Austria

Hey guys,

The rest of Athens was great! Saw the acropolis which was amazing, excellent view of Athens. We saw the changing of the guard which involved a parade too and they do it every sunday. We saw the temple of Olympian Zeus and the Olympic stadium. Saw the Athens museum which had so much stuff! Even an Egyptian exhibition with some mummies!

Now in Austria we have just been to Vienna where we saw schoenbrunn palace - home of the Hofburgs (2nd royal family and most recent.) for those who have seen the movie Marie Antoinette, this is where she grew up. Also where Mozart played for the queen for the first time at age 6! We had a look at the spanish dancing horses which look really cool to watch, a hefty fee to see them though! We walked around the city and saw a lot more things and had a really nice dinner (weiner schnitzel) and cocktails with Alisha and Danaes relation Stefan.

Went to a place called Melk for a few hours, a little town just out of Vienna where we went to 'Stift Melk' which was built in 976 a.d. It was and still is a monastry. Really beautiful and one of those secret treasures you never hear about. It had a massive library in one part, 12 rooms! We saw 2 of them and they were BIG! There was a book 1100 years old! There were 16,000 books in just one room!

Afterwards we went back to Vienna to get our packs and caught a 4 hour train to Salzburg.....the land of the sound of music!!! Haven't been able to get that song out if my head since arriving here! Today we did a bit of exploring - saw some sights from the movie, saw where Mozart was born and grew up, walked up to the hohen Salzburg fortress - the oldest fortress in Europe. We cooked up a storm for breakfast lunch and dinner- the first kitchen we have had on the trip!! We were going to see 'eagles nest' (hitlers lookout where he lived for a bit in between other things - Byron this is in band of brothers) unfortunately it is closed for the winter as it is unreachable.

Well another day in Salzburg tomorrow, might make a trip out to the salt mines!

Xoxox
Sarah