Skiing near Innsbruck

We left Salzburg and went to the Achensee Resort in Achenkirch, a town on the Achensee (lake). It was a Kinderhotel, and we had done lots of research beforehand to find the perfect hotel that had activities for all our kids' ages (and for us). The ski lift was located directly across from the the hotel, and it had a kids club with kids' activities as well as babycare. So, we all had a chance to go skiing / snowboarding. Elise, Nathan and Will all took lessons on Monday morning, then Nathan continued the lessons for the entire week, both morning and afternoon. He did a great job, and even competed in a ski race on Friday. He got second place in his group and got a medal! He was so proud. And the ski school did a great job - they had a professional announcer announcing the race - the 115th International Achensee Race, (when Nathan came, he was announced as being from the USA, backed by the new president Barack Obama, etc. etc.) - it was all so cute. Then they had a big medal ceremony before lunch, and it was all made into a video and shown on the hotel channel in all the rooms for the next couple of days! Nathan also took a couple of swim lessons while we were there. William went to the kids' club and of course charmed the teachers. And Elise skiied with either me or Dave, whoever wasn't taking a break that day! Elise has gotten to be a confident skier - she's passed me by (of course, my excuse is that this was my first time skiing this season, but I'm not sure that really mattered!). Dave snowboarded with Elise and they even went up the higher lift on the last day (and in Austria, that's pretty high!). It's great here, because the runs are really long - they have a lot of mountain to work with. Elise was also lucky enough to have 4 days of horse riding lessons in the afternoons as well. We had fun as a family at the hotel pool and also on a horse buggy ride through the town. And, I must say, the food was incredible! They had a kids' buffet and great menus for the adults... It was such a nice resort - fun for everyone - and even a good opportunity to practice our German where they don't have the Swiss dialect.

The Sound of Music

Before going on our trip to Salzburg, we watched The Sound of Music which was filmed in Salzburg (and prebooked our tickets for The Sound of Music tour on Saturday afternoon). The tour was four hours long and took us around the city of Salzburg as well as to several sites from the movie. It was really fun to see everything - including the town of Mondsee in the lakes district of Salzburgland which was home to the church where they filmed the wedding scene. We rode around on a giant bus painted with The Sound of Music characters, which was a little hokey, but seeing all the different beautiful areas made it worth it. The bus was completely full, and at one point the guide asked who had seen the movie more than 10 times, and a whole bunch of people raised their hands. I thought that was crazy, but, guess what - our family is well on our way to the 10 times mark! Since we've been home, the kids want to watch the movie all the time. And we all have those songs in our head. William charmed everyone on the bus by singing the songs (his favorite is "16 going on 17" which he sometimes changes to "16 going on 18" or whatever number pops into his head). Nathan's favorite song is "The Hills are Alive", and Elise's favorite is "My Favorite Things". We certainly won't forget Salzburg, or The Sound of Music, very soon!

Salzburg, Austria

For Spring Break last week, we went to Austria! We drove from Zurich through Munich to Salzburg, where we stayed for 2 days. Salzburg is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birthplace, so we read a book about Mozart before we went. The city was absolutely beautiful! We took a horse carriage ride through the old town and learned a lot about the town itself. Then we went to Mozart's birthplace and saw where he grew up. We also saw some of his instruments (klavier and violin). Salzburg is a small city of only 150,000 people, but 2 million people come each summer to the Mozart music festival! We tasted Mozart kugeln (chocolates with hazelnut, pistachio and marzipan inside) - which none of us really liked. We took the funicular up to the top of the mountain and toured the Festung castle. And, we stayed in a castle hotel! It was a great old castle a bit outside of Salzburg - we stayed on the third floor in a big suite of rooms where everyone had their own "king bed". We had a great breakfast downstairs each morning, where the host and hostess, two lovely grandparents, told us about things to see and places to go in the area. They were so hospitable! On Sunday morning they showed us the chapel that is part of the castle, and when they found out that Elise plays the piano, they took her to the music room on the second floor of the castle where she played the grand piano. When it was time to go, the kids were running around playing on the big lawn outside and didn't want to leave! Salzburg is absolutely beautiful and so charming - our whole experience was wonderful. It is definitely on our list for a return visit!