Austria & Our Anniversary

Everyone in the UK gets the Friday and Monday off around Easter weekend so we went on a trip to Austria with some of our friends. The initial plan was to just try and go skiing somewhere, but we decided to make it more of a quick tour of the whole country.

Started in Vienna and pretty much did a walking tour of the city: saw some palaces, ate some schnitzel, drank some good beer, took lots of silly pictures, etc., etc. Had an all around good time.

The next day, we took a train to a town called Kitzbuhel, which is in the Tyrol region of Austria and right in the middle of the Alps. My experience skiing has consisted of two trips to Snow Creek in KC, MO, and Anne's is one trip to Colorado about 15 years ago. So, some may say we were in over our heads with giving it a shot in the Alps. But, we did prepare a little bit by taking a ski lesson a couple weeks before in Bracknell, England. When we signed up for the lesson, we anticipated it being a small hill with artificial snow. When we arrived, we realised it was actually a small hill with white astroturf (at least it was white). Regardless, we still learned/refreshed quite a bit in the lesson and felt better prepared for the trip. Then came the first slope in Kitzbuhel--much steeper than either of us had anticipated, and it was an "easy" one. But we skied without fear and still had a great time despite a couple falls here and there. Since it was mid-April, it was actually pretty warm, and the last weekend the slopes were open. This was good because at least it wasn't really cold out, but the slopes also got pretty slushy by the afternoon. So we all met at a restaurant about half way up to eat and drink beer in the sun for the afternoon, went back to the hotel/guesthouse for naps and showers, and hit the Kitzbuhel nightlife. Great to check skiing in the Alps off the life checklist, and the scenery from the tops of the mountains was pretty amazing.

The next day we took a train to Salzburg, which was the favourite city of several people we were with. It's much smaller than Vienna, which allowed us to pretty much walk everywhere...until it was time for the Sound of Music bus tour. Yes, you read that correctly. The ladies on the trip wanted to do this so the men felt comfortable enough in our manhood to go along. It actually turned out to be not so bad. The tour took us outside the city into the surrounding hills (the ones that are alive with the sound of music), which was some great. The soundtrack was played on the bus, and the tour guide was amazingly cheesy (picture Fred Willard's character in Best in Show), but the actual singing was fairly minimal.

The rest of the group all left early the next morning to go to work for a half day. But, as it was our anniversary (the big 2 yearer), we took the day off and stayed in Salzburg until the afternoon and had a relaxing day wandering more around the city. Then we headed back to London, and went out for a really delicious dinner at a fancy restaurant in Chiswick called La Trompette. A great finish to a great weekend.