From The Greek Islands To The Bavarian Alps!
The following day we did a tour to the Acropolis. Unfortunately it was under renovation so had a lot of scaffolding but still great to see. I'm definitely glad we took a tour to have someone explain what we were looking at!
These are a couple of pics we took looking back over the city of Athens from the Acropolis. There are a lot of stray dogs in the city of Athens (particularly in the old town). We were told by our tour guide that during the 2004 Olympic games they put all the stray dogs in shelters for the 2 weeks then when it was all over, they opened the doors and let them all roam again. Its sad because a lot of them have been abandoned and many would be quite adoptable probably.
Our tour also took us to the Panathenaic Stadium where the first modern Olympic Games were held. The stadium is behind us in this picture, you can just see the Olympic rings behind our heads :)
Then it was on the plane to Munich for some beer drinking... I'll let Sam write this one :)
After our quick stop in Germany for Oktoberfest we caught a train down into a small town called Salzburg. It's a really pretty town set on the Salzach river. We arrived about lunch time and did a tour in the afternoon up into the Bavarian Alps which borders on Austria and Germany. The Alps are also called the Northern Limestone Alps. The limestone makes the river a cloudy aqua colour which is interesting. Salzburg sits just below the Alps on the Austrian side. Our bus drove up into the mountains (home to 'The sound of music') where we got a view of 'The Eagles Nest.' The Eagles Nest is Hitler's old conference centre perched on top of the mountain.
We only had a night in Salzburg and spent some time wandering in the old town. We had some schnitzel and then apple strudel for dinner (as you do in Austria) which was delicious.
We were so relieved to have only one night in salzburg but only cause of our nightmare roommates. We were staying in a hostel and for the first time in a share room. It was only 4 of us though and we thought it would be ok for 1 night seeing as there were no private rooms left. Oh, how wrong we were! We were sharing with 2 boys who left their things everywhere, snored, farted, snorted and coughed all night! The coughing was taken to a whole new level when we were sprayed from the top bunk by spit and flem! That's right, FLEM! I can't even explain how disgusting it was - never again!
The following day we continued our train trip across to Vienna...
VIENNA...
We arrived into Vienna after dark so we got some more schnitzel and checked into our hostel (single room this time and much nicer). The next day we wandered around and joined a walking tour which took us to some of the main sights in the old town such as St Steven's Cathedral (almost continually under construction since 1147) and the Hofburg Palace.
The weather had turned cold and overcast by the time we reached Vienna so we spent time in many famous coffee houses, as the Viennese do, and sipped our hot chocolates.
Vienna is a very cultural, artistic city so we showed some culture too and went to see the opera! We were told about cheap standing tickets (for 2 euro) which go on sale at the opera house just 80 mins before the evenings performance. We were told that it's worth lining up early for the tickets just to see inside the building. So we did that and it was definitely fun to check it out. We didn't stay for the whole show though.The next day we went in the rain to see the Schonbrunn Palace (apparently lovely gardens which we didn't see cause of the weather). We also walked past the Parliament Building and City Hall which were cool.
Above is the palace and below is city hall.From Vienna we flew back to London which has turned cold and rainy again too, oh well, i guess winter is coming again already!