Sunday, March 10, 2013

Our first backpack belated honeymoon trip to Austria--Day 10 (Bad Ischl)



Good morning St.Wolfgang! As a Hong Kong people, it is a big enjoyment to have breakfast with a breath-taking lake view.



After breakfast, we needed to say goodbye to this beautiful place. We hope we would come back one day.Our next stop was Bad Ischl, a place famous with hot spring. It was a famous vacation spot for the noble in the past. After dropped our backpacks in the hostel, we headed to the Kaiservilla directly. This villa was built for celebrating Franz-Josef I 's cousin's wedding. The king had his summer vacation here.                     

We didn't go inside. Just walk around the garden. However, Mrs. Lui didn't like the garden at all. So, we stayed about an hour and went back to the town center for some dessert.
Beautiful fountain at the gate.       



Cafe Zauner, a place for noble dessert and famous with Kaiser cake.


There were many choices at the gate. We had difficulties to choose.




 You could see The queen--Sissy everywhere. She was a famous princess in Europe just like Princess Diana of UK. After a light lunch and a walk in the town, we were hungry. Beside, we would have hot spring in the evening. For our health sake, we made our dinner earlier. This Sissy restaurant was the place for our dinner.
Time for hot spring!
  











Our first backpack belated honeymoon trip to Austria--Day 9 (St. Wolfgang)

Oh~~Happy moment flies fast. It was the ninth day of our trip. St. Wolfgang would be our next stop. From Salzburg to St. Wolfgang, we took the postbus to St. Gilgen first, then we changed ferry to St. Wolfgang. St. Gilgen was a small town. We didn't spend too many time here.

 

St. Gilgen, St. Wolfgang, Strobl etc are the towns which surrounding Wolfgangsee, they call these places Salzkammergut. There are some sights which free with Salzburg card, or you can buy a Salzkammergut card. We didn't buy Salzkammergut card and we didn't use Salzburg card neither because most of the free sights were not in our itinerary.

Wolfgangsee is a beautiful lake too













It took about 30 mins from St. Gilgen to St. Wolfgang. You may check out this website for the fare and schedule.http://www.wolfgangseeschifffahrt.at/index.php . They have English information.


St. Wolfgang is a beautiful place. There were many tourists. The whole town was full of happiness. Though our hotel room didn't have the lakeview (because most of the room were fully booked when Mrs. Lui did the reservation half years ago), the view didn't bad at all. We got a "Heidi's view" from our room.


After settled, we started our visiting in St. Wolfgang. The first sight was continuing our "The Sound of Music" trip.We took the mountain train to Schafberg, the place where Maria and the children had picnic.

Crowded
First time took the steam mountain train





There was a path to hike up. We got our panorama at the top with a glass of ice-colded beer. When we were enjoying the view and the beer, there was a man who was going to have brolly hop.





























After a half day trip to Schafberg, we went back to the town and enjoyed the town walk. There were many lovely buildings in the town.










The benefit of summer trip to Europe is you can have a long day time. After an Austrian dinner, we still have plenty of sunshine with us to walk around this beautiful town. We were lucky enough to meet the festival. Though we didn't know what festival is. There were many Austrian ladies and gentlemen with their traditional dress on. Mrs. Lui loved the Austrian dress.






Good night, our beautiful St. Wolfgang. We regretted that we only have a day being here, and that really wasn't enough.


Thursday, August 16, 2012

Our first backpack belated honeymoon trip to Austria--Day 8 (Koingsee and Obersee)

Felt bored with the historic buildings, it's time for some heaven liked lake view. Today, we went to Koingsee and Obersee. May be most of you have heard about Koingsee already because Hilter built a holiday home there. But Obersee, not many people know this place. Mrs. Lui loves to explore new places, and now, we will show you what we have for today. You won't be regret!

If you want to visit Obersee, you have to arrive Koingsee first. How to get to Koingsee? There is a bus to-from Berchtesgadener and Salzburg train station. (There're some distance from the train station to the bus stop) Then, you have to change another bus from Berchtesgadener to the Koingsee pier.

Koingsee  is a lake located in the extreme southeast Berchtesgadener Land district of the German state of Bavaria, near the border with Austria



The quailty of Koingsee is excellent drinkable directly. Though boats sail on the lake, all of them are electric boats, no pollution to the water. 


We got off at Salet. There is a path from the pier to Obersee. During the middle way of the boat trip, the captain took out his trumpet and performed a song. We heard the encho from the hill.

The water was perfectly clear and clean. We didn't drink it but we touched it. Cool~~
We followed the path and walked about 10 mins to Obersee. This is what Mrs Lui expressed her first sight of Obersee? Wow! OMG! What a place from Heaven?! That's true. This is the most beautiful place we have ever seen in our twenty something life. So calm, so peaceful, so pristine. We didn't plan to walk around the lake, however we did finally. It took about 30 mins hiking.

Mrs. Lui couldn't stop saying "wow, wow, wow". This is a real mirror lake. You can see the reflection clearly. Non of waves, non of ripples.You even can see the fishes are swimming in the pearl green water.




























However, the path to the more beautiful view wasn't that easy. It was a little bit harsh for us especially for Mrs. Lui. She hates sweating so she doesn't do exercises a lot.


















But when we saw this house, we knew that we were close. 











Finally, we had arrived the only farm house in Obersee. The farmer sold fresh cold milk , homemade apple cider and light meals. We enjoyed a pin of milk and a glass of apple cider with self prepared sandwich with the cows, sheep and the lake.

After 30 mins break, we had to head back to the pier to catch the ferry. If there was a pension, I'd stay for at least a week to purify my heart and to relax. We didn't want to leave, but we couldn't. We could only save this view into our camera and our heart. Hope we would have another chance to be here again.
 Took the ferry back to the town. Just 30 mins, we felt like dropping back to the reality from the heaven. People, shops, sounds surrounded us again. 
After a day to paradise, Mr and Mrs. Lui were tired to find a resturant. We got in randomly. And these were what we got for dinner tonight. We didn't know German, those they had Enlgish on the menu, we didn't totally understand German Style English. So, we didn't know what we had ordered. All recommeded by the watiress. However, those stuff came quite good. We enjoyed.

Tomorrow will be another place for lake--St. Wolfgang. Sleep tight everyone!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Our first backpack belated honeymoon trip to Austria--Day 7 (Salzburg)

Good morning from Salzburg. Today was our second day at Salzburg. We're going to have a "The Sound of Music" road trip. Let's go!

Guess which scene and what place was it? The answer is: The concert where The Trams sang songs before they escaped to Switzerland.
Inside the hall, there is a place called "Haus of Mozart". It was a place for the people to wait before the concert or take a rest in the intermission.



There was a Mozart Plaza. We found the basin which Mozart got baptisted. Many things which linked to Mozart. BTW, he spent a large part of his life here.

Time to take a rest after a long walk and got some refrestment. We went to Mozart Cafe where famoused by their "Salzburger Nockerl" which was a huge souffle. We almost couldn't finish one nockerl. We ate nothing after having this. If you wanna try different dishes on the menu, you have to ask your friends with you to share.

After a good rest, we were fully charged again. The next sight would be Festung Hohensalzburg. This was the castle for milatary used. We took the cable car to the Festung which was free with the Salzburg card. Also, it was a good place to take a panorama picture of the whole Salzburg.
On the way back to the city centre and our next sight, there was a guidepost for another The Sound of Music shooting place-- the Abbey gate. We were not sure if we got the right gate because there were several of them.

After a long walk, time to have some fun! We were heading to Hellbrunn Palace.Be aware, you may get wet. We were wet as we didn't believe the warning!

 
When people were sitting and listening to the guide, then... SO, BE CAREFUL! There were many mechanism treats inside the garden.
There was another reason we visited this place though it wasn't a attrative palace. The pavilion which Rolf and Liesl sang "Sixteen going on seventeen" and they kissed. However, the pavilion wasn't opened at the moment, we it was much smaller then we imagined. 

 
Time for meal again. We tried a fast food restaurant in the city center, which the price was reasonable and the food was acceptable. (Due to the budget control, we couldn't spend too much for meals everyday. )
N
 

Nordsee was a chain fast seafood restaurant. This bowl of seafood salad came with a bottle fo drink cost only €6.95.


We went to the last sight of the day after dinner, Mirabell Palace Garden. We didn't have enough time to take picture yesterday. So, we went there again. Summer was the time for flowers.
Do you know which song did the casts sing in this place? It's "Do Re Mi". When Maria sang the high high C (C3), she was running up to the stair and these were the fountain and the stair. Good to have completed the day with The Sound of Music.

Tomorrow would be another hiking day!