Well, there is only so much rest you can get with a 13 month old, but it was still restful. Haley is a good traveler, she is now up to 5 countries. So we left last Saturday and drove up to the Wolfgangsee in the Salzkammergut (about 3 hours drive). We stayed in Sankt Gilgen in a pension (like a bed and breakfast but really common here) where we had our own “apartment” with bedroom, living room, dining room and kitchen, which made naps and early baby bedtimes much easier!
On Sunday, we explored the lake and traveled by boat around the lake to the other towns of St. Strobel and St. Wolfgang. This area was very beautiful. We enjoyed walking around the lake, seeing the shops, eating some Apfelstrudel, ice cream and coffee.
The next day we traveled to Munich (1.5 hour drive) and took the U-bahn (subway) to Oktoberfest. This is sort of like a state/county fair from the states, except without the judged contents and with beer. A lot of beer. Actually, each beer mug, if filled to the top holds 1.5 liters. They filled them at least 2/3 full, so still a lot of beer in each round. We arrived before 11:00 and already the place was busy. The pictures do better justice than what I can explain, so check those out. Anyway, each brewer has a large “tent” that is decorated and used to serve their Oktoberfest brew. We left about 2:00 in the afternoon and already the place was starting to get too crazy for a baby. The band played traditional Bavarian music (”Umm-Pa-Pa”) and that crowd would sometimes get up, raise their glasses and sing. They also ate giant pretzels with their beer, which probably slows the alcohol.
There isn’t a ton of tourist attractions in Munich, mostly because the Allies leveled the city in WWII, then rebuilt it. Many of the building are more modern than where we are because of this. So we went to a science and technology museum called the Deutches Museum. The museum has many interesting exhibits showing the development of technology through time, whether it is photography, printing, textiles, communications, mining, etc. If you have ever seen the show “Modern Marvels” on the History Channel or read the book “How Things Work” as a kid, this museum is for you! It has real, life size working models in most every exhibit and has good, simple explanations on how things work. We stayed as long as we could in the museum, but it was closing and we had a 13 month old and both were telling us it was time to leave.
Munich and Bavaria are very similar to Austria, I noticed. They have similar food, similar hello greeting “Gruss Gott” and similar style homes, the most notable difference is only that their German is much easier to understand. Being that they have similar food, we wanted to get something that we can’t get in Austria that is in Munich - Pizza Hut. In the states we NEVER went to pizza hut because there was always better pizza somewhere else. In Vienna, there is NO good pizza in the whole city. NONE. 2 million people bordering Italy and not one good American Style Pizza. Yes, I have tried a lot of pizza here and sometimes still order it, but it is all Italian Pizza, which is far inferior to American Pizza (at least from what I have tried, IMHO). This brings up a food culture generalization I have noticed about our area of Europe. Europe is all about tradition. America is about innovation. Tradition is fine until it comes to my taste buds, then I want the best tasting food I can get regardless if that is how the dish was made 100 or 200+ years ago. Pizza Hut even has a sign on the window that says “The American Way of Pizza”.
The next day we wanted to make sure Haley had her naps and so we stayed in our Apt until after her first nap, then we drove to Halstatt, a small touristy town on the Hallstätter See. This town was built around a salt mine that has been mined for at least 7000 years on the Lake and going up a mountain, making it unique and picturesque.
On our last morning, it was raining and so we stayed in the local town, St Gilgen and took a few pictures before heading home.
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