Two Nights in Salzburg, Austria...

As mentioned here and here, we flew into Munich from Helsinki on the 25th of Feb and took a regional train to Salzburg. We stayed two nights at the 4* Crown Plaza - The Pitter at a rate of USD 99/nite booked through Priceline's Name Your Own Price. What's more? We were upgraded to a Junior Suite. I checked the rate online and a Junior Suite is Euros 135/nite. That's like a discount of USD 100/nite. Wah! D@mn happy lor!

Salzburg is such a pretty city, and it's listing on UNESCO's World Heritage Site is indeed worthy.
Read up more on theis beautiful city here.
We were very lucky as the weather was good with clear blue skies...
What did we do here?
Sight-see. Eat. Drink.

Here are some of my photos...

Festung Hohensalzburg
Walked up. Almost died...as the cable car is NON-operational in winter!

View of Salzburg from Festung Hohensalzburg

Getreidegasse
One of Salzburg's Oldest Streets

Christmas in Salzburg
Year-Round Xmas Shop

Mozart's Birthplace on Getreidegasse

Mirabell Palace

Meeting Place for The Sound of Music TOUR

Mirabell Gardens
Maria and the Children were singing Do-Re-Mi all over these gardens

Hellbrunn Palace

The Sound of Music Gazebo

Beautiful Views

The Mondsee Cathedral
Wedding Scene in the Movie (not actual...)

We had apple strudel here at Mondsee

Forgot to upload photos of Leopoldskron Palace...where the Terrace and Boating scenes from The Sound of Music were shot. Go to Wikipedia for a picture of it.

After two nights in Salzburg, we took the train back to Munich on Sunday, 27th Feb. Go here for Munich posts.

Day & Nite - All Mixed Up!

Yup! My body clock is all sc$&wed up! It's half-past midnight Jakarta time and I am still wide awake. Probably so because I woke up at 12.20 PM. I arrived into town on Saturday (5 March) and went to bed at a decent time of 10.30 pm. Next morning, was okay..no problem. Did have few episodes whereby I woke up in the middle of the night. Yesterday night, woke up at midnight and was wide-eyed till about 2.30 AM. And the whole time I was awake, I was contemplating if I should get up and blog. Hahaha...which I didn't la. Tried to get back to sleep but S2's flute music kept popping into my head and I was mentally humming those songs!
How come?
Well, S2 will be taking his ABRSM exam and since coming home, I had been grilling him to practise his flute. Mom said that he had only practise about 15 minutes everyday whilst I was away. How can?? Thus the grilling...but still only about an hour each day. Certainly a far cry from Amy Chua's 3 - 6 hour sessions! A bit susah with the flute as the little fellow (little indeed. My 11-year old is 29.5 kg only!!!) runs out of breath so can't force him to play beyond the one-hour. Really crucial to practise practise practise. The exam is in less than two weeks! And summore jump to Grade 2, bypassing Grade 1.
So until the exam is over, I will be mentally humming the music pieces!

Btw, mom (boys' grandma) left on Tuesday, 8 March on the morning flight. Hope she wasn't bored out of her wits here in Jakarta.
Thanks, mom for helping out with the boys!

Other Random Photos of Munich

H and I were only in Munich for 3 nights (27 Feb to 2 Mar). We stayed at the 4* Holiday Inn City Center. At first, was wondering why H's secretary booked this hotel as it was kinda expensive (lots of other 4* hotels at cheaper rate than this) at Euro 145/nite. But then found out that it is only 1.5 km to H's Munich office. Anyway, the S-bahn station is attached to the hotel building...so very very convenient... convenient to me, that is... as blur and lazy H took the taxi to/from office all three days.

Photos depicted here are in no particular geographical order... I just thought that I should post them as Munich is indeed a very beautiful city. I seriously wouldn't mind living in this city... except for the NEED to speak GERMAN, that is. GERMAN is a difficult language! (No. No. Munich is not a location offered to us....in case you are wondering)

Think this is for Fasching - the 'fun' carnival prior to Lent

(The departmental stores were selling all sorts of costumes)

Everyone needs a Beer Mug!

Statue near Marienplatz

Roman & Greek Antiquities Museum at Königsplatz

Some Plaque inside the New City Hall at Marienplatz
(depicting the twin cities, perhaps?)

Theatine Church

Olympic Tower

BMW Museum

(looks like some kind of spaceship!)

'New' City Hall at Marienplatz

Olympic Stadium


Riverside... so pretty!

Nymphenburg Palace

Some Church Tower near Marienplatz


The Bavarians love their Porkers so much.... that a statue is erected!

Beautiful Bavarian Costume
(Wanted to buy but it's quite expensive. Errr... on second thoughts, wait people think I am a bar-girl!)

That's it for Munich.

For photos of:

- the Third Reich Tour, go here.

- Viktualienmarkt, go here.

- Hofbräuhaus , go here.

The post about Munich's Asian Grocery Stores is here.

And for the Bavarian Castles Tour photos, go here, here and here. Accompanying blog post for the castle tour is here.

Errr... actually, doing this for my own benefit. In case my memory fails me, I can always look back at this post and go "Oh Yeah! Now I remember!!!"

Schloss Neuschwanstein, Bavaria

And from Oberammergau, we head off to Schwangau to visit the famed Neuschwanstein Castle. Again, you can read-up more on this castle here, and also to look at pretty photos of the interiors (again, photos were not to be taken inside).

From the ticket counters, one can either walk up to the castle (1.5 km walk UPhill) or pay 6 Euros for a horse-carriage ride. The cheaper 2 Euro shuttle service does not operate during wintertime. Lazy Nomadic Mom surely will pay for the horse-carriage ride lah!

Winter Wonderland View by the Castle

Some photos taken on the way down

(yes...I walked down. Easy lah... gravity helps!)

The Suspended Bridge near Neuschwanstein Castle

- Apparently photos taken of the castle from here are breathtaking!

No. I didn't go as the foot-path leading to it was closed. Although there were people climbing over the fence, I didn't want to risk it since I am alone. Skali I fly off the bridge and nobody even knows I am missing!

Neuschwanstein Castle - Scaled Model

Neuschwanstein Castle

.

When you are done touring the castle's interior and is ready to return back to 'base' (ticket counters, shops, hotels and Schloss Hohenschwangau), you can take the horse-carriage back down.

Wait here for Horse-Carriage!

And that's the end of the tour, folks!

Before I go, I want to leave you with a very very beautiful picture of Schloss Neuschwanstein that I BORROWED from Google Images (since my photos are not too appealing *sigh*). I actually bought a postcard depicting the exact image.....

Sooooo Beautiful, Right?

Oberammergau, Bavaria

From Linderhof, the tour took us to the little town of Oberammergau (What a mouthful to pronounce, right? The whole time we were travelling, the Russian lady sitting beside me and I were both trying to pronounce Ober-am-mer-gau and Neu-schwan-stein). This town is famous for it's Passion Play (this takes place every 10 years and the whole town will take part in it. The last time the play was performed was last year - 2010), wood-carvers and painted houses. Read up more here.

Here are some photos of the painted buildings taken by moi.