In this episode, we spend two days in Salzburg with our kids, attempting to recreate Kasey’s childhood memories (well, most of them) from 2001. Success was mixed, but we had a great time overall. Viva Austria!
When you grow up with three siblings and adventurous, travel-loving parents, you end up with two things: a love for travel, and a whoooooole bunch of stories.
Mostly stories about how you and your little band of compatriots’ antics nearly resulted in an international incident.
I’ve talked before about how my parents took my three siblings and I backpacking in Europe for three weeks when we were 13, 11, 9 and 7. It was a trip I will forever be grateful for because it kicked off my love of international travel, and because of the outrageous number of stories that we still love to retell every time we are together.
So our famous Salzburg story goes like this: My parents and I are sitting at a picnic table in an outdoor beer garden in Salzburg while the younger kids run around, and all of the sudden some guy comes up to our table and starts screaming at my parents in German. My parents obviously have no idea what he’s saying or why; to be honest, they basically assume it is a case of mistaken identity. The angry man, apparently appreciating that they have no idea what is happening, storms off. Immediately my parents start laughing.
Until someone nearby calls over them to explain:
“He says, your children, they are throwing rocks on his new car.”
INSTANTLY: my parents are completely horror-struck and jump off the benches to find out what the hell is happening.
It turns out, my youngest siblings were pushing pebbling off a rock wall over which they could not see. No malice involved, but as an adult I can obviously see why the guy was SUPER PISSED.
But for the rest of the trip? Randomly saying, “YOUR CHILDREN, THEY ARE THROWING ROCKS ON HIS NEW CAR” invariably cracked us all up.
Shit. We sound like horrible people as I type this, don’t we? But trust me, it was funny as hell at the time.
ANYWAY. This is a very long-winded and strange way to begin explaining that Salzburg has a special place in my heart. It was one of my very favorite cities on the 2001 trip, to the point that I insisted it be included on the itinerary for my high school graduation trip with my mom in 2005 (yes, I am extremely lucky). I freaking love Salzburg.
So visiting with my own children … it was a lot of pressure.
Overall, we had a wonderful time. But I will admit I spent the first day trying to make the trip be exactly the same as I remembered from my childhood (despite being there in winter rather than spring or summer, and my kids being significantly younger than I was) and it was not the best way to go. Every trip is different, and honestly, you can’t go home again. Still, we ended up having a lovely time (particularly on day two).
Here’s a quick look at our itinerary for our two days in Salzburg with kids:
Day 1:
-Mirabell gardens
-Sound of Music tour
-Attempt to visit the Augustiner Brewery
-Take away for dinner and watching “A Christmas Prince” in our apartment*
*I laugh, but Fiona has now watched that movie and its two(!) sequels a million times. She adores Queen Amber and King Richard LOL.
Day 2:
-Berchtesgaden salt mine tour
-Salzburg zoo
-Christmas Market at Hellbrunn Palace
-Take away again and watching Home Alone 2, because we tired.
Just to keep it real over here — apartment rentals with Netflix? Absolutely wonderful. And while we like to eat out, we find that for us it often works better to make our big meal of the day lunch. If we’ve been marching the kids around all day, we’re usually ready to get something quick and easy to take back to our place. For the kids, that’s usually fast food. For us adults, it is usually some kind of Asian food that we can’t get back in Sicily, with Thai, Indian or Japanese being the favorites.
Anyway, without further ado — here are the details:
Day 1: Mirabell gardens and the Sound of Music tour
As a 13-year-old, I had very fond memories of taking the Sound of Music tour with my family. Everyone on our bus was singing! The driver was hilarious! We frolicked like Maria!
Unfortunately, the group we ended up with on our early-December Sound of Music tour was not what you would call “lively.” We had the kids watch the movie before we left in preparation for this, but when the sing-along portion of events came along, only Fiona and I were all that interested in belting out Do-Re-Mi. Lame!
The tour kicked off near Mirabell Gardens (a filming location), and since we had a bunch of time to kill beforehand we ended up exploring the gardens on our own. It’s pretty, and I’m certain it would be even more lovely in the summertime.
So as I mentioned, the Sound of Music tour was a bit disappointing (not from lack of effort on our guide’s part — I think it was the group). Still, it was fun to see some filming locations.
After we finished our tour (skipping the Mirabell gardens part at the end, since we’d explored independently and it was already dark), we headed to the Augustiner Brewery … otherwise known as the scene of The Incident in 2001.
Unfortunately, the winter weather meant the outdoor beer garden — the scene of the German man yelling about his car — was closed and the tables moved away. Inside, we found every table either packed with people or with reserved signs on them. It was a Monday night, so I have no idea why there were so many people there? Nevertheless, after wasting a ton of time trolling for a table, we ultimately gave up in frustration. We headed back to our apartment, got McDonald’s for the kids, Japanese for us and settled in to watch “The Christmas Prince” on Netflix.
If that last bit sounds a little tragic, don’t worry — it was honestly great. We needed a break and our food was fabulous. (Even if I did accidentally order Chris a hilariously spicy dish. Sorry, babe).
Day 2 in Salzburg: salt mine tour, zoo and Christmas markets
So, I fear that Day 1 in Salzburg may have sounded like a bit of a bummer. Day 2, however, was just jam-packed with awesome.
When I visited with my family, we ALSO did a salt mine tour so I was determined to do that with my kiddos. However, having had two of my favorite childhood memories of Salzburg not quite pan out as expected, I was extremely nervous that the salt mine wouldn’t live up to my memories.
However, I didn’t need to worry. It ended up being the kids’ favorite part of the entire Salzburg trip!
We visited the Berchtesgaden salt mine, which is actually in Germany (we didn’t realize this until we drove over the border, haha), and could not recommend it more strongly. It is even cooler than it was in 2001. 18 years later, they even had a bunch more cool light effects than I remember.
Each of us was issued a salt miner outfit to wear, including the baby. I don’t know why that cracks me up so much, but it does.
Photography was not allowed on the tour, but it had some very cool visual effects. We got to ride the train, a funicular, two wooden slides (not me and Lochie) and take a boat across a lake. It was 100 percent awesome!
After we finished at Berchtesgarden, we opted to head over the Salzburg Zoo. Zoos are one of our “things” (along with castles) that we always seem to wind up visiting. Salzburg Zoo, which is on the same property as the Hellbrunn Palace, was especially enticing to some of us because it was free on the day we came (up to 5 euro on some days, season-dependent). Free is our favorite.
And man. Remember how I mentioned that visiting the Vienna Zoo highlighted how much more trust the Austrian people have in their citizenry to not do things like, say, jump into a wildabeest pen? The Salzburg zoo took it to a new level. There weren’t really people working there (that we could see), so the whole thing was self-guided. But in several places there were little houses you could just walk into and bam! Loose animals! Like, we walk into one of them, look up and realize there is a sloth just … hanging out. Within arm’s reach. I’m sure there must be security cameras or something, but at the time the only thing actually keep up from reaching up to touch him was a sign that warned that he bites. Whatttttttttttt?!
I’m not sure if it was the chilly weather or what, but the animals also seemed to be extremely active. We got up close and personal with a wolf pack (who were probably trying to decide which of the kids to eat) and watched some baby leopards harassing their mom and dad in a very familiar way. Per usual, the kids were completely enthralled by the parakeets whose love you could buy with 1-euro worth of seeds. By all means, kids, let’s obsess over the one thing in this place we could pick up at the local pet store.
As I mentioned, the zoo was on the Hellbrunn Palace property. At that time of year, Hellbrunn Palace was also home to a Christmas market and, oh man, it was gorgeous. There’s always been a special place in our heart for Christmas markets (especially for Chris), and this one was one to remember.
We didn’t end up buying much, just wondered around look at pretty items the vendors were selling, eating the delicious food and taking in the Christmas lights. The sights and smells of a Christmas market will never get old, I swear.
From the pictures, I realize it looks like we were there very late. But, by the time we got home it was really only a little after 6 p.m. However, given that we were completely exhausted, we ended up opting for the easiest option — take away food for the win again!
We had to head to Munich to catch our flight home early the next morning, so that wrapped up our week in Germany and Austria. We had a spectacular time! Traveling in cold weather can be a little challenging (more to pack, have to worry about everyone staying warm), but we enjoy having smaller crowds to deal with and — the kids’ favorite — snow to play with.
Overall, I would say Salzburg was the best for me once I stopped trying to exactly replicate my childhood memories, and made some of our own. Though I’d be lying if I didn’t half-wish we had some kind of “international incident” of our own to go down in family lore.
But hey, there’s always time, right?
