Austria, the happiest place on Earth

  • August 9, 2009 8:25 AM

Day 13-15: I had a hard time posting about Austria because I didn’t know how to explain how amazing it was.  It was absolutely gorgeous – clear blue skies with fluffy clouds, rolling green hills, monstrous snow-capped mountains, and crystal clear lakes.  The air was fresh and clean and smelled like Christmas trees.

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View from a Gravel Road Wrong Turn

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Thomas at the top of Grossglockner Road

Have you been anywhere before where just breathing in the air fills you with happiness and energy?  That’s what this place felt like.  I just wanted to jump and down with excitement.

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Schloss Ort Castle across Traunsee Lake

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View from the Road

We spent three days crossing Austria.  On the first day, we rode from Budapest along the Danube River to Linz.  It was a beautiful trail filled with wine fields.  The second day started with a tour of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, later a luge ride, and then ended with the terrifying Grossglockner High Alpine Road across the highest peak in the Austrian Alps.  The third day brought us into Munich with a couple stops to dip our toes in the roadside lakes.

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A Quick Dip in a Rest Stop Lake

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View from the Road

Thomas could have dropped me off on the side of the road anywhere along our trail and I would have been happy to stay there for a week or two.  We have both agreed that we need to come back to this area and spend more time…maybe even as a bicycle tour.  We saw a ton of families traveling around on bicycles with saddlebags and camping gear.

Quick Post with Videos

  • August 5, 2009 6:40 AM

I’m just making a quick post to share a couple more trip videos…

This first one is what it’s like to ride on the back of Thomas’ motorcycle (a BMW R1150 GS). This was shot in Austria, my favorite country we’ve driven through. It was beautiful with green hills, blue mountains, and a crystal clear river running along the road.

This next video was from one of our driving breaks in the Alps when we stopped to ride a luge. We went together two times, and this time, Thomas steered, but like on his motorbike, he was a very cautious luge driver and didn’t want to go too fast.

If those didn’t make you feel dizzy, I’ve also got the rest of the Berlin photos edited and posted on Flickr. You can check them out at:

Today, we leave Munich and wander the countryside for a couple days.  We’ve only got one more major stop at my cousin’s house at the end of this week, and then we return to Brussels.  I’ll try and catch up on the rest of my photo-a-day posts soon. :)

Brno to Bratislava and In Between

  • July 30, 2009 10:42 AM

Day 9 & 10: I’m combining these two days because we didn’t have any extended stops in this stretch. First, we drove from Prague to Brno, spent the night, and then from Brno to Budapest. We wound around to some interesting stops making it so we passed through 4 countries – Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary.

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Our first stop was in a small town outside of Prague called Kutna Hora where we toured the Sedlec Ossuary. It’s a Roman Catholic church that is decorated with 40,000-70,000 human skeletons. Most of the skeletons were placed there in the 14th century after the Black Plague. My favorite part was a huge chandelier in the middle made of arm and leg bones and skulls.

We were going to try to stop by the Moravian Caves for our afternoon stop, but we arrived too late to go in. Still, the drive in that area was gorgeous and we were glad to have some rest time in the hotel in Brno.

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One of the things I’m finding really interesting on this trip is the differences in the country areas we drive through – different landscape, house architecture, agriculture, etc. The sunflower fields are my favorite.

The next day, we crossed the border into Austria to tour the Marchegg Stork Sanctuary. There were a ton of storks – from the viewing tower, we saw 11 nests, but unfortunately, the mosquittos were so bad that we couldn’t stay long.

Afterward, we crossed the border again to have lunch in Bratislava, Slovakia. One of the tricky things with this part of the trip is that Czech, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary all have different currencies and different languages. When it comes to the Czech, Slovakia, and Hungarian language, I’m totally lost. I couldn’t translate a word even if I guessed.

After lunch, we hopped on the highway and headed to Budapest, Hungary where we’re staying for a couple days while Thomas works.

P.S.  I’ve now met my New Year’s Resolution to visit 10 countries this year – Hungary was my 12th!