Lake Garda

We have decided that this past week will go down as one of our favourite during our time in Europe, and that is mainly due to our amazing couch surfers. One of them has a car, so they took us to Lake Garda in Italy yesterday. The drive was about 2 1/2 hours through mountain regions and rolling hills in Italy, and we listened to some great music along the way.

Turns out Lake Garda is the largest lake in Italy and it is absolutely beautiful. We walked around taking pictures for awhile (the guys are really great at taking pictures of us), and then we went for pizza. The sun was out so it was nice enough to sit outside on the patio.

After lunch we wandered around a bit more and took lots of pictures. The towns were so cute, we forgot how much we loved Italy. The lake has little towns all along it, of which we visited three. They were all so cute and had amazing views of the lake and mountains. Our last stop was back up in the first town, to fulfill the purpose of our trip. Hajn, one of our couch surfers, has a crush on the girl who works at the gelati store there. To our dismay, the gelati shop was closed for the season. Lets just say this was a grand dissapointment for Hajn. Luckily we found another gelati place, which in my opinion has the best gelati in all of Italy (and I have had my fair share of gelati there).

After our day in Italy we drove back to Innsbruck, singing along to Queen and Journey to kill the time. We feel so comfortable with Hajn, Armin and Jacob, it's like we have known them forever. When we got back we watched a documentary with them on the science behind if there is a God or not. There were some interesting ideas presented, but at the end of the day there was no doubt there is a creator. These guys are all so smart, one is in school to be a doctor and the other two are computer programmers for the University here. They teach us something new everyday, and love watching documentaries!

This morning we went to church with them, which was a really cool experience, even though the entire thing was in German. It was their churches 100th anniversary, so apparently the sermon was on the history of the church and Austria. It was great to share our faith with these guys from the other side of the world. God is so good.
We bid Innsbruck farewell this afternoon and fly back to London for a few more days where we will end our journey.

Hopefully we'll have some more great stories to share after the weekend!

These are a few of my favorite things.

Salzburg absolutely blew our expectations out of the water. Immediately upon arrival we ventured out into the city to start exploring. Our first stop was My Indigo, which quickly became our go to cafe for lunch. It had fresh sushi, curry, salads, fruit and basically everything amazing. It also had the cutest ambiance and decor. See below:

After lunch we toured the city, our first stop being a little park bench in this square where the Sound of Music was filmed, where we of course found a nun sitting enjoying her afternoon coffee. She was nice enough to let us take a picture with her, which you can see below. Then we walked through the city, found Salzburg's oldest bakery, Mozart's birthplace, some great Austrian clothing stores, and a high scale McDonald's where we enjoyed a Macaroon for our afternoon snack. Then after bumping into this old Canadian couple who were traveling Europe (who we want to be like when we're older), we climbed the mountain to the castle and got a beautiful view of the city. We also saw the most expensive hotel in the city, which sits atop the mountain that runs through the center of Salzburg. All in all it was a fantastic day, and by the end of the night we had fallen in love with the city. There were very few young tourists, I guess because it doesn't have a big party scene, which we loved. We decided that we travel like old people do. We wake up early, walk around and see all of the typical sights, and then go back to our hostel and call it a night pretty early. We are two old ladies at heart, it's a fabulous way to travel.

Our second day in Salzburg definitely topped the first (I know, you're thinking that's impossible because our pictures from the first day look like it was best day ever). Well it was all thanks to Maria and the von Trapp family. Our day started at 9am, where we boarded the bus for our Sound of Music tour. Our first stop was the lake that Maria and the kids fell into, the house where the backyard scenes were filmed and where the dance scene on the balcony at the party was filmed. Then we drove by the von Trapp house that they used for the other scenes, which we unfortunately couldn't get too close to because the bus wasn't allowed on that street. Next stop was the famous "16 going on 17" gazebo! This was probably one of my favourite stops, I could just picture Lisel and Rolf there. After that we drove up to the lakes and mountains region, which is where they filmed the opening scenes of the movie. It was such a beautiful drive, and we got an our to spend at Mondsee, which is this cute little town where the church is that Maria and Captain von Trapp got married in! It also has a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains where we took lots of pictures. We got so caught up in taking pictures that we lost track of the time and couldn't remember where the bus was parked. Thankfully this kind soul knew where the bus was and drove us there in his work truck. Thankfully we had made friends with the bus driver, so he knew we were missing and waited for us. Otherwise we probably would have had to hitchhike back to Salzburg, which also would have been fun. Maybe next time. After our tour we also got to see the Mirabelle gardens and fountain where the do-re-mi songs were filmed with Maria and the kids. We thought it would only be fitting to sing the song while running through the gardens while video taping ourselves. The video didn't turn out great, so we asked this guy to video tape us as we ran around. He was more than happy to help us out with our Sound of Music reenactment. It was actually such a hit that these Korean bystanders asked if we could do it again for them to videotape. It was our moment of fame, if anyone else had asked we were going to start charging.
The rest of our time there we just spent relaxing and enjoying the city. It was so nice just to walk around with the locals and it made Salzburg feel like home. Needless to say we were very sad to leave when Wednesday rolled around. To ease our pain we snuck into the Premier part of the train, enjoyed the free juice and kit-kat for about 20 minutes until the ticket checker knocked us back to our rightful place, 2nd class.
The next time any of you make it out to Europe, be SURE to visit Salzburg. You will not be disappointed.
Auf Wiedersehen!

Innsbruck

Where to begin. First of all, right when we got off the plane we almost tripped over the mountains. Innsbruck is this cute little town sandwiched between the Alps, which is absolutely breathtaking! Hajn, one of our couch surfing hosts, picked us up from the airport and drove us to his place. He lives in this perfect little apartment with his two best friends Armin and Jacob. They are all so fantastic, and made us feel right at home. When we got to their place they were making an Indian curry dish with homemade naan bread! They not only cook, but their place is spotless and they always have good music playing. It is definitely the best couch surfing experience to date.

On Sunday morning they made us this fantastic breakfast as well! Then when we asked what they usually do on Sunday's, they said they usually convince Hajn (the only one with a car) to take a road trip somewhere. After some deliberation, they decided that the best place to take us would be to the Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany. This is the castle that the Disney castle was made after!! Well that is all we needed to hear and we were off. The drive from Innsbruck to Neuschwanstein was absolutely amazing. We drove along the Alps almost the entire way, drove through dozens of cute little Austrian and German towns, and the weather could not have been any better.
The castle was everything I could have imagined and more! We spent a few hours just walking around, taking pictures, and also going to this really high bridge over this waterfall. We also had the best random run-in while at the castle. For those of you who know Joel and Tania Neufeld (good friends from Winnipeg who we are in a bible study with), you'll know that they booked a last minute trip through Europe for the next two weeks. Well low and behold, they decided to visit this same castle on the same day! What are the odds?? (Seriously, who's a statistician? This can't even be possible). Running in to them was great! It was a nice piece of home, and we had a nice chat with them.

 After our day of exploring we headed for dinner, where we got Schnitzel and Apple Strudel and then drove home on the Autobahn. It was a great day in Germany.
Tomorrow we are headed to Salzburg for a few days so stay tuned!

London

We have two weeks off of school for fall break, and took off on Thursday for London. We arrived in the evening at Keith and Charlene's, Selena's cousins who live in London. Their place is in such a cute neighborhood and their apartment is great! That night Sel and I headed into the city so she could show me around. London is absolutely beautiful at night, especially when it's not raining!

 

The next day we rented some bikes and went all over the city. We saw the Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden, Borough Market, Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, RBC where Sel worked and so much more of the city. London is absolutely breath taking! We love it's big city feeling and the fact that everyone speaks English. It was so great getting to see where Sel lived and all of her favorite places, included Pret a Manger this fantastic restaurant where we ate every chance we got. It was a great day that we ended with dinner at Keith and Charlene's with their friends Kate and Dino. They are all so nice and Char made this amazing dinner for us! Then we headed back into the city to see Piccadilly Circus at night, which resembles a smaller version of Times Square. It's such a great city with so many people out and about at night, and the tube is so convenient!

After a great few days in London, we had to bid farewell for our week in Austria!