had a chance to walk through, like Veliki Park and along the river.

I also managed to make it to another one of the museums I was very interested in, which was Gallery 11/07/95. It is a photo gallery of the genocide. The audio guide was excellent. They had several short films that did a great job illustrating what it was like to be there during the war. It was so impactful and moving. I am glad we did the museums in the order that we did, though, because I think this one benefitted from the knowledge I had gained up to that point. It allowed me to spend more time reflecting on what had happened vs. piecing together timelines and the progression of the tragedy.

After that, it was back to the airport for another set of flights. In this case, Sarajevo to Istanbul, Istanbul to Cairo, and a night at the airport hotel before a morning flight to my next destination.

If I ever intended to rank the countries I’ve visited, Bosnia and Herzegovina would definitely be up there for me! I’ve really enjoyed both of my visits. The culture is friendly, the landscapes are beautiful, and they do such a good job presenting their history and how it fits into the broader regional conflicts that were occurring throughout the fall of Yugoslavia.

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Europe France

Last Night in Lyon

I don’t have that many photos of Lyon, partially because we spent most of our time there at one museum and partially because it was raining pretty hard when we arrived. After two weeks of going through a heat wave, it was a relief to feel the cooler air on our skin. It had felt as though the heat wave had been following us across the continent.

We started by heading up the funicular to Fourvière Hill, which has an old set of Roman ruins as well as a couple very nice churches. It might have been a more fun area to explore if it hadn’t been raining so hard – it didn’t seem like a lot of things were open, so we worked our way back down to the main part of the city. We had a great lunch back on the bottom of the hill and then headed to our next site.

Most of our time was spent at a museum I had found online, which was Musée Cinéma et Miniature. This managed to capture two things I love! I find movie behind-the-scenes to be fascinating, and I enjoyed seeing all the different aspects of props and mannequins and costuming that creates so many of the famous characters of pop culture. They had a really cool section on Wes Anderson that had a whole section about how they filmed Asteroid City, and the elaborate sets that it takes to get those perfect aesthetic shots. The top floor was dedicated to miniatures, which were SO cool. I’ve always loved those kinds of dioramas – the Art Institute in Chicago has a great room of them, which was one of my favorite sections. These were beautifully done.

After the museum, we really didn’t do much. The next morning was a very long day – we were getting up early so that we could take a TGV back to the Paris airport and then board a flight to head back to DC. Plus, we had to repack, because the advantage of taking trains is that you don’t have to worry about the strict luggage limits or liquid rules, and so we had to get ourselves back into compliance.

Overall, I liked what I saw of Lyon. It had a nice energy, and it is absolutely somewhere I would spend more time on a future French itinerary. Also, it was a very nice change of pace to have French pricing for food instead of Swiss pricing for food on the last day of our trip!

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Europe Switzerland

A Train Journey Across Switzerland

Once we left Vaduz, we headed to Zurich! The train ride across the country from Sargans was absolutely gorgeous. I was immediately impressed with the landscapes in Switzerland.

The view from Sargans train station!

We didn’t end up spending much time in Zurich. Ultimately, we weighed it against the other places we were going, and we didn’t feel like one day in Zurich would do it justice, so we felt like our time would be better spent in the smaller cities on our itinerary. That said, we did walk along the water and it was beautiful. The next time I visit Switzerland, I’ll definitely give myself a little more time to explore.

With our first full day in Switzerland, we headed to Lucerne! We started in the Old Town, walking across the famous Chapel Bridge and visiting the Lion of Lucerne, a somewhat controversial monument within Switzerland that’s located in a quiet garden.

From there, we got on the first ferry we could find and took it a couple stops to the charming town of Weggis, on Lake Lucerne. We sat near the water and had lunch (and watched the birds try to work up the confidence to steal our food), and overall had a lovely afternoon. The app that we had been using to organize our train tickets also worked on the ferry, and it was so smooth.

On our way back to Lucerne, we stopped off at one more location on the ferry. If you know Sam at all, it should not surprise you that he had read about the Swiss Museum of Transport, and he was interested in going. The museum seemed hella expensive, but I came around on the prices once we’d experienced it – there were a ton of exhibits and they were done really well, covering all different types of transport and appealing to a lot of interests.

The next morning we headed to Bern, the capital of Switzerland. Bern has about a third of the population of Zurich and is one of those capitals that everyone forgets, which of course made me more interested in going. And it delivered – it felt delightfully quirky. They’re obsessed with their symbol, the bear. Our hotel had paintings of bears doing all sorts of activities, like playing poker and drinking beer and rock climbing wearing harnesses. And when I researched what to do in Bern, multiple sources assured me that I couldn’t possibly go to Bern without going to see the bear pit. So we went to see the bear pit.

The Old Town in Bern was very charming. I loved their giant clock tower in the middle of the city. There were lots of cafés and restaurants and shops, and we had a nice time walking around through the streets and exploring. It also felt like a manageable size. We didn’t need to go to seek out any particular area to feel as though we got the vibes of the city.

Bern is also where we tried Swiss fondue for the first time! Well, it wasn’t Sam’s first time. He’d been to Switzerland before. But I was pretty excited about the prospect.

The next day, we crossed into French Switzerland. I’ve always found the multi-lingual aspect of Switzerland to be particularly interesting – and while we didn’t cross into the Italian or Romansh areas, I would be interested in that on a future trip. I did love seeing the culture and the architecture changing slowly as we move from East to West. We went as far east as Bratislava and then made our way steadily west all the way to Lyon, which meant we covered quite a large swath of Europe laterally. Some themes across their history were repeated in museum after museum, but we also got to watch as the different histories collided and morphed from one culture to another. It was such a cool trip.

We started with the train down to Lausanne, where we stored our luggage. This was more of a pain than I expected, since the locker situation in Lausanne station was woefully inadequate for a city of their size. Nonetheless, we managed to find a solution, even though it required several extra buses (and no, I’m not salty about it at all, why do you ask?).

Once our luggage was settled, we made our way over to Montreux and Château de Chillon. There’s so much along the shore of Lake Geneva, and I’m sure we could have spent several days in that region alone, but as always, we had to prioritize. We made a quick stop to say hello to the Freddie Mercury statue and then headed to the castle!

Château de Chillon is one of those castles I’ve wanted to visit for years, and its views of Lake Geneva were stunning. Even with the grey and rainy weather, the castle was gorgeous, and the inside is so well preserved.

And with that, our time in Switzerland came to an end. We spent our last night in Geneva and had one more fondue dinner, which was even better than the one in Bern. For as much as we saw, I know there is so much more that we couldn’t get to, and I have a long list of places I’m interested in when I eventually make my way back. The prices are high, but as long as you prepare for the sticker shock, Switzerland is an excellent destination with a lot to offer. I’m glad we were able to go as part of this trip.

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Europe Liechtenstein

Learning About Liechtenstein

There we were, in our hotel room in Innsbruck, and Sam asked me what I knew about Liechtenstein. Not much, I admitted. I was intrigued by this tiny country tucked in between Austria and Switzerland, and I’d researched what kinds of things there were to see there, but I wasn’t particularly familiar with their history. So we did some research!

Liechtenstein was founded by the Liechtenstein family, who bought the land in order to have a vote in the Holy Roman Empire. Basically, they needed land that didn’t have an intermediary feudal lord, and this small stretch of land fit the bill. Shortly thereafter, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, but the Liechtenstein family kept the land and it was one of their many castles. They didn’t visit particularly often.

It wasn’t really until the years leading up to WW2 that the Liechtenstein family took a look around at what was happening in German-speaking Europe. And they did not like what they saw. They started moving their money and resources out of Vienna and the rest of Austria, and moved into their castle on the hill in Liechtenstein. Then they asked Switzerland to help them stay neutral through WW2, which worked! They managed to keep their sovereignty and preserve the microstate.

This includes historical and recent satellite pictures of every town in Liechtenstein, which underscores their size

Liechtenstein also has a strange relationship with democracy and civil rights. Wikipedia calls them a “semi-constitutional monarchy,” which might be underselling it. In 2003, they adopted a new constitution after two referendums were put to a vote. One of the referendums was called the “Constitutional Peace Initiative,” which was intended to amend the constitution to restrict the prince’s powers, and this failed by a vote of 83.44%. The other, which passed by 64.32% of the vote, was called the “Princely Initiative” and gave the prince power to dismiss the government, nominate judges, and veto legislation. The BBC has said that Liechtenstein is effectively an “absolute monarchy” and the Venice Commission has said that the new constitution is “not compatible with the European standard of democracy.”

The Prince watching over Vaduz from above

Liechtenstein has the dubious honor of being the last country in Europe to allow women to vote. Women’s suffrage was finally approved in 1984. While we were there, the National Museum had a celebration of 40 years of women’s voting! While it’s absolutely wild to see such a recent year on that milestone, the exhibit was really well done. They went through the entire timeline of women’s suffrage, including important decisions on related feminist issues, and there was a section across the hall where people could respond and make posters about voting and having a voice.

Learning all this gave us a fascinating visit to the National Museum! I am always interested in the stories that countries tell about themselves, and Sam and I had a great time reading through as much as we could from the museum. It was even better for Sam since he can speak German. We also went to the Treasury, which was mostly Fabergé eggs, but had maybe the coolest entrance of any museum I’ve been to where they gave us a coin that unlocked the exhibit. We made a quick stop to the Postal Museum as well, then got some lunch and made our way into Switzerland.

Liechtenstein is tiny, but its unexpected history made it way more interesting than I’d thought it would be. I learned a lot in our brief, museum-filled visit, and I’m glad Sam and I took the time (and the multiple buses) required to visit Vaduz.

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Austria Europe

Adventure in the Alps

From Salzburg, it was about two more hours on the train and we found ourselves in Innsbruck! Austria and Switzerland were amazing for transportation – the fact that Swiss trains run on time should surprise no one, but there are also apps in both Austria and Switzerland that allow you to simply take whatever train you want, turn it on as you board, turn it off as you exit, and the app will calculate your fare, applying any discounts or fare caps that you might qualify for. We had booked a few things in advance, but not everything, and it was amazing to be able to just figure it out as we went.

Innsbruck is stunning, right next to the mountains. I wanted to do some sort of day up in the mountains while we were in Central Europe, and while I’d originally expected that would be in Switzerland, there were several good options in Innsbruck. One option is visiting the ski jump, but we opted instead to take the gondola up to Nordkette!

It starts with a steep funicular up the mountain, and then two gondolas until you get to the top of the mountain. From there, you can take a short walk to get to the peak. It was a bit windy but the views were stunning, and we were happy to get out of the heat for a little while. Throughout our entire trip, we seemed to be following a heat wave across Europe – it wasn’t until the very last day when we had grey skies and rain.

From there, we had lunch at the restaurant at the top and worked our way back down the mountain, taking the two gondolas and then the funicular. It was quite crowded, and we waited in fairly long lines at each stage. Luckily, it didn’t feel too crowded up at the top once everyone had spread out, but we were glad we weren’t in a hurry to get back down to the city.

What we saw of Innsbruck was lovely, although we spent comparatively less time in the city. I think it would have been interesting to go to a museum here, in Tyrol, as I could feel the cultural shift in Austria as we moved from Vienna to the comparatively less urban regions, and I would have liked to get a sense of how they viewed their national identity as well. But there were still many museums ahead of us on this trip and the mountains were calling.

This was our last full day in Austria! I loved Austria – I would absolutely go back. It has the natural beauty of Switzerland but for much more reasonable prices, and so many towns and cities came up in my research that looked like they would have been fun to explore. Hopefully I can make it back at some point soon. Our last few hours in Innsbruck, though, were spent researching our next destination: Liechtenstein! And it turned out it was a lot more interesting than we’d expected.

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Austria Europe

The Hills Are Alive

….with the sound of music! It is so funny to me that Austrians are generally unfamiliar with The Sound of Music. Coming to Salzburg and making a pilgrimage to the filming locations has been on my bucket list for longer than I even knew what a bucket list was. Somehow, the movie never caught on in Austria, though, so they regard the tourists who are recreating Do Re Mi on the steps with bemusement.

It was a two and a half hour train ride from Vienna, so we arrived in mid morning. After dropping our bags off at the hotel and grabbing a quick breakfast, we headed to Mirabell Gardens! It was a beautiful stroll through the park, although it might have been more pleasant if we weren’t in the midst of a massive heat wave. From there, we worked our way over to the Hohensalzburg Fortress on the top of the hill.

The fortress provided me with one of my all time funniest moments in a museum. We were in a section on military history, and it was going through various weaponry, regalia, and other details about Austria in various wars. We got to a whole room on WW1. I’m always fascinated to see how various parts of Europe reflect on WW2, and I leaned over to Sam.

“I wonder what the next room will say about their military history,” I said. And then we walked into the next room to find…. A brand new exhibit on the Middle Ages! Are you interested in the recipes they cooked? The lutes they played music on? We just skipped all of the Austrian military history after, say, 1918, and we never went back to it. It was Middle Ages for the rest of the tour. I’ve decided that’s my new favorite segue when I don’t want to talk about something.

The city managed to feel both quaint and lively. My favorite area to walk around was over by the university, which felt a little more laid back. We had lots of good food options and ended up taking a bus out towards the outskirts of town to an Indian restaurant, which was fun to see a different area outside of where the majority of tourists were congregated.

Salzburg officially wins for fanciest Foot Locker, by the way. I was stunned to see the corporate logo above the door.

Salzburg had been on my list for so long, and it didn’t disappoint! I liked Vienna, but I loved the rest of Austria, and I would absolutely go back and explore more of the countryside and the smaller towns and cities. The next morning, we boarded another train and it was off to Innsbruck!