It feels so great to be back in Northern Europe. The northern countries feel like home to me. We started teh Austria trip in Salzburg, which is the home of The Sound of Music and Mozart. We visited the Van Trapp estate from the movie. The house was a large mansion on the edge of a pond with willow trees lining the banks. We also visited Marabelle Gardens, which was the beautiful gardens where they sang the "Do, Re, Mi song." We saw the birthplace of Mozart and the house where he grew up.
The second destination in Austria was St. Gilgen. St. Gilgen is a town surrounding a large lake in a mountainous region in the Alps of Austria. We spent the entire day hiking the Zwolferhorn, which was a large mountain behind the town. When we reached the summit we could see six different mountain lakes, including Mondsee the lake from the first scene of The Sound of Music.
Our last destination in Austria was Vienna. Vienna is a large, clean city that revolves around music and theater. We saw the sites, played minigolf, ran through a funhouse for 40 minutes (got disgustingly sweaty), and hung out in the parks at night. My favorite experience in Vienna was watching a horror show on a large screen in the park. The park was showing one horror show per night for a month. I love film festivals in the park, especially if they are showing "The Fly." Why that film was never nominated for best picture, one may never know.
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