Beer, Mozart, and Beer

Training from Vienna to Salzburg took just a few short hours. We saw some beautiful Austrian countryside, and arrived in the small town of Salzburg.  Dropping our bags at Hotel Elefant, we still had a bit of daylight left to explore. We strolled through Old Town, seeing the remnants of the Christmas market that had recently closed, and dodging tons of people that were walking the streets.  We saw some museums and old buildings. Then decided to walk to a nearby brewery, Augustiner, to experience the Austrian beer drinking culture first hand.









With a large pretzel to hold us over until dinner, we had a couple beers and took in the beer hall culture.  After we got our fill, we walked back towards town and stopped in at a restaurant, Baerenwirt, we had seen on the way there. We had delicious austrian food, some more austrian beer and wine, then headed back towards town to our hotel for the night.

The next day was our only full day in Salzburg and we wanted to make the most of it. We purchased the Salzburg Card, which allowed us 24 hour access into tons of museums and historical buildings. We started with the Residence Museum, which houses the state of Salzburg's painting collection. After that, we found Salzburg's oldest bakery, Alteste Backerei, buying some freshly baked bread as a mid-morning snack. With bread in hand, we walked through St. Peter's cemetary then into the catacombs, where there were narrow passageways and staircases.





















We walked some more, passing by a farmer's market, then finding our way to Mozart's childhood home.  We toured the house (unfortunately were not allowed to take photos), and learned all about Mozart and how he grew up. We then crossed the river to the other side of town, and headed towards Mozart's home where he lived with his wife and family as an adult. Again, we learned all about Mozart and about the music and operas he created.











After learning all we could about Mozart, we hopped on a bus to the Stiegl Brewery on the other side of town. We were pretty hungry at this point, so before touring the museum, we had lunch in one of the restaurants there, again filling ourselves up with delicious Austrian food and a couple Stiegl beers.  We toured the brewery after that, learning all about how they make the Stiegl beers, then had two more in the bar at the end of the tour before hopping back on a bus to the center of town.











We went back to the hotel to rest for a bit and got ready for our night out. We were going to see an Austrian music concert!  We left the hotel and headed back across the river to the Stein Hotel. We went up the elevator to the Steinterrasse, which is a modern swanky lounge with a large terrace that overlooks the river and the old town beyond, which was beautifully lit up at night.  After a cocktail, we walked to  the Mirabell Palace to listen to a Mozart concert. We couldn't see much of the palace at night, but the room they held the concert in was fully decorated in gold walls and was just gorgeous to listen to beautiful music in a beautiful room.  After the concert, we walked back towards the center of town, having a small dinner at Zwettler's Stiftskeller before heading back to the hotel for the night.










The next morning, we still had a few hours left on our Salzburg Card, so we headed up the funicular to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. From the funicular, we had great views of the city below, and there were even better ones from the top of the fortress.  There was a marionette museum, where we posed as some medieval characters. We then took a tour of the fortress, taking in some more spectacular views of the city below.









We felt like we had seen as much as there was to see of Salzburg. While a smaller town, it was just as exciting as Vienna. We had learned all about Mozart, were able to experience the beer drinking culture, as well as the music concert culture, and just enjoy a great trip.  The next destination was to an even smaller town, Innsbruck. It would be a great city to end our tour of Austria!

Christmas in Austria

We spent Christmas day partially on a plane and partially in Vienna, Austria!  After a slight detour to a nearby town due to excessive fog in Vienna, we finally landed and made our way to Le Meridien hotel in Vienna.  As usual, we wasted no time in dropping our bags and heading back out to explore the city. We strolled through the town, into Old Town, and down the major pedestrian shopping streets. We passed by some beautiful buildings, and went into St. Stephen's Cathedral, which had an amazing multi-colored lighting design inside. We stopped and grabbed a classic Austrian snack of a cheese sausage stuffed into a baguette. Yumm. Then as the afternoon turned to evening, we stopped at Cafe Central for a couple Irish Coffees and a traditional strudel. Double Yumm!

The city was decorated in colorful lights, strung from building to building, and as the sun set, all the lights came on and gave the city a magical feeling! What a great place to spend Christmas!

After Cafe Central, we walked past a Christmas Market that had closed the night before, but thankfully it was still lit up all over.  The backdrop was a gorgeous building that was all lit up inside. And in front of the market, were some bright red butteflies!  We found another market nearby that was just as pretty and lit up, so we strolled past all the shops, having a vin chaud to keep us warm.












That evening we had dinner in a cave/cellar restaurant called Zwolf Apostel Keller, which served traditional Austrian food, and had musicians that come by your table and play songs based on the country where you're from.  We had some hot goulash and delicious schnitzel and lots of yummy other Austrian delights.  After dinner, we strolled back through the streets, taking in more pretty street lights and seeing all the fog that had rolled in.









The next day, we took the metro out to another Christmas Market and the Schonbrunn Palace! The market was just in front of the palace and had a huge Christmas tree in the center.  We grabbed some vin chaud and walked through the shops, mostly the same as the night before, but really interesting to see all the Viennese artwork that was displayed.  We bought two tickets to go into the palace, and followed the audio guide around the palace to see all the lavishly decorated rooms.  After touring the palace, we grabbed some lunch at one of the shops in the market, then strolled through the gardens before heading back towards the city center.









In the afternoon, we took a tour of the Vienna State Opera House and vowed that we would return to Vienna some day and actually go to an opera.

That evening, we had dinner at a more modern restaurant called Kulinarium 7.  We opted for a wine pairing with our dinner, and our waiter was wonderful, describing each dish that came out and every wine that accompanied it.  Afterwards, he took us on a tour of the cellar downstairs, where all their wine is stored, and where they had recently built an additional dining area where you truly feel like you're in a cave.

Our final day in Vienna was spent walking to another part of town to see another palace and some more gardens. It wasn't as impressive as the Schonbrunn Palace, so after strolling through the gardens, we opted to forgo the palace tour and head back to the hotel so we could get an earlier start on heading to our next destination.  Vienna was a great city to visit, but much larger than I anticipated. I was looking forward to our next destination, a smaller town, and the home of Mozart, Salzburg!

New Tradition?

As Christmas was approaching, Travers and I made our holiday plans. We decided this year we were going to take two trips over the Christmas holiday. The first was to go skiing in Gstaad, a small village in Switzerland. We woke up early on the Saturday before Christmas, grabbed our suitcases and ski gear and headed to the train station. After just a few short hours through many scenic areas, we arrived mid-morning in Gstaad. Stashing our things in a locker, we immediately hopped on the ski bus that would take us to the base of the mountain so we could ski for the rest of the day.

The weather wasn't too great this day, a little overcast and towards the end of the day it got colder and visibility got worse, but we got in about 4 hours of skiing and really had a great time.

At the end of the day, we waited for the bus to come pick us back up. It had started rain/snowing but we had such a great day skiing that we didn't care.  We got back to the train station then walked into town and did our Après-ski at an outdoor bar that was set up in the middle of the town. It was great to see so many people huddled under the awning, drinking vin chaud and chatting away.

As it was getting dark and time to think about getting to our hotel, we grabbed our stuff and headed to The Steigenberger Hotel, where we were staying three nights.  We checked in easily, and headed to our room. We were still a little frozen from our day's activities, so we immediately headed to the pool and sauna area to warm ourselves up.  We then went to the lounge/lobby area where we enjoyed a glass of complimentary prosecco and listened to someone sing and play the piano. Then we decided to have dinner that evening at the hotel's restaurant Halte Beiz.  We had some delicious risotto as a starter, then each got huge entrees of veal and rosti covered in different sauces. Needless to say, we were stuffed afterwards and exhausted from our day that we hit the hay soon afterwards so we could do it all over again the next day.

Sunday we woke up relatively early, had a large breakfast at the hotel, then grabbed the hotel shuttle that would drop us off at another ski resort nearby. And this day we lucked out because the weather was just absolutely gorgeous. The sun came out and the snow was great and we had even more fun than the day before!









We skied all day long, covering a lot of ground, even stopping to film each other coming down the mountain so we could see how good we are at skiing and snowboarding.





























And at the end of the day, we were exhausted, so we found a bar on the mountain to do our Après-ski and have the sun shine down on us before it set behind the mountains.









After cleaning up at the hotel. we headed into town that night for dinner. We had an apertif at a place called Rialto's, then headed to chose a nice italian restaurant called Basta, where we indulged in rich pastas and a delicious dessert. After dinner, we strolled the streets a bit then hopped in a cab back to the hotel as the day's activities had worn us out, again!

Our last day in Gstaad was Christmas Eve. We decided to sleep in and relax and leave the ski slopes alone today.  We had a nice breakfast, then hit the pool and saunas again for a bit. We decided to catch an afternoon train, so we packed up our things, checked out of the hotel, then headed into town for a bit to see what daytime in Gstaad was like.  We saw horse-drawn carriages, with a golden retriever on one. And we stopped at our favorite outdoor bar for a last vin chaud. We walked around the town, checking out other restaurants we had thought about going to and seeing all sorts of shops and vendors. It was another gorgeous day and we were sad to be leaving, but we had an amazing time in Gstaad. The skiing could not have been better, and we decided that we should do this again next year and make it a tradition to go skiing around Christmas time.  So we hit the road, caught our train and headed home so we could unpack then re-pack as we had an early flight to Vienna, Austria the next day!

Turkey and Lights

The rest of October was pretty quiet. We got into our work and hung out in Geneva. Then the first weekend in November, I spent it in a hospital getting the deviated septum in my nose fixed. The Swiss hospitals are pretty nice and I spent 2 nights there, with Travers visiting during the days and watching movies with me on the ipad.  I worked from home the following week and finally felt a bit better the next weekend, but not quite enough to travel. At this point, we had been home in Geneva for 4 weekends in a row and we were getting restless. Luckily, we had a trip coming up at the end of November to go back to San Francisco!

We arrived just a day after Thanksgiving, and lucky girl that I am, my family postponed their Thanksgiving dinner so that Travers and I could enjoy some Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy. Yummm.  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays so I was thrilled to be able to celebrate it with family. And we were able to spend time with our niece, Kelsea, and my sister-in-law, Suzy, who came up from San Luis Obispo to spend the holiday with us. We spent the entire weekend at my parents house, having dim sum on Sunday with my Aunts, Uncles and cousins, and then finally driving into the city on Sunday night so that Travers could easily get to and from work for the next week.


The rest of the week we stayed in the city. I shopped mostly and saw lots of friends. I hadn't been back to San Francisco in a year, and it was interesting to see what had changed, what shops closed, what restaurants opened. But it was also great to see how many things had stayed the same.  Its always sad to say goodbye, but luckily, I'll be coming back to San Francisco towards the end of January for a work trip so hopefully I'll get to spend some time with more family and friends while I'm there.

After we got back from SF, we decided we couldn't let more than 2 weekends in a row go by without going somewhere, even if it is just for a day. We tend to get restless staying in Geneva for too long, so we immediately planned a day trip to Lyon in December.

We rented a car and drove to Lyon. It was a quick drive, only a couple hours and through some pretty snow-covered areas of France.  Lyon was having their annual Festival of Lights event, which we had been told was amazing to see.  Lyon is also known as the gastronomical capital of the world so we knew we'd be in for a treat. We arrived around lunchtime, parked the car, and walked through the town. It was bustling with people and you could see structures set up throughout the city that were sure to light up once the sun set. We strolled to the popular Place Bellecour and further down to Place Carnot where a Christmas Market was set up. We grabbed some vin chaud and strolled through the shops, making our way to the opposite end where we found the restaurant where we wanted to have lunch, Brasserie Georges.

We rounded the corner to the restaurant, and saw a HUGE line outside. At first, we weren't quite sure we wanted to wait, but we figured it must be good if this many people were waiting. So we got in line and it moved quite quickly. We were about halfway there, when one of the hosts came through the line asking each group how many they were. When he got to us and we said two, he said, go to the front of the line, they have a table for you!  So we skipped the line and got seated much faster than we thought. Hooray!

The inside of the restaurant was much larger than we expected, but we were sat right by the window so we could see the people outside as well as take in all the ambiance inside. The service was great, and every few minutes they would dim the lights and play the happy birthday song. We finally figured out that there weren't that many birthdays but every time someone would order their specialty dessert they would play the song! And of course, the food was delicious!  We started with some tasty Dauphine Raviolis, then Travers had a knuckle of piglet and I had one of their specialties of the day, a tasty confit of duck. We topped it all off with a  delicious dessert and coffees then headed back out into the cold to check out the rest of the festival!

We strolled through the streets the rest of the afternoon, checking out the town of Lyon, waiting for the sun to go down and the lights to come on. Finally at 6pm the festival began and we started seeing all sorts of lights and festivities begin. We also noticed the town was getting more and more crowded now that the 'show' had started. Here are a few good shots I took throughout the evening.

We spent the next 3 hours walking the town, fighting through crowds and seeing all these wonderful light shows. The crowds were getting really thick now and it was getting more and more difficult to walk anywhere. We were being hereded down certain streets and were literally squashed between people, barely able to move. At this point, we called it a night and slowly made our way back to the car and drove the short drive back to Geneva. It was a great day trip and got our travel bug going again. Just what we needed!

Alphorns

After our busy summer of travelling, we were looking forward to some down time in Geneva. We spent a few weeks getting back into the swing of work and Swiss life, and then had a nice break with the visit of Rosemary and Mike in early October!  They arrived on a Thursday morning, and while Mike immediately went to bed, and Travers went to work, Rosemary and I strolled through town, and I showed her all our favorite hang-outs.  With the jetlag, its always tough to do much on the first day arriving in Geneva, so we kept things mellow, taking an afternoon stroll to our favorite square, Place du Bourg-de-Four, then finished it off with a nice home-cooked meal.

The next day, we were up early and on a train to Lucerne. As one of the most romantic and beautiful cities of Switzerland, we decided it would be a good place to show them. We took the Golden Pass train, which took us along the scenic route through Montreux, Interlaken and finally Lucerne. Part of the ride, we were in a replica of a historic train, and another part we were in a panoramic car. It was a long ride, but worth it as we got to see a few different parts of Switzerland that we hadn't seen before.









We arrived in Lucerne in the evening, and checked into our hotel, the Waldstatterhof. A very modernly decorated hotel, it was a great location as it was near the train station, and near the ferry docks which we would be using the next day. We strolled through the town, having dinner at a brewery across the river. After such a long day of train riding, we called it an earlyish night, and decided to get an early start the next day.

Saturday, we really lucked out with the weather, and were able to take a trip up to the top of Mt. Pilatus. We did the golden round trip, which consists of a ferry, a cogwheel train, a gondola, and a cable car.  We took a boat from the center of Lucerne on an hour ride to the next town, then we boarded the cogwheel train and went up the mountain. This is the steepest cogwheel train in the world, and we were all excited to be taking it up to a beautiful mountain top.  The photo on the right shows two other trains behind us as we climbed up the mountain.

Once at the top, it was extremely windy, but we didn't let it stop us from taking in the views of the lake and towns below. After eating a quick lunch (quick because there was no indoor seating, so we froze as the winds blew our food everywhere while sitting outside), we had the pleasure of watching 7 men playing the Alphorn, a traditional Swiss horn that you've seen in Ricola commercials. It was amazing to hear each horn playing a different note, and how they all worked together. It was such a special moment to experience the music and the mountains together.  Once the music ended, we climbed the extra steps to the viewing platform, and viewed the city of Lucerne and the lake below.









Getting our fill, we then proceeded to take the large gondola back down the mountain, then hopped on a smaller cable car to take us back to Lucerne city center.  We had a beer and quick lunch at Mr. Pickwick's, one of our favorite bars, and then grabbed our bags from the hotel as we had a train to catch, heading to Zermatt!

The ride was long, but we relaxed and reflected on our quick day in Lucerne, and were excited when we arrived in Zermatt. We stayed at the Haus Darioli, which is located in the heart of town. Settling in and getting dressed up, we headed out to a delicious Italian dinner at Chalet de Giuseppe. Then hit the town to our favorite bar, GramPi's, and listened to the well-known and entertaining piano player sing all sorts of American classics.

The next day was unfortunately cloudy and then raining, which didn't really surprise Travers and I as it seems every time we go there, we get bad weather. We had one half day the first time we ever went to Zermatt of sunshine, but there were already clouds covering the top of the Matterhorn then, so out of the three times we've been, we have yet to see the peak. And this trip was no exception. We strolled for awhile through the town, showing Rosemary and Mike the river, and where one of the ski lifts was. Then once it started to rain, we had a late breakfast at the Brown Cow Pub.  Deciding that it was not in our fate to see the top of the Matterhorn, we decided to hit the road, and catch an earlier train back to Geneva.

While it was a quick 3 days on the road, we ended up doing a ton of things and showing Rosemary and Mike a lot of Switzerland.  The next few days of their trip were spent in Geneva, hanging out at the apartment, showing them more of our favorite places, and just spending time with each other. We had dinner one night at Brasserie Lipp, and spent another night at The Clubhouse having drinks and watching sports with our friends Mike and Shelley. It was a great week, but of course, went by way too fast. Everyone was sad to say goodbye, but we were so happy to finally be able to show them our life here in Geneva. Thanks for coming Rosemary and Mike!!